Here in DigitalBenchmarks Lab, we have a whole slew of desktops, laptops and workstations. These are kept in rotation, so that our test systems are updated often with new units. Former test systems are pushed down the totem pole, to be used for business or personal purposes. The oldest, when they are retired, are donated to charity (after the hard drives are wiped, of course!). It’s a simple system that keeps the Lab running efficiently – as long as all the computers behave themselves.
What we no longer have is a state-of-the-art backup and archiving strategy. Like everyone else, our everyday work has kept us so busy that, before we knew it, our backup/archiving system had become outmoded. Knowing from experience that computers rarely behave themselves (Murphy’s Law with a vengeance), we recognized that the situation was a formula for disaster, if we didn’t do something right away.
(more…)
