How to deal with "Hard drive terrorist" - customer kills all storage methods

[tankman1989]

I've posted about this customer a few times and it is getting past the point of comical but work is work. I'm almost at a loss as to what to do with him as to how to keep his data safely stored as he owns a business.

He runs a landscaping business so I think almost all business use of the computer is for billing, quotes, some website management, emailing, invoicing (quickbooks, etc).

He asked about "the cloud" and I immediatly had a very bad feeling about this with his track record of destroying RAID's (controller corrupted everything), getting laptops wet, knocking externals off desk, etc. Now I know that he has intermittent Internet at times but basically he has good service. I'd like to see him keep things onsite.

My idea is to either setup a NAS or external USB2/3 or eSata drive and securely mount it to the wall, in a closet or somewhere well out of sight where it can't be damaged. Maybe even encase the drive somehow with a door for access. Ideally this external would be a RAID drive with 3 drives where he could keep one off-site at a safe location. My only question is how do these external RAID enclosures update when the drive is swapped out?

Also, should the drive which is swapped be rotated so all drives leave the office at one point or keep one drive as the constant and have the other bay as the swap bay.

Now, should I incorporate optical storage on a quarterly basis? It seems pretty easy to do and fairly inexpensive if DVD's are used.

If a customer has heard all this advertising about "cloud" security etc, how do you talk them out of it? I had a customer that lost all but 3% of his data using Carbonite and they over billed and provided no support or help with recovery. It was a nightmare that I was hired to help clean up and received the angry end of the deal. These are not things which I want to repeat.

 

[PCX]

I've posted about this customer a few times and it is getting past the point of comical but work is work. I'm almost at a loss as to what to do with him as to how to keep his data safely stored as he owns a business.

He runs a landscaping business so I think almost all business use of the computer is for billing, quotes, some website management, emailing, invoicing (quickbooks, etc).

He asked about "the cloud" and I immediatly had a very bad feeling about this with his track record of destroying RAID's (controller corrupted everything), getting laptops wet, knocking externals off desk, etc. Now I know that he has intermittent Internet at times but basically he has good service. I'd like to see him keep things onsite.

My idea is to either setup a NAS or external USB2/3 or eSata drive and securely mount it to the wall, in a closet or somewhere well out of sight where it can't be damaged. Maybe even encase the drive somehow with a door for access. Ideally this external would be a RAID drive with 3 drives where he could keep one off-site at a safe location. My only question is how do these external RAID enclosures update when the drive is swapped out?

Also, should the drive which is swapped be rotated so all drives leave the office at one point or keep one drive as the constant and have the other bay as the swap bay.

Now, should I incorporate optical storage on a quarterly basis? It seems pretty easy to do and fairly inexpensive if DVD's are used.

If a customer has heard all this advertising about "cloud" security etc, how do you talk them out of it? I had a customer that lost all but 3% of his data using Carbonite and they over billed and provided no support or help with recovery. It was a nightmare that I was hired to help clean up and received the angry end of the deal. These are not things which I want to repeat.

Im sorry, but especially for people like him, cloud based technology and storage is the way to go. Just find a better provider.

 

[shamrin]

Im sorry, but especially for people like him, cloud based technology and storage is the way to go. Just find a better provider.

+1, sounds like just the guys for online backup.

Lot O' choices, we use Mozy here. Have had to use it in anger both for our business and for customers with failed systems. Has worked every time and my personal experience with customer and technical support is good.

 

[tankman1989]

Thanks for the reviews guys! I'll have to look into them a little more. Which ones offer the best resellers programs?

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

Agreed....sounds more than ever like someone that needs offsite backup with nothing local to break and as automated as possible.

As for recommendations for which ones to resell...we use several from simple to medium to high end, but for a landscaper, I'd just go with a simple product and that would be Jungledisk.

 

[TechLady]

I have several of my clients on Crashplan because it is dead simple, and can do hybrid onsite AND cloud backup if you want (or just cloud). But there's no reseller program as far as I know. Sucks but I'd rather my customers have the right thing for their needs...less grief later on.

Edit: I guess there is a reseller program of sorts for the Pro plan? I wasn't able to find much useful information on it. But it's for businesses and would be overkill for my residential clients.

 

[tankman1989]

I was thinking about maybe setting him up with a really simple host machine that he can remote into from his laptop. All his data can be stored there on a RAID config with an external backup as well in addition to maybe online backup as well.

I somehow just don't think laptop + Online Backup is going to be enough for this client because he might go lengths without connecting online to backup.

It really is almost impossible to give some of these clients a 100% bulletproof solution if they aren't willing to do what is needed.

 

[PCX]

I was thinking about maybe setting him up with a really simple host machine that he can remote into from his laptop. All his data can be stored there on a RAID config with an external backup as well in addition to maybe online backup as well.

I somehow just don't think laptop + Online Backup is going to be enough for this client because he might go lengths without connecting online to backup.

It really is almost impossible to give some of these clients a 100% bulletproof solution if they aren't willing to do what is needed.

I am not sure how crashplan is, but I do know that many online backup systems autosynce with your designated folder and if there are any updated files or added files, it will automatically back them up. But yeah, your right, there is no 100% full proof way of keeping your customers data backed up. As long as it is connected online regularly, then cloud based backup is the best way to go.

 

[rsarceno]

If a customer has heard all this advertising about "cloud" security etc, how do you talk them out of it?

