3 Types of Computer Failures
Business Technology | November 22, 2016
3 Types of Computer Failure
Hi. It’s Tim Hall from Next Hop Solutions with another technology insight for professionals. Today, I’m going to talk about the 3 types of computer failures, and how to be protected from them. If you’re a professional office, such as law, accounting, engineering, this information is for you.
#1 – Minor Computer Failure
Let’s talk about computer failures. Computer failures range from minor all the way to major. Let’s talk about the first one, a minor computer failure, loss of files. Hey, we’ve all experienced this before. Working on a file for hours, it becomes corrupt, or we lose it, or we overwrote a file that we didn’t mean to. Normally, this is a quick fix. We just go get a copy from our latest backup, or we use a previous version.
#2 – Major Computer Failure
Let’s talk about the next one, number 2, a major computer failure. A major computer failure usually is the loss of equipment, or failure of computer equipment. It’s also a higher impact, because it’s affecting the whole office. A major computer failure usually results in days of downtime while you’re waiting for hardware to be replaced or repaired. Even after recovery, you could still be faced with missing or out of date files.
#3 – Catastrophic
Okay. Let’s talk about number 3, catastrophic. Loss of all systems due to a major problem, like flood, or fire, or theft. Hey, with all data loss, nobody ever thinks it’s going to happen to them, but I can tell you, being in IT for 16 years, it’s not if, it’s when, and how bad. A catastrophic failure is when all systems are completely lost, and your office is basically at a stand still.
Minor, major, catastrophic, so what do we do? Number 1, let’s start thinking about having a plan. Start with reviewing your backup system today. What are you doing right now? What kind of backup are you using? How often are you backing up? What are you backing up? Is anybody even checking the backup? If you were to fail today, would you be able to recover?
Number 2, redundancy. A lot of major computer failures can be prevented by having redundant hardware. Each server should be built with redundant parts. For example, you should have multiple hard drives, instead of just one. If one drive fails, the others pick up the slack.
Number 3, using an offsite backup. In the event of a catastrophe, your systems can be rebuilt from your offsite backup, instead of closing your doors, or starting from scratch. Having an offsite backup is just like having a second office.
Today, we talked about the 3 types of computer failures, minor, major, catastrophic, and how to have a plan in place to protect your office. We’d love to hear about your questions and comments. Just pop them in below, or send us an email at info@nextop.ca. Til next time, I’m Tim Hall for Next Hop Solutions.
3 Types of Computer Failure
Hi. It’s Tim Hall from Next Hop Solutions with another technology insight for professionals. Today, I’m going to talk about the 3 types of computer failures, and how to be protected from them. If you’re a professional office, such as law, accounting, engineering, this information is for you.
#1 – Minor Computer Failure
Let’s talk about computer failures. Computer failures range from minor all the way to major. Let’s talk about the first one, a minor computer failure, loss of files. Hey, we’ve all experienced this before. Working on a file for hours, it becomes corrupt, or we lose it, or we overwrote a file that we didn’t mean to. Normally, this is a quick fix. We just go get a copy from our latest backup, or we use a previous version.
#2 – Major Computer Failure
Let’s talk about the next one, number 2, a major computer failure. A major computer failure usually is the loss of equipment, or failure of computer equipment. It’s also a higher impact, because it’s affecting the whole office. A major computer failure usually results in days of downtime while you’re waiting for hardware to be replaced or repaired. Even after recovery, you could still be faced with missing or out of date files.
#3 – Catastrophic
Okay. Let’s talk about number 3, catastrophic. Loss of all systems due to a major problem, like flood, or fire, or theft. Hey, with all data loss, nobody ever thinks it’s going to happen to them, but I can tell you, being in IT for 16 years, it’s not if, it’s when, and how bad. A catastrophic failure is when all systems are completely lost, and your office is basically at a stand still.
Minor, major, catastrophic, so what do we do? Number 1, let’s start thinking about having a plan. Start with reviewing your backup system today. What are you doing right now? What kind of backup are you using? How often are you backing up? What are you backing up? Is anybody even checking the backup? If you were to fail today, would you be able to recover?
Number 2, redundancy. A lot of major computer failures can be prevented by having redundant hardware. Each server should be built with redundant parts. For example, you should have multiple hard drives, instead of just one. If one drive fails, the others pick up the slack.
Number 3, using an offsite backup. In the event of a catastrophe, your systems can be rebuilt from your offsite backup, instead of closing your doors, or starting from scratch. Having an offsite backup is just like having a second office.
Today, we talked about the 3 types of computer failures, minor, major, catastrophic, and how to have a plan in place to protect your office. We’d love to hear about your questions and comments. Just pop them in below, or send us an email at info@nextop.ca. Til next time, I’m Tim Hall for Next Hop Solutions.