If you know a business that uses RAID (see below) as their only method of avoiding data loss protection, you definitely need to help them better understand the risk they are taking.

Not only is RAID not enough – it doesn’t even protect against the most common data loss threats!

The table below makes a strong case that RAID should be combined with some other protection strategy in order to reliably secure client data.

Data Loss Threats    RAID 1/5   Local-Backup   Online-Backup

Hardware Failure      YES           YES            YES
Software Bug           NO           YES            YES
File System Corruption NO           YES            YES
Accidental Deletion    NO           YES            YES
Virus Infection        NO           YES            YES
Equipment Theft        NO            NO            YES
Employee Sabotage      NO            NO            YES
Natural Disaster       NO            NO            YES
Human Error            NO           YES            YES
Power Surge/Lightning  NO            NO            YES

Score                 10%           60%           100%

The combination of RAID, local backup and online backup (of mission critical data files) can provide excellent data safety.  the good news is that most educated businesses will make the right choice when it comes to a data backup strategy…they just need to be educated 🙂

Note:  RAID is the use of Redundant Array of Independent Disks technology to protect against disruptive hardware failures such as a single failed disk drive.