[dba-Tech] RAID 5 repair

Jon,

My customer hired a guy off of CraigsList for $18 an hour who knew a
fair amount about Windows Server.  This cat's mother is in IT at
Kimberly-Clark and has lots of connections which sonny-boy took
advantage of. Anyway, my client hired him because this kid was cheap.

I mentioned to Jim what the customer's backup situation was...XCOPY
the network data drive to one of the workstations every week (used to
be every night).  This kid was kind of cocky and figured that he
didn't really need my help, though he knows nothing about the
DOS-based software (yes, DOS-based) that my client insists on using.

One day the network crashed and the drives had to be reformatted.
This network whiz kid found some sort of backup from three or four
MONTHS previous and, without calling me, restored it.  This of course
lost all data entered during that time. He didn't check with me as to
the meager backup situation that WAS in place.  The old backup he used
was from when he installed the Windows network those three or four
months before.

Well, that night the regular XCOPY backup ran and, guess what?  The
ONLY recent backup they had was overwritten because he didn't call me
first.  So they wound up typing in oodles of PO's and invoices and
such.  Gad!

The point of this story is that my customer has a very lax attitude
about backups.  That experience didn't convince him that his backup
routine should be improved.  I don't know what to do...but he still
pays me.  He seems to just hate buying anything new.

Regards,

Steve Erbach
Neenah, WI


On Thu, Apr 28, 2011 at 9:04 AM, Tydda Jon - Slough <jon.tydda at lonza.com> wrote:
> Take one of the other drives out too, and tell him he's lost all his data, but that you can get it all back for a $200 outlay? :-)
>
>
> Jon
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: dba-tech-bounces at databaseadvisors.com [mailto:dba-tech-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of Steve Erbach
> Sent: 28 April 2011 14:35
> To: Discussion of Hardware and Software issues
> Subject: Re: [dba-Tech] RAID 5 repair
>
> Jim,
>
>>> Once you are ready to start just inform the owner of the requirements
>>> and
> the estimated costs and ask for the keys. He will either say just go ahead or say no. <<
>
> Heh!  I've been working with this guy since '91 or '92.  That's why I facetiously asked in my first message about slapping some sense into his head.  He waits on EVERYTHING.  In all the time I've known him he has NEVER considered buying even semi-adequate backup for his servers.
>  His "backup" consists of a weekly XCOPY of the contents of his network data drive to one of the workstations on the network.  That's it.
>
> So getting him to spend $30 or $40 to replace a RAID drive?  Hardly seems worth it, don't you think?  My God!  I had to virtually beg him to spend $21 on PC Tools Registry Mechanic (which I swear by) to help fix some registry issues on an infected workstation...and he only did it because I promised to reimburse him if it didn't fix the issue. (It didn't, by the way, so I reimbursed him.  Had to find something on-line, a REG file that re-established the EXE file association on an XP PC that had been attacked.)
>
> Anyway, I feel like buying the drives myself and hiding the charge in my next invoice just so he doesn't have to take the effort to buy the drives himself. I suggested that he purchase four right away and then swap them into the array one by one over successive weekends.  He knows all this...but he still dithers about spending maybe $120 for four drives.  Gad!
>
> Thank you, Jim.
>
> Steve Erbach