The firms that are searching for disaster recovery solutions in Aberdeen need one of two options and it's helpful to know which option you are after. Your first choice would be planning: tested copies of your data (backups), with a copy held somewhere other than your premises; a documented means of failing over; and a written response to the "what if" type of questions, such as what happens on the morning the server does not come on. This is something that your IT provider should have developed for you prior to a problem occurring, and it is also going to cost a lot less than salvage. Your second choice would be salvage: the array is down, the restore has failed or never existed, and therefore your files need to be pulled directly from the hardware. This is done at a bench and this is what we do.
The two are often confused since the same terminology can sell both of them, and this confusion is costing firms money. A company that purchases a continuity retainer but does not test their restores has paid for the paperwork without paying for the outcome. A company that has truly tested its backups will seldom need a recovery lab at all. The important question to ask is not who to call, but rather which situation you are really in, and that usually comes into focus around three o'clock in the afternoon.
The work coming into this bench from Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire has a shape to it. Engineering and subsea companies in Westhill and Dyce that have projects generating huge amounts of data (project data, survey sets, CAD models and tender packs) on a single portable storage device because the files were too large for the server share. Offshore supply-chain companies who send employees onto helicopters and boats with laptops and ruggedised external devices more frequently than the manufacturers designed them for, where mechanical failures will occur due to salt or vibration months before any signs of failure become apparent. Fish and food processing at Peterhead and Fraserburgh, where the tills, grading systems and traceability records were stored on equipment that no one considered to be an 'IT' item until it failed.
Then come the failures themselves, in the order we see them. One disk of a RAID that has been degraded for weeks and nobody read the email. Then another disk fades away. A NAS that dropped a volume and was rebuilt straight away, which is the fastest way to turn a whole recovery into a partial one. A backup that has been silently failing since a password change in spring. Ransomware arriving through a remote access port opened for a contractor and never shut. And, more often than any of them, a laptop that was the only copy, because it was decided by a person and not policy where the file lived.
Test a restore, not just a backup. If a backup operation has reported success, this is just a claim. Only when you open a file that was retrieved with the help of the restored backup can you be sure of the validity of the backup. Run such tests every quarter. Pick a real file. Get someone other than the person who configured the backup to run the test.
Keep one copy disconnected. Any drive that is permanently connected (mounted), mapped or linked together using synchronisation software is vulnerable to both a ransomware attack and an unintentional deletion. An unconnected or immutable copy is more valuable than three online copies.
The main thing to remember about RAID is exactly what it provides. The array provides you with continued access to data when one disk fails. Beyond this there is nothing. A flood, a fire, deleting files, encrypting files, or attempting a rebuild while under duress will not be protected by your array. Consider the array as uptime insurance and store your archives somewhere completely different.
Write down contact details before you need them. Ten minutes now will save you an afternoon of searching and guesswork later. Also include the one instruction that is most important: switch off your system immediately and do not attempt to rebuild.
Stop immediately. Switch off the affected unit and keep it switched off. Do not rebuild or resilver the RAID, do not reinstall over the top, and do not allow the NAS to start rebuilding itself while you decide, because every one of those writes data back across the material a recovery works from. Calling 0800 689 0668 for a quote first will let us flag the job before your parcel arrives.
After getting your quote, please do not send the chassis your disks were housed in. If a NAS will not give up its disks to be sent alone, then please send the complete NAS. Clearly label each disk with the bay it was removed from and post them all together as a package that is tracked and insured. Alternatively, use a courier service that your company arranges and pays for. Or take the disks to the counter at Edinburgh Data Recovery, 4 Redheughs Rigg, Westpoint, South Gyle, Edinburgh EH12 9DQ, Monday to Friday, 9am to 5:30pm, with no appointment needed. It is about two and a half hours down the A90. None of the disks will ever be picked up from your premises. Every single disk will have read-only copies made, so that instead of using your original disks, the recovery technician will reconstruct your array from these images. Your diagnostic will be completed for free and will take no more than 2 working days once we receive your disks, and you get one fixed written figure covering the whole set. On logical faults, in most cases you only pay if we recover your data. Mechanical, electrical, water and/or fire damage work requires half upfront, with the balance only if we recover your data. Ransomware, CCTV and BitLocker recovery work we classify as forensic, and those accounts are settled prior to starting work.
A RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks) array is not designed to serve as a backup. A RAID array provides redundancy so that losing one disk does not halt trading, and that is the entire extent of what it does. Deletions, encryption runs, bursting pipes, fires and botching a rebuild will all still destroy your data. The firms that learn this the expensive way tend to be those whose backup job had been reporting success every night for months.
The diagnosis is free and takes 2 working days once your disk arrives at our premises. The figure quoted is fixed and given to you in writing, and on logical work, in most cases you only pay if we recover your data. Begin online today or call us.