Forums | MacLife

Caltsar · 2006-08-22 1:06 am

About a year ago I offered to build and maintain a network backup server for my dad's business. He said it'd be too expensive. I had everything priced out at about $200, including 300GB of hard drive space for backup (with extra physical space to expand as needed). Anyway, after trying to convince him that he needed it with all the financial information and customer records he keeps on the computer, I finally gave up and walked away telling him he'd regret not spending the money. (it's a small cabinet shop, not too many employees, so there aren't a ton of redundant copies)

I was right. He does regret it.

I'm sitting here right now, with a copy of PenguinSleuth (a version of knoppix I had laying around) running on the computer, salvaging as much data as I can off the VERY loud, failed hard drive. My dad's not all that computer literate, so he didn't make a big deal out of the noises coming out of his computer. The hard drive is toast, and I'm not sure if I'll be able to get everything. Luckily I've recovered all the financial stuff, and I'm working on getting the customer info.

Did I mention that I'm getting paid for this? 1/8th of what he was quoted to do this professionally. $500 plus a new hard drive, plus that backup server. Too expensive? Yeah.

Remember folks, always back up at least once a week. Investing some money in a good external hard drive will save you in the end.

Oh yeah, this couldn't have happened at a worse time for me. I'm getting ready to go to college, I have a new site that's in the middle of going live (to a decent sized crowd), and I'm currently working full time at another job. Well, time to sleep for once.

Pariah · 2006-08-22 5:45 am

Ya, businessmen like that were the bread and butter of the Mac shop I worked at. I enjoyed many a fine, fat paycheck from doing a data recovery on site at businesses where the owners were too cheap to spend a few hundred for a backup solution but then had to spend a couple of grand on recovery.
I am not sure where it comes from but in my experience most small business owners are ridiculously cheap when it comes to technology.
The best example was the sign shop that had all of it's accounting and customer art on the same single Mac. The HDD crashed so bad I could not save anything and we had to farm the recovery out to one of those uber expensive forensic recovery firms.

yankees4life · 2006-08-28 6:24 pm

well, everyone just maintains that mindset... "it won't happen to me". and then when it does happen, they can't do anything else but basically sit back and be miserable for not doing anything to prevent it. and even worse in this case, you warned him about it. here's hoping you can salvage a bad situation.

Pithecanthropus · 2006-08-28 6:53 pm

:: Goes and backs up business files ::

PHUSMC · 2006-08-28 9:40 pm

That blows. This is why I keep backing up everything all the time...

Caltsar · 2006-08-28 11:38 pm

Well, I'm $500 richer and we ended up with the best case scenerio.

Well... better than best case. NewEgg was out of the 120GB IDE hard drives, so they sent a 300GB IDE HD at no extra cost. I also managed to recover every important file, AND get rid of all that Dell and antivirus crap that comes preinstalled.

I'd say it was a success, and he's not taking any more risks. Though for the next few months, backups consist of inancial records going on CD every day. At least until we get the parts for the backup server ordered.

yankees4life · 2006-08-28 11:52 pm

Caltsar wrote:
Well, I'm $500 richer and we ended up with the best case scenerio.

Well... better than best case. NewEgg was out of the 120GB IDE hard drives, so they sent a 300GB IDE HD at no extra cost. I also managed to recover every important file, AND get rid of all that Dell and antivirus crap that comes preinstalled.

I'd say it was a success, and he's not taking any more risks. Though for the next few months, backups consist of inancial records going on CD every day. At least until we get the parts for the backup server ordered.

wow, great job. glad to hear that. just wish i could catch newegg when they're out of materials too like that... tongue

LLEVIATHANN · 2006-08-29 9:19 am

Caltsar wrote:
antivirus crap

lol

You started off well but ended with this!?! confused
That 'crap' is just as important as the backups. Dells only come with two flavors of antivirus Norton or McAfee. Neither of them are crap. They do their jobs well if configured right.

smilr · 2006-08-29 4:12 pm

LLEVIATHANN wrote:
Caltsar wrote:
antivirus crap

You started off well but ended with this!?!
That 'crap' is just as important as the backups. Dells only come with two flavors of antivirus Norton or McAfee. Neither of them are crap. They do their jobs well if configured right.

I have to disagree. The consumer versions of McAfee and Norton antivirus tools are complete and utter smurf. (their corporate versions are supposedly the bees knees however).

I've had many problems with those two in the past. One is seriously safer by replacing them with something else. Something that isn't easily exploited by malware writers (their size and popularity = enough of a tempting target for the blackhats to find vulnerabilities in them), something with lower resource consumption, and especially with better customer service / corporate sense of responsibility / sensible licensing.

Caltsar · 2006-08-29 8:17 pm

yeah, the antivirus "crap" is the consumer version of norton. It was replaced with a better program. I do know how important security is, and I even set up all this to scan automatically (while giving minimal annoyance). You really are safer getting rid of the consumer versions. They just bring more security holes in.

beaverfever · 2006-08-30 5:01 pm

Did someone mention small business people being cheap (penny wise, pound foolish)...

I briefly worked for a small printing company, and everything was on one OS9 computer. Their computer was a mess - it would suffer a hard crash literally every hour or more. They thought their computer probs were due to "viruses" and/or bad hard drives. Their occasional solution was to buy a new hard drive and copy everything from one drive to the new one, corrupt directory data, extension conflicts and all.

After I fixed their hardware probs, I fixed their software problems, and they still wouldn't give up on the idea that they had a virus. I set up an ultra-simple (and necessarily free) applescript back-up system. They had not a single virus, and their hard drives were fine. It took a long debate to convinve them to buy Disk Warrior, and that fixed many of their hardware woes.

So the afternoon when I explained the back-up system to the two managers/partners (whoever is last out of the shop, click this icon and it copies the "Jobs" folder to the other HD and shuts down the machine), I was asked "What's the point? Why should we bother with that?"

I've noticed that many small-business people like to micro-manage and cannot let go of something and allow someone else to "take control" of a situation, even thought they are paying for that same someone else to do a specific job.

ConnertheCat · 2006-08-30 5:26 pm

I have to admit that I don't back up my personal Box. I do have a few S.M.A.R.T. Status reporting things so if it starts to go, I'll have a bit of warning... I suppose I should copy my school work folder to my second hard drive though. I guess it's more of a "If it happens, it happens - there isn't that much that I would care if I lost anyhow" attitude.

*makes post so he will remember tonight*

I really wish G5 towers had more drive bays... I'd love to Raid my main drive.

Macskeeball · 2006-08-30 5:42 pm

ConnertheCat wrote:
I really wish G5 towers had more drive bays... I'd love to RAID my main drive.

Just so you know, in my experience the OS X software RAID works quite poorly when used for a boot drive. I've heard that hardware RAID controllers are a different story, however.

beaverfever · 2006-08-30 5:57 pm

ConnertheCat wrote:
I do have a few S.M.A.R.T. Status reporting things so if it starts to go, I'll have a bit of warning... .

From the annals of my personal experience, do not rely on SMART status to give you a warning of impending doom. I had one drive die completely and another function sporadically (on two separate computers) and in both cases SMART reporting never gave a single peep of warning.

I had backups for both.

Back up now, back up often.

ConnertheCat · 2006-08-30 6:17 pm

Eh, as you can tell I'm very Lassie Fair about it.

Yeah, I butched the french words.

ConnertheCat · 2006-08-30 6:17 pm

Macskeeball wrote:
ConnertheCat wrote:
I really wish G5 towers had more drive bays... I'd love to RAID my main drive.
Just so you know, in my experience the OS X software RAID works quite poorly when used for a boot drive. I've heard that hardware RAID controllers are a different story, however.

I probably should clairify: My main drive isn't the one with OS X on it... my main drive is the one with all my files, media, etc.

beaverfever · 2006-08-30 6:21 pm

ConnertheCat wrote:
Eh, as you can tell I'm very Lassie Fair about it.

Yeah, I butched the french words.

You butched the English too, and you sound like a lesbian when you do it. big_smile

ConnertheCat · 2006-08-30 6:37 pm

Effing firefox. *misses OS X spellchecker*

yankees4life · 2006-08-30 9:15 pm

beaverfever wrote:
ConnertheCat wrote:
Eh, as you can tell I'm very Lassie Fair about it.

Yeah, I butched the french words.
You butched the English too, and you sound like a lesbian when you do it.

haha, that was great. i didn't know lassie knew about economics too.

user · 2006-08-31 9:33 am

woof

"What's that, boy?

woof woof woof woof woof

"We've lost 10 million jobs due to outsourcing to India?'

woof!

Arc · 2006-09-02 11:57 pm

beaverfever wrote:
ConnertheCat wrote:
Eh, as you can tell I'm very Lassie Fair about it.

Yeah, I butched the french words.
You butched the English too, and you sound like a lesbian when you do it.

Could have said Lacy Faire and sounded gay.

Forums | MacLife

#1 2006-08-22 1:06 am

I told him he'd regret it.

#2 2006-08-22 5:45 am

Re: I told him he'd regret it.

#3 2006-08-28 6:24 pm

Re: I told him he'd regret it.

#4 2006-08-28 6:53 pm

Re: I told him he'd regret it.

#5 2006-08-28 9:40 pm

Re: I told him he'd regret it.

#6 2006-08-28 11:38 pm

Re: I told him he'd regret it.

#7 2006-08-28 11:52 pm

Re: I told him he'd regret it.

Caltsar wrote:

#8 2006-08-29 9:19 am

Re: I told him he'd regret it.

Caltsar wrote:

#9 2006-08-29 4:12 pm

Re: I told him he'd regret it.

LLEVIATHANN wrote:

Caltsar wrote:

#10 2006-08-29 8:17 pm

Re: I told him he'd regret it.

#11 2006-08-30 5:01 pm

Re: I told him he'd regret it.

#12 2006-08-30 5:26 pm

Re: I told him he'd regret it.

#13 2006-08-30 5:42 pm

Re: I told him he'd regret it.

ConnertheCat wrote:

#14 2006-08-30 5:57 pm

Re: I told him he'd regret it.

ConnertheCat wrote:

#15 2006-08-30 6:17 pm

Re: I told him he'd regret it.

#16 2006-08-30 6:17 pm

Re: I told him he'd regret it.

Macskeeball wrote:

ConnertheCat wrote:

#17 2006-08-30 6:21 pm

Re: I told him he'd regret it.

ConnertheCat wrote:

#18 2006-08-30 6:37 pm

Re: I told him he'd regret it.

#19 2006-08-30 9:15 pm

Re: I told him he'd regret it.

beaverfever wrote:

ConnertheCat wrote:

#20 2006-08-31 9:33 am

Re: I told him he'd regret it.

#21 2006-09-02 11:57 pm

Re: I told him he'd regret it.

beaverfever wrote:

ConnertheCat wrote:

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