Prevent Data Disasters in 2005

If you welcomed in the New Year vowing to stop smoking or lose weight, you might want to reconsider and choose a resolution that won't fall by the wayside three weeks into January. We suggest adding a data backup and recovery system to keep your business (if not your body) healthy all year 'round.

A range of small business backup and recovery options exist — from simple external storage drives like Maxtor's One Touch II or full-service online backup services from Evault and Verio, to larger and more powerful all-in-one backup and recovery appliances like the STORServer D1.

STORServer
The D1 Backup Appliance aims to let SMBs with small or non-existent IT departments backup and restore, archive and retrieve data easily. According to John Pearring, the Colorado Springs, Colo.-based company's president, he D1 contains and integrates all of the various hardware and software components you'd have to buy to build a backup solution.

"The box contains a server, a hard disk or an array of disks, and multiple tape slots to accommodate two tape drives," said Pearring. "Each appliance comes preconfigured and ready to plug into a network."

One Box — The STORServer D1 BackUp Appliance aims to handle all of your company's data backup, recovery, archival and retrieval needs.

Pearring said the company designed the D1 appliance for customers who need anywhere from 50- to 370-GB of data and who also need unlimited archive space. The base model D1 includes a 150GB SATA drive and can expand its capacity up to three 400GB SATA drives. STORServer initially built the D1 to reside in a tower box, but it also fits into a 4U rack.

The D1 base model lists at $3,162 without software, installation or support. The example configuration listed in the chart can handle a customer that needs about 300 to 350 Gig of data stored and protected.

For a fee (see chart), STORServer will install the D1 on site and walk everyone through the initial backup, plus familiarize you with the user manuals. Pearring said it takes about a day to install the equipment and get everyone up to speed.

The D1 comes with a three-year warranty and the annual maintenance covers the server, the hard drives, tape drives and all the software. Support pricing starts at $443 and increases depending on the number of clients and servers you run.

Finally, the D1 is compatible 35 different platforms including Mac, Windows, Novel, Unix, Linux, Open VMS — to name a few.

Lauren Simonds is the managing editor of SmallBusinessComputing.com