Why online storage? Why not just copy everything to a couple USB drives and then backup off-site occasionally with DVDs? It's not like we're talking about a lot of storage, they're probably just text documents mostly, right?
Barring(har, har, not intended) poor recent graduates slaving to pay off giant loans and shoestring do-gooder types being paid in peanuts to keep poor kids off death row, I strongly suspect that most lawyers have more available cash than available time or technical expertise.
Copying everything to a couple of USB drives is exactly the sort of thing that is easy to forget to do, and potentially disastrous. Far better to pay a fee that, for a bunch of mostly text documents and some.tiff scans, won't be all
I've worked with a couple of companies that had the same kind of requirements:
They can't afford to lose the data.
They can't take if off-site without some additional constraints (e.g. stored in a safe, encrypted).
The users don't want to have to understand the technology.
A lot of these companies currently use a third-party warehouse with locked cages and transfer photocopies of court documents there for off-site storage, and want something a bit more high-tech.
Every work night, burn the latest snapshot to a DVD and give it to the boss to take home and put in his safe.
HAHAHA hahahahahahahahahaha ha ha, whew. That's funny. Who is loading the dvd drive?
Gather 'round boys and girls, it's story time. My dad was a lawyer for somewhere around 30 years. At the time, he and 4 other partners togeather made up their law firm. Because each of them were essentially seperate from each other, they tended to have their files stored either on their own comptuer, or on their secretary's computer.
My dad was smart enough to know that this probably wasn't the best setup, so he hired an "IT Professional" to fix this problem. The computer guy came in and set them up with a small server which would be a centeral repository for digital files. This server would then do daily (possibly weekly, can't recall) backups. The secretarys would then take the tape home with them over night.
Not a bad setup. This system was in place for several years. One day, one of the secretaries computer's HDD died. The office called the guy that had setup this system for them to have the HDD replaced. What happened next will require a new paragraph.
I get a call that day from my Dad. I was weeks away from graduating from Computer Engineering at a local technical school. My dad calls, clearly upset. Apperantly a while ago there was some problem that they had to call the "IT Guy" for. The "IT guy", in the process of fixing that problem, changed it so that the secretarys computers and I think 1-2 of the lawyer comptuer backed up to one of the secretary's comptuers, and not the server. Well, guess which computer died? You know it, the secretary's computer that was holding the backups it shouldn't have been.
No problem right? They were taking weekly backups and taking them off site. Well... Turns out that in the process of moving the backups to the secretary's computer, he was also preventing that data from being backed up. Essentially, the backups were only backing up 1/2 the data.
So, I'm just about to graduate, I get this call from my dad, and he tells me the story. I tell him what he already knows, no data should be on the comptuers, it should all be stored on the servers and backed up. The next day my dad's firm and the "IT Guy" had a meeting. This guy was scared shitless that he was going to get his pants sued off. Not all lawyers are bastards, my dad and the firm told him to send the HDD to a data recovery specialist and told the IT guy that he would be responsible for the bill. The data recovery was partially successful.
Losing that much data caused real problems at the office. Some lawyers were hit harder than others. My dad got through it just fine. My dad had a system where everything was done in triplicate. Document was saved on computer (1), printed and attached to the client file (2), I'm pretty sure that he also printed a third copy to send to Iron Mountain. When the data was lost, he still had the paper copies, the other lawyers wern't so lucky.
Having seen that, I would recommend printing and filing EVERYTHING. Most lawyers change outragous rates for printing anyways, so why not? So, I would say that you should definately take precautions against data loss, the hard copy should be your real backup.
And *this*, boys and girls, is an altogether excellent example of why professional system administration talent is well worth whatever you have to pay to have it around.
