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.