ANY DEVICE

There are 10 standard RAID levels, 0 through 9. RAID levels describe the configuration of a RAID array, and relate to the patterns in which data is written to the RAID drive, the fault tolerance of the RAID array, and the space efficiency. To some degree, the RAID level can affect the number of drives in the array, but that doesn’t mean that, for instance, RAID 9 uses nine hard drives. You can run any RAID level up to 9 with just two drives. Hybrid RAID Levels Beyond the standard RAID levels are Hybrid RAID levels, which means two different RAID levels are “nested” within one controller. (Rarely are more than two RAID levels nested.) Hybrid RAID array configurations include…

If your IT department has recently switched your company over to a  virtualization solution for your servers, it might be time to re-visit your choice of emergency data recovery service providers, too. You want to make sure that your data recovery service is well-versed in all forms of VMware and can recover your virtualized data as well as any data from a hard drive, RAID array or other storage medium. Here are some tips when it comes to choosing a new data recovery service for your virtualized server farm. 1 – Find a data recovery service that specializes in the virtual system your company relies on. Virtual machines are very different, although they all have some similarities in their operation…

More than half of all companies today are using virtual servers to streamline their data storage and server use. However, virtual servers, as with any data storage method, are subject to fail for a variety of reasons, resulting in catastrophic data loss and the need for emergency data recovery.Let’s look at five ways your virtual server may fail:1. RAID failure – Remember, even a virtual server is based in real hardware, usually a RAID 5, RAID 6 or higher array. If two or more hard drives fail in a RAID 6 array, you could be looking at mission critical data loss. Additionally, a failed RAID drive, undetected, often leads to cascading failure of the entire array. And if the infrastructure…

Today’s busy executives aren’t always tied to their company’s server. Often, rather than connecting to the network or NAS device, they work locally on their laptop. This is especially true during travel, when the security of WiFi networks may not be guaranteed. If you’re a professional executive, business owner or CEO, your whole life may be stored on your laptop. Regular back-ups are critical. At CES 2012, Rebit, Inc. announced a new continuous, automatic back-up with built-in redundancy. The hybrid cloud back-up solution makes primary back-ups to a local NAS or USB drive, with redundancy backed up automatically to the cloud for access from anywhere with Internet capabilities. Cloud back-up protects data from: – Natural disasters like fires or floods,…

RAID 6 is one of the newest RAID technologies to be employed, and is found on more and more servers and virtual servers from large companies like Microsoft. Experts predict that, within the next decade, RAID 6 will be the most popular RAID configuration available; it already offers the highest performance, the best fault tolerance, and the greatest stability of previous RAID levels.What’s So Great About RAID 6? RAID 6 works in much the same way as RAID 5, with blocked data striping across any number of hard drives in the array, and distributed parity. However, parity is not only distributed across the disks in the array, it is also duplicated across the disks. This means that a RAID 6…

Virtual servers have many benefits over traditional hardware based server farms. One benefit is the way a virtual machine takes periodic “snapshots” of your entire VM system, including applications and data.Virtual snapshots, often performed with the help of apps like vSphere on VMware machines, take place periodically, at intervals either pre-determined by the programmer or set by your IT department. Let’s take a look at how the process works.Virtualization Snapshot ProcessAt pre-determined intervals, your virtual server takes a snapshot (much like taking a screenshot of a particular screen on your computer using Ctrl + V) of your entire virtual machine disk, treating it as an individual virtual machine disk file.Since, presumably, this process will be going on while people are…

The most recent Texas fire season lasted 378 days, and was still going strong when the year ended. The Texas Forest Service officially closed the books on the 2011 season, with a record $337 million in damages, but the season was still burning strong until recent weeks. While February has seen a reduction in the number of fires and a “low-to-moderate” risk of fire danger in the state, experts at the Texas Forest Service are predicting a long, hot, dry fire season across Texas in 2012, as well. The data recovery specialists at 24 Hour Data have seen data loss from all types of events: accidental deletions, dropped hard drives, floods and natural disasters. There are few data loss causes more heartbreaking…

When you get to RAID levels 4 and 5, you are dealing with extremely sophisticated arrays that employ a number of techniques to increase read/write performance and redundancy in order to protect mission critical data. Let’s take a look at these RAID levels, which offer performance benefits over RAID 2 and RAID 3 arrays, and redundancy benefits over a RAID 1 array. Level 4 RAID Arrays Level 4 RAID is one of the more sophisticated of the original 5 RAID levels originally devised by technology experts at Berkeley. Level 5 RAID, though, with distributed parity, has it beat in terms of write performance and data redundancy. It’s important to remember that, if you suffer hard disk failure in any RAID…

If you’ve ever tried to pop a VHS tape into your high-definition, flat-screen TV, you’ll quickly see that the technologies aren’t compatible. VHS tapes never produced the best-quality images, but when you try to view them on today’s HDTV models, the result is barely watchable. Many companies still use tape (of a different kind) to back-up their mission critical data. Will this technology soon be as obsolete as VHS tapes for movies and TV shows? We’re not going to see the end of tape any time soon, but there are several drawbacks that you don’t find with other data backup systems. Drawbacks to Tape-based Back-up Systems  1. Data on magnetic tapes can be easily erased. – If you place a…

Virtualization — the creation of virtual servers to maximize data storage and improve efficiency — has many benefits. But there are certain vulnerabilities inherent in a virtual operating system. Understanding these vulnerabilities, and following best practices when a virtual server is established, can minimize the chances that you’ll need emergency data recovery services. Here are five ways to take good care of your virtual servers so that they will take good care of you. 1 – Practice “good housekeeping” with your virtual servers. When your IT staff practices proper maintenance and care with virtual servers, this minimizes the chances of a failure requiring professional data recovery services. One example of good housekeeping is avoiding “server sprawl.” Every virtual server that has been…