Technology Inner Sanctum
By Gene Melchionne , Esq . Law Offices of Eugene S . Melchionne Waterbury , Connecticut
[ Comment 8 to the ABA Model Rule 1.1 on competency requires lawyers to keep “ abreast of changes in the law and its practice , including the benefits and risks associated with relevant technology …”. That rule has been adopted by 26 states as of 12 / 31 / 16 . This column will attempt to help the bankruptcy practitioner understand the inner sanctum of technology .]
Where will you be on March 31 st ? It ’ s “ National ( World ) Backup Day ”, that day once a year devoted to reminding you to review your data backups and policies . I , for one , hope that you don ’ t wait for that one day a year to create a backup of your data . There is a move to make this a National Holiday that occurs every Friday the 13 th . Won ’ t that be fun ?
Backup , backup , backup Data is ethereal . You can ’ t see it or touch it unless it is displayed on a screen or printed out on paper . ( You are paper-less right ? That ’ s a topic for another day .) Storage devices of every type will fail at some point , even paper . Does anyone remember “ wet ” photocopies or early faxes that would fade with time ? Paper burns , hard drive platters fail , even solid-state devices have a limited lifetime . To paraphrase , failure to plan for failure is a definite plan for failure .
A simple rule is “ 3-2-1 ”. Easy to remember , easy to follow . Have minimum of 3 copies of your data , in 2 different physical locations and 1 copy in a different storage format .
Three Copies
Making three copies is the easiest to do . The speed of modern hard drives and computers can copy off data in relatively short time . You should be to make three copies of your data in less than a few hours . You don ’ t have to sit by and watch the process ; it is fairly automated .
Cost should not be a barrier , either . An external hard drive connected to your computer comes cheap . For about $ 100 , you can purchase storage measured in terabytes . Buying a few units for backup purposes should cost much less than the purchase of a new computer .
Two locations Storing your data in a different place just makes sense . Nothing is indestructible . ( Visit www . willitblend , com for a few minutes of disturbing entertainment .) If you had a fire at your office , what would survive ? You might lose everything in the building , furniture , files and of course , computers .
With an inexpensive external hard drive , you can disconnect that unit and take it home . These units are portable . Now if some natural or unnatural disaster should strike , you still have a copy of your information . Keep in mind that you still need to safeguard that information once it leaves your office . You don ’ t want that information falling into the wrong hands . ( Security is another topic lined up for a future article .)
! ( one ) different format
Creating a backup copy in a different format is probably the most difficult part of 3-2-1 . In the early days of computers , you would back up to a large tape-drive . ( Anyone remember those ?) Then there were floppy disks of various sizes , Bernoulli discs , burnable CDs , DVDs , and even writeable Blue Ray disks . With hard drives measured in terabytes , none of these storage formats work . A one terabyte hard drive backup would result in a truckload of more than 729,000 floppy disks , 4,000 CDs , or nearly 150 DVDs ,\. That is not to mention the time that it would take to put in the disk , wait for it to copy , eject it , and repeat .
Cloud storage of some type is
10 CONSUMER BANKRUPTCY JOURNAL Spring 2017 National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys