If you’re the IT professional in charge of the company’s gear, should you worry about that gear getting stolen?
Break-ins happen, and computer gear is an easy, high-return target for thieves. Of course you should worry — at least to the extent of working with your security or site administrator to ensure the gear is protected behind locked doors.
But your real concern is in another area.
Physical theft is a relatively recoverable event. Data theft? Not so much
Why do you backup your data? In case your computer crashes, or there’s a fire, right?
Here’s a new twist on the benefits of backup — theft protection. Seagate received this letter from a customer:
I deployed a Linksys NAS200 solution with 2 raided Seagate SATA drives a few months ago for my client. As fortune would have it when my clients’ office was burglarized the thieves took his server. Fortunately they did not take the NAS unit and I was able to restore the entire contents to a new server the same day it was discovered. Needless to say, dependable hardware and good planning saved the day and made for a satisfied client.
Best Wishes
Gary Popkin
Command Computer
N Lauderdale, FL
Losing hardware vs. losing business data? No contest. This holds true just as clearly for personal digital content — but for your business, it means money and time, and could mean delays to business being done, loss of clients, or something worse like lawsuits. Gary was a hero for his customer, but dodged a bullet thanks to less-than-thorough thieves. Will your customers be so lucky?
Anybody out there lost your hardware, but not your data? We’d love to hear some happy recovery stories — but your nightmares would be instructive as well!
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Who is John Paulsen? A former small-business leader myself, I feel your pain (and joy) and hope you’ll enjoy the blog. I launched and ran a well-regarded production company in San Francisco with a team of 9 brilliant, hard working people. I learned to manage a wide array of tasks a small business must handle — business strategy, facilities design, HR, payroll, taxes, marketing, all the way down to choosing telecom equipment and spec’ing a server system to help my team collaborate in real-time on dense media projects from multiple production rooms. I’ve partnered with and learned from dozens of small business owners.
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