Entries from May 2008 ↓

It looks like it could carry whiskey and it can save my data? Sign me up.

The new 250 GB drive from Iomega is by far the sexiest way to backup all those important files. It is the kind of external hard drive you wouldn’t mind being seen in public with. Imagine being prepared for a data disaster without instantly earning the geek moniker. Sounds pretty good doesn’t it.

Thanks to Josh Taylor for pointing out the newest addition to Howie’s “I Want That” list.

That’s right. It finally happened. The hard drive on my hard working little laptop finally succumbed to the strain of working constantly beyond its limits. Fortunately, I have been backing up my data, but it will still be a pain to get the new system (which I’m picking up today) up and running how I like it.

Anyway, just a quick reminder that no one is immune to drive failures. Back up  your data.

In yet another illustration of the dangers of transporting tapes off-site, over 2 million medical records (including Social Security numbers) were stolen from the University of Miami. The theft appears to be random as the tapes were stolen from a van transporting them to an off-site location and the data (encrypted and compressed) does not appear to be vulnerable. Still, this sort of theft is a concern to anyone transporting data to an off-site location.

The University of Miami has temporarily suspended their disaster recovery efforts to investigate other off-site options, but with the Act of God frequency pretty high down there, they will be wanting a solution soon. It will be intersting to see which way they head.