Paper has it's problems as well. Ever seen a file room get flooded. I have. *grin* A few words on building a proper file room... never put it in the basement or other low area where water would naturally accumulate. Install barriers in the ceiling and walls to prevent water infiltration in the event of leaks. Never put the file cabnets directly on the floor -- elevate them about a foot so there's room for standing water before any documents are sunk. Install water sensors and alarms. And lastly, inst
One good story deserves another, from several years ago
There was this medical device manufacturer. It had an older product, pre-microprocessor. One day, the FDA came for an inspection. When they do that, they usually send at least one person with clue, but they cross train other people and send them too. On this inspection, one of the inspector's regular job was inspecting galleys in ships (another FDA function you may not know about). This guy had been cross trained.
So, they are walking down the manufacturing line, and the employee shows them the board from the product. One of the chips has a label on on. The inspector says "PROM"? Meaning, is that chip a programmable read only memory (like today's flash, but usually one time programmable and a lot smaller). The employee says "Yes, that's a PROM". The inspector says "Checksum?" and the employee says "yes, the checksum is on the label". The inspector says "Verify?" and the employee takes the board, pulls the chip, goes over to the programmer, plugs it in and verifies that the checksum is valid.
The inspector says "Source Code?". The employee is a bit stumped. He goes away to ask some engineers who were around for a while, then goes to the manufacturing engineering guys and finally goes back to the inspector and asks them to accompany him to a storage room.
In the storage room, there are a number of 4 drawer file cabinets. The employee searches around, and finally finds the right file.
The file has the right build data on the cover. He opens the file and triumphantly removes the floppy disk with the source code on it.
No problem right? They were taking weekly backups and taking them off site. Well... Turns out that in the process of moving the backups to the secretary's computer, he was also preventing that data from being backed up. Essentially, the backups were only backing up 1/2 the data.
So in other words the "I.T Guy" didn't test the restore procedures which validate the backups were actually *working* as they should have been. Lucky your dad he was smart enough to have his own redundancy, but luck isn't good enoug
Having seen that, I would recommend printing and filing EVERYTHING. Most lawyers change outragous rates for printing anyways, so why not? So, I would say that you should definately take precautions against data loss, the hard copy should be your real backup.
That's only one failure scenario. What would happen if the printer you used happened to have ink/toner that faded after say 5-6 years (long enough to not initially notice)?
The correct solution is:
- Multiple redundant backups. 3 at a minimum, with 2 offsi
Why online? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:5, Insightful)
Copying everything to a couple of USB drives is exactly the sort of thing that is easy to forget to do, and potentially disastrous. Far better to pay a fee that, for a bunch of mostly text documents and some
Re: (Score:5, Informative)
A lot of these companies currently use a third-party warehouse with locked cages and transfer photocopies of court documents there for off-site storage, and want something a bit more high-tech.
The best solution I've come across is an o
Re:Why online? (Score:5, Insightful)
HAHAHA hahahahahahahahahaha ha ha, whew. That's funny. Who is loading the dvd drive?
Gather 'round boys and girls, it's story time. My dad was a lawyer for somewhere around 30 years. At the time, he and 4 other partners togeather made up their law firm. Because each of them were essentially seperate from each other, they tended to have their files stored either on their own comptuer, or on their secretary's computer.
My dad was smart enough to know that this probably wasn't the best setup, so he hired an "IT Professional" to fix this problem. The computer guy came in and set them up with a small server which would be a centeral repository for digital files. This server would then do daily (possibly weekly, can't recall) backups. The secretarys would then take the tape home with them over night.
Not a bad setup. This system was in place for several years. One day, one of the secretaries computer's HDD died. The office called the guy that had setup this system for them to have the HDD replaced. What happened next will require a new paragraph.
I get a call that day from my Dad. I was weeks away from graduating from Computer Engineering at a local technical school. My dad calls, clearly upset. Apperantly a while ago there was some problem that they had to call the "IT Guy" for. The "IT guy", in the process of fixing that problem, changed it so that the secretarys computers and I think 1-2 of the lawyer comptuer backed up to one of the secretary's comptuers, and not the server. Well, guess which computer died? You know it, the secretary's computer that was holding the backups it shouldn't have been.
