Warning — Satire Alert! Before this derails, a couple of things. I've been reading the series for a while and have to say that the ones on backup have been pretty good. I honestly didn't think I could really add much to what had been discussed previously. So, I decided to do the opposite and write/rant an article on what not to do — writing from the perspective of someone who doesn't get it. Enjoy!

I neither follow nor prescribe these behaviors and practices. Please read my Official Guide linked below.

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I’ve been a member of the Spiceworks Community for a little over a year and I have been diligently reading many posts regarding best practices for data protection. I’ve come to the conclusion that everyone has it wrong.

Even after 16 years, I’ve never had a server fail. If you add up the cost of the hardware and software licenses spent “protecting” data over the years, was it really worth it? I think not.

Wasted space

Look at all the wasted storage space when using RAID 5, 6, or 10. Really? All of our servers are configured with uber-redundancy using RAID 1, RAID 10, or RAID 5 (Shut up). Why should we be sacrificing all that available storage on the off chance that we’ll lose some data? I could have better used that money on things like pencils or toner. So, just strip all your servers using RAID 0 and reclaim the storage. You bought those six drives. Why shouldn’t you use all of your storage? It reeks of conspiracy. Software companies keep writing larger programs creating larger files. Who do you think benefits? Of course, the hardware companies do. Stay one step ahead of the game and utilize all your space. Plus, your end users will appreciate the performance boost. It’s not like a puppy is going to die.

Backups are a crutch

“What’s that user? You accidentally overwrote your spreadsheet? Why is that my problem? If you were more careful, you would not have made that mistake.” If anything, backups are a crutch. If you want better employees, eliminate backup entirely and save money. It’s a well-known fact that people are more likely to make mistakes when they know there are no consequences. They think, “Hey, I screwed up, but IT can ‘restore’ my mistake.” One of the mantras of QA (Quality Assurance, for the lay peoples) developed over the 1970s and 1980s was to try to develop a system with zero defects. Yes, you heard right — perfection. If you constantly have a safety net for mistakes, you’ll never reach perfection and probably are currently employing the wrong employees.

Never say delete

Let’s look at email. I’ve done some research and found that about 30 percent of people use their deleted box in Outlook to manage their email. For those that use it “correctly” you’ll probably find that folder empty. I think the former is on to something: Don’t delete any email… ever. What? You say that might cause a storage problem? Read above. You’re being led on by the “man.” If you build your server right, you wouldn’t have that problem and would have plenty of storage. In fact, it would save valuable IT labor to not have to restore those emails that were deleted on purpose. Don’t let them fool you. It was not an accident. My solution? Never delete emails and you never have to be bothered to restore them.

Distribute risk

I say if it is important to you, save it to your desktop. Rather than having one single point of failure like a server, distribute that risk to your end users. Make them responsible for their files. I mean, it’s their files and their fault anyway.

Save your money

Why do we have all these different storage formats? It keeps changing every year. Here’s a news flash: Why don’t you take 30 seconds to predict our needs a few years in advance and then create something I can grow into? Oh! And let’s make sure everything thing is proprietary so I have to keep paying the “man.” We currently back up all of our servers to tape and currently use LTO5. Those tapes can be expensive. We’re so paranoid we do full backups every day and keep special backups for each month, quarter, and year. Plus, we archive all engineering files to CDs or HDs.

And don’t even get me started with [content removed by moderator] tape rotation. Next, I’m going to be asked to set up D2D2T or move our data to the cloud. With the money we spend, I could get a couple of LCDs and a gaming station and be more productive.

Back to zero defects.



All kidding aside, what data protection “worst” practices have you encountered and how did you solve them?

Official Guide to 'Zero defects: Why backup is NOT necessary':

This is the 55th article in the Spotlight on IT series. If you'd be interested in writing an article for the series PM Lee S to get started.