Story · Legal · Backup
They carried the backup drives to a bank vault for years. The drives were empty.
Every week, somebody on staff swapped a set of external hard drives, carried them across the street, and locked them in a paid safety deposit box at a bank. They had been doing it faithfully for years. It was the most diligent backup routine we have ever found, and it was protecting nothing.
The situation
This was one of the first things we checked during the initial assessment, because it is one of the first things we always check. Not whether a backup exists. Whether it works.
The backup jobs had been erroring. Nobody was monitoring them, so nobody knew. The recovery files had never been tested, so nobody had ever opened one. The drives going into the vault were empty.
The routine itself was real. People made time for it, remembered to do it, and paid for the box. What nobody had done in all those years was open the drive and look.
What we did
We said it plainly, because there is no kind way to tell a business that its backup is not a backup. Then we replaced the whole arrangement rather than patching it.
A backup server running enterprise-grade software went in on site. It holds recovery points locally, so a deleted file or a failed server comes back quickly, and it pushes copies offsite automatically through the day, so a fire or a flood does not take the copies with the originals.
Midwest IT monitors the jobs daily. Nobody at the firm unplugs anything, carries anything, or remembers anything. And the restores get tested on purpose, which is the part that turns a backup into a recovery.
"They were not careless. They were diligent, at the wrong end of a broken process, for years."
How the account manager puts itWhat changed
ResolvedThe backups run without anyone thinking about them, and they have been restored on purpose more than once. The safety deposit box was cancelled. The hour a week that went into the ritual went back into legal work.
The firm has since dissolved and merged into other firms, which happens in that profession and had nothing to do with their IT. The backups worked right up to the end, which is more than could be said for the years before.
Order the internet circuit the week the lease is signed. Carriers take six to twelve weeks. Nothing else on a move fails as often.
The relocation checklist Did you knowA backup that has never been restored is a hope, not a plan. Ask for the date of the last tested restore.
What to actually testQuestions people ask about this
How would we know if our backup is in the same state?
Ask three questions. Who reads the backup report, and when did they last read it? When was a file last restored from it on purpose? How long would a full recovery take? If any answer takes more than a sentence, it is worth an assessment.
Is an external drive ever a real backup?
As one copy of several, sometimes. As the only copy, no. Drives fail, they get dropped, they get taken in a burglary, and nothing tells you when the job that writes to them stops working.
How often should a backup be tested?
Something monthly, a full server quarterly, the whole plan yearly. Written down, so it is a schedule rather than an intention.
The full answer
"Thanks for the hard work. I was kept informed with regular updates until the concern was resolved."
Jeff, insurance brokerageMore from the survey wall- A technician who knows your setup takes every request. Not a dispatcher, not a queue.
- Every closed ticket is surveyed and a partner reads every response.
- 99.5% of surveys come back positive.
- Family-owned since 2005. 21 years in the same corner of Wisconsin, not going anywhere.
"Thanks for the hard work. I was kept informed with regular updates until the concern was resolved."
Jeff, insurance brokerageWhen was your backup last restored on purpose?
If the answer is a shrug, we will check it for you and tell you honestly what we find.
Talk to a partnerTalk to a partner, not a sales script.
Tell us what is going on. A partner will call you back the same business day, look at what you have, and tell you honestly whether we are the right fit. No pricing pressure, no pitch deck.