Hurricane season is upon us, and that means area businesses are at risk for flooding, which could damage computer servers, hard drives and RAID arrays, disrupt business and cost thousands (or millions) of dollars in lost data and lost productivity.

Not fun, right? Here are some ways to protect yourself against data loss caused by floods and hurricanes.

1. Make sure mission critical servers and RAID arrays are above the flood lines. A basement is no place for a server farm if the level is prone to flooding. If possible, place computer equipment on second floors for greater protection.

2. Keep cloud-based back-ups so you can access mission critical data even if your company has to move to a temporary location during a natural disaster.

3. Essential personnel should know how to access data back-ups to get the company’s data infrastructure back up and running, even in a crisis. 

4. Essential IT and upper-level personnel should keep hard drive, RAID drive and virtual server serial numbers, models and manufacturers handy off-site in the event of a data recovery emergency. When you start the data recovery process with 24 Hour Data, having the make and model of damaged hard drives available will make it easier for us to help you quickly.

5. Keep the phone number for 24 Hour Data handy, as that may be the fastest, easiest way to reach us during a natural disaster when you are facing the loss of mission critical business data and require emergency data recovery.