I received an e-mail from Robb Moore, the president of ioSafe, responding to my recent post wondering if the whole concept of fireproof storage devices for on-site backup was a bad idea. Restraining myself from making snarky comments to his points I'm posting his message as is, and with his permission, below. I'll probably make snarly comments soon since restraint isn't my greatest strength.

Hi Howard-

I'm the CEO of ioSafe and I read your blog yesterday, "Fireproof Storage? I Don't Get It." While you bring up some valid points, I think you may be missing some key points when analyzing the benefits of disaster proof hardware and SMB's. Have you considered the following?

1. A failed Internet connection means you've lost both the ability to backup AND recover. A failed Internet connection will happen much more often than building quarantine. The majority of fires are small and contained -- e.g., server electrical fire. The ability to retrieve the data quickly at the DR location could mean the difference for many businesses -- especially the SMB.

2. Having 1TB located in another state could take you 2 weeks to try and pull back over a 10-Mbps line. It'd be faster to FedEx a server back to the DR site than recover via online. Online is great for single file recovery but not so good for bare metal server recovery.

3. Online backup and recovery exposes your data to possible security breaches via the Internet. The most secure government data installations aren't allowed to be available through a general internet connection -- only closed networks are allowed. A closed network is more secure by inherently reducing the human element.

4. Disk-based backup is preferred for almost all IT needs. ioSafe makes technology that extends disk backup in to protection against disasters. It's disk backup one better.

5. No one technology can guard against all threats. Disaster-proof hardware simply guards more data against more threats for less money than any other technology. In your own cost example, you show that the technology could pay for itself in a 10-month ROI.

Granted, the "building quarantine" issue is a potential shortcoming of onsite disaster proof hardware. When comparing the security risk (lost/stolen tapes or WAN exposure), recovery time objectives (RTO), recovery point objectives (RPO) and cost -- disaster proof disk backup represents the highest value. Besides, while you're recovering the data, if your building is quarantined you'll have plenty of other logistical issues, like how to answer the phones, where do people sit, etc.

Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions. I would love to have further discussions with you about the pros and cons of ioSafe technology. I look forward to hearing from you.

Regards,

Robb Moore

CEO