Holiday System Shutdowns: Protect Your Data

Do you plan to shut down your company’s data storage system during the holidays? If so, to avoid potential service interruption and a headache in the New Year from data loss, read on.

You might be wondering why we’re warning you about a standard shutdown, and how a shutdown could lead to data loss. Well, there are a few ways!

First, electronics could suffer damage from sudden changes in energy flow. Second, if you run your systems year-round, all of its moving parts, heated by constant operation, will cool and contract when stopped. This contraction could cause complications or failure for a hard drive. Finally, latent defects could pop up for solid state devices when you reboot.

So what can you do to avoid data loss from a shutdown? Unfortunately, there’s not a lot you can do about electronic malfunctions, but there’s one way you can make sure you don’t suffer unnecessarily in the New Year: backup, backup, backup. Yes, make at least three data backups, and save at least one of them in an offsite location. The more backups the merrier this holiday season! Be sure, as well, to shut down your systems properly.

If you need any help preparing to properly shut down your systems for the holidays, or if you experience any data loss or difficulties rebooting in the New Year, please get in touch with us. If you do have a headache after New Year’s, we’d like to help make sure it’s not because of your IT systems!