I hope you get it sorted out. Didn't you have a raid setup?

Yes, it got too expensive for me too. I then asked them to add another harddrive to the server and place the backups on them. I only had to pay a onetime-fee.

I also download full backups of the server every month or so.

more like you get what your decisions or lack there of bring you

lrn2backup

also welcome to the internet

If it's that important try offering them $500 for full recovery, $300 for 90% recovery and $100 for 50% recovery. Often hosts don't try very hard because nothing is in it for them except perhaps avoiding a pissed off customer. It can take some time to properly recover a drive and some might not want to bother otherwise. It's easier to just say that it's gone. That said, if the drive is really gone and doesn't spin then recovery isn't possible through software alone.

I'm no fan of Webair but this statement isn't fair in this case. Drives go bad sometimes. You need to have backups.

You are right it is my mistake but I have the sites backed up its just my blogs and affiliate program databases that are gone. Lots of work to be done to recover form this and I am going to have a ton of unhappy customers/affiliates.

We do offer backup plans to all clients but unfortunately in this case it was not selected.
Jay I am contacting you now regarding your server and recovery options.

http://img214.imageshack.us/img214/995/ariazi.jpg

Ouch, sorry to hear that Jay. I know the pain. :Oh crap

RAID is high availability. RAID is NOT a backup or disaster recovery solution :2 cents:

Does Webair use good drives or just cheap whitebox drives?

Exactly...

It's always a terrible thing when someone loses a drive or data. We ALWAYS recommend multiple forms of backup no matter where you host! Any Webair client that does not have backups enabled is auto reminded periodically as to the importance of backups. Additionally, we mention it in just about every newsletter that goes out.

Jay-Rock - I personally spoke to my team to ensure they are doing everything possible to help your situation, and get you back up and running as fast as possible. We can always send it out for recovery, but that can sometime get pretty expensive, i'm sure that was offered to you already. If there is anything I can help you with in the interim personally please feel free to contact me.

M

This sounds like a case where a pre-checked cross sale box for automatic hard drive back-up would be a GOOD thing :upsidedow

Maybe a lesson for all hosting companies moving forward...

Offer this back-up as a standard feature on all accounts and make the customer aware of the importance as well as the added cost based on usage... then if the customer wants to opt out he will make that decision as an educated consumer.
Just my :2 cents:

Good luck Jay :pimp
_

good idea AJ:pimp

Good job to the Webair crew, stand up company

hope you gets it worked out jayrock :thumbsup

Can't you take the hard drive to say Best Buy and have the information recovered for like 100 bucks?

I think webair have that already on order form,but you still need to specify howmuch data you want to backup.

:1orglaugh:1orglaugh

Maybe hosts should do this, but most don't for two major reasons ...

1. Unmanaged is just that, unmanaged - backups are responsibility of such customers. Managed plans tend to be better, but often even some of those don't include adequate backup service either.

2. Many customers (and it may be worse in adult) shop on price alone; airline fare shopping mentality - or in this case, for hosts to offer such deep-discounts means lots of corners are going to be cut, along with many aspects of the service, such as backups, being offered separately for extra.

Bottom line is don't expect much for $xx dedicated server "specials" - there's practically no markup on that. In addition, some hosts use "specials" as a way to recycle old servers / used components, such as HDs.

Ron

$100 is a lot to pay for a reformat :1orglaugh

Ron