No problem right? They were taking weekly backups and taking them off site. Well... Turns out that in the process of moving the backups to the secretary's computer, he was also preventing that data from being backed up. Essentially, the backups were only backing up 1/2 the data.
So, I'm just about to graduate, I get this call from my dad, and he tells me the story. I tell him what he already knows, no data should be on the comptuers, it should all be stored on the servers and backed up. The next day my dad's firm and the "IT Guy" had a meeting. This guy was scared shitless that he was going to get his pants sued off. Not all lawyers are bastards, my dad and the firm told him to send the HDD to a data recovery specialist and told the IT guy that he would be responsible for the bill. The data recovery was partially successful.
Losing that much data caused real problems at the office. Some lawyers were hit harder than others. My dad got through it just fine. My dad had a system where everything was done in triplicate. Document was saved on computer (1), printed and attached to the client file (2), I'm pretty sure that he also printed a third copy to send to Iron Mountain. When the data was lost, he still had the paper copies, the other lawyers wern't so lucky.
Having seen that, I would recommend printing and filing EVERYTHING. Most lawyers change outragous rates for printing anyways, so why not? So, I would say that you should definately take precautions against data loss, the hard copy should be your real backup.
Re:Why online? (Score:5, Insightful)
And *this*, boys and girls, is an altogether excellent example of why professional system administration talent is well worth whatever you have to pay to have it around.
Re: (Score:1)
Aye Aye, le capitan!
Re: (Score:1)
Paper has it's problems as well. Ever seen a file room get flooded. I have. *grin* A few words on building a proper file room... never put it in the basement or other low area where water would naturally accumulate. Install barriers in the ceiling and walls to prevent water infiltration in the event of leaks. Never put the file cabnets directly on the floor -- elevate them about a foot so there's room for standing water before any documents are sunk. Install water sensors and alarms. And lastly, inst
Re: (Score:2)
A few words on building a proper file room... never put it in the basement or other low area where water would naturally accumulate.
The Boston Public Library learned this one the hard way [gpo.gov].
Re:Why online? (Score:4, Interesting)
There was this medical device manufacturer. It had an older product, pre-microprocessor. One day, the FDA came for an inspection. When they do that, they usually send at least one person with clue, but they cross train other people and send them too. On this inspection, one of the inspector's regular job was inspecting galleys in ships (another FDA function you may not know about). This guy had been cross trained.
So, they are walking down the manufacturing line, and the employee shows them the board from the product. One of the chips has a label on on. The inspector says "PROM"? Meaning, is that chip a programmable read only memory (like today's flash, but usually one time programmable and a lot smaller). The employee says "Yes, that's a PROM". The inspector says "Checksum?" and the employee says "yes, the checksum is on the label". The inspector says "Verify?" and the employee takes the board, pulls the chip, goes over to the programmer, plugs it in and verifies that the checksum is valid.
The inspector says "Source Code?". The employee is a bit stumped. He goes away to ask some engineers who were around for a while, then goes to the manufacturing engineering guys and finally goes back to the inspector and asks them to accompany him to a storage room.
In the storage room, there are a number of 4 drawer file cabinets. The employee searches around, and finally finds the right file.
The file has the right build data on the cover. He opens the file and triumphantly removes the floppy disk with the source code on it.
An 8" floppy disk.
You know what's coming right?
No 8" drive left in the company.
Re: (Score:2)
So in other words the "I.T Guy" didn't test the restore procedures which validate the backups were actually *working* as they should have been. Lucky your dad he was smart enough to have his own redundancy, but luck isn't good enoug
Re: (Score:2)
Having seen that, I would recommend printing and filing EVERYTHING. Most lawyers change outragous rates for printing anyways, so why not? So, I would say that you should definately take precautions against data loss, the hard copy should be your real backup.
That's only one failure scenario. What would happen if the printer you used happened to have ink/toner that faded after say 5-6 years (long enough to not initially notice)?
The correct solution is:
- Multiple redundant backups. 3 at a minimum, with 2 offsi