APG-L Archives

From: "Cheryl Mann" <>
Subject: [APG] Backups
Date: Fri, 31 Aug 2001 13:31:31 -0500

And of course, there is always the rule that proves the exception - a friend
worked in the office tower that got hit by the tornado in Fort Worth last
year - and had her backup tape sitting on top of the computer under her
desk. They happened to be in the building when the tornado it (on the far
side from first strike, thank goodness) and she reached under her desk to
grab her purse to run for the stairwell and knocked the tape into her bag
and ran. They spent the night in the stairwell and when they were rescued,
discovered they had the tape. When allowed to return to their office two
days later, the water service had been restored to the building - and
discovered the offices on either side of theirs all had broken pipes - and
all had been cascading into their suite for those two days - covering
everything that was on the floor 3" deep in water, including their computers
(a good reason not to keep the box on the floor under your desk!), as well
as soaking the file cabinets from the top down (and paper can wick water
something fierce in a closed environment like a file cabinet!). The only
thing that saved their practice was that silly tape. If she had put the
tape in the file cabinet as soon as she took it out of the machine, like she
had done every other time she did a backup, they would have been in deep
trouble. As it was, they were the only law firm that was back up and
running in a week - everyone else was still chasing their papers all over
downtown Fort Worth!

I certainly don't advocate leaving your backup medium sitting on your
computer - but even if you do nothing but stick your backup disk at your
mother's house for safekeeping - you are ahead of the game! I actually
believe keeping two - one at someone's house on the other side of town, and
a second one someplace like a safety deposit box (especially if it involves
your financial security or livelihood!). You never know when a flash flood
will take out an area, or a fire storm, as in New Mexico last year, or if
you are in Texas, a big old tornado. . . Maybe that should be three - one
for Mom's, one at the bank and one for on top of the computer <G>.

Along those lines, I'd like to know if anyone out there uses the storage
services available on the internet that you can upload your data files to.
I have been reluctant to use them, not necessarily because of my concerns
about my own privacy, but concerns about the privacy of others in my
database, etc., who didn't get a vote about being stored elsewhere. Has
anyone had a good or bad experience with one of these services?

Cheryl Mann
Kris Richins
Next of Kin Wizards



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• [APG] Backups by "Cheryl Mann" <>