I'm reading this post and I think there two different topics. Correct me if I'm wrong but the first topic is replacing onsite server with Cloud Technology
Second topic is backing up the data to the cloud.

Regarding the first topic. the cloud based technology is normally (not all the time) the best way and most economical. This eliminates the server, UPS, Server room, data backup, server anti-virus, server maintenance, issue with data space for growth, data redundancy (clustering 99.999 uptime / raid) and remote access it automatically build in. All you need to do is find a good cloud provider.

Regarding cloud backup, A good backup plan includes onsite and offsite backup. I normally recommend to my clients that cloud backup (eg: Mozy, CrashPlan) is only a backup to Onsite backup. Depending on the amount of data, it would take days or even weeks to do full recovery.

 

[tankman1989]

I'm reading this post and I think there two different topics. Correct me if I'm wrong but the first topic is replacing onsite server with Cloud Technology
Second topic is backing up the data to the cloud.

Regarding the first topic. the cloud based technology is normally (not all the time) the best way and most economical. This eliminates the server, UPS, Server room, data backup, server anti-virus, server maintenance, issue with data space for growth, data redundancy (clustering 99.999 uptime / raid) and remote access it automatically build in. All you need to do is find a good cloud provider.

Regarding cloud backup, A good backup plan includes onsite and offsite backup. I normally recommend to my clients that cloud backup (eg: Mozy, CrashPlan) is only a backup to Onsite backup. Depending on the amount of data, it would take days or even weeks to do full recovery.

I agree with you but we are only talking about 1 laptop and 1 desktop if the laptop can't be found. I really need to find out more about the info before I offer an solution.

I am for remote desktop PC with RAID drive mapped to the Laptop. All files are saved on the mapped drive. There is an external backup on the desktop which may or may not have a removeable caddy for weekly off-site rotations. Then they could throw in the online that backs up the data files and whatnow. This would handle most everythig.

He could even just remote into the desktop and use the laptop as the client machine if he wanted.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

I was thinking about maybe setting him up with a really simple host machine that he can remote into from his laptop. All his data can be stored there on a RAID config with an external backup as well in addition to maybe online backup as well.

I somehow just don't think laptop + Online Backup is going to be enough for this client because he might go lengths without connecting online to backup.

It really is almost impossible to give some of these clients a 100% bulletproof solution if they aren't willing to do what is needed.

Does his office have a broadband connection? And a wireless router?
Long as the laptop comes into the office at least once a week...the backup agent will find that connection and "synch up" the backup to the cloud. It's actually easier than having some external drive for backup which requires him to remember it...physically plug it in..and click some button. With offsite backup..he just needs to have his laptop on..and somewhere around the office within range of the wireless AP.

 

[Knightsman]

Here is exactly what I would do for him.

I would setup LogmeinBackup on his machine.

I would backup his files to this:
http://www.amazon.com/Iomega-StorCe...M4EG/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1331734006&sr=8-1

I would use Logmein Backup to backup his files to his NAS, and to your server.

You can then use Todo Backup, or Acronis to make month images and save them to the iomega. Should run automatically on a schedule.

I do this with every client I can, and so far has worked great.

Two weeks ago, I was able to recover a main register at a clothing store within 2 hours. Would have been faster if I would have manually moved the files to my external and then applied the image, but I ran it from the NAS so it took about 45 mins. Thats with Gigabit hardware. At the end of the day, they were exptremely happy, and I was able to restore 1.5 gbs of data from my server within 30 minutes. They are using this exact system.

 

[PaulTech]

Crashplan is a good option. You can set it up to backup the laptop to the desktop when it connects to the office network and then set it up to off-site backup the data. Remember to go to the Advanced Setting and Network to change the bandwidth settings to increase the speed of remote data transfer and check to make sure the ISP does not have penalties for exceeding a certain data transfer amount.

My long time go to product is Image For Windows by Terabyte Unlimited. It can operate at the command line and you can setup a full image backup and differential images after that. A real nice feature is being able to restore a full system or individual files.

You could put his desktop and hardware out of reach and extend the peripherals (Keyboard, Mouse, Monitor, USB Hub, and external disk drive) as an additional protection.

As a side not there is the WHS 2011 solution which has been mentioned by Firelogic in some recent POSTS. All depends on budget. Hope this helps.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

I agree with you but we are only talking about 1 laptop and 1 desktop if the laptop can't be found. I really need to find out more about the info before I offer an solution.

I am for remote desktop PC with RAID drive mapped to the Laptop. All files are saved on the mapped drive. There is an external backup on the desktop which may or may not have a removeable caddy for weekly off-site rotations. Then they could throw in the online that backs up the data files and whatnow. This would handle most everythig.

He could even just remote into the desktop and use the laptop as the client machine if he wanted.

If the laptop and the desktop "share" this drive....just store that drive in the cloud. It's different than offsite backup...yet..it's already offsite! Jungledisk has a product in their workgroup backup which creates a "J" drive...basically a mapped drive, that's stored in the cloud. Similar to years ago when that hack came out to turn your Google account into G-Storage, or Microsofts SkyDrive, or Microsoft Office 365, or...<insert lots of other products>. Can even access it from other computers via a web browser.

So if this landscaper guy takes his laptop "onsite" to peoples property around town..and has a MiFi device for 3G/4G internet access while out in the field...he's basically still connected to the office! Cool stuff for road warriors.