Are you ready? Yes, I am.

Alexey posted interesting info about sudden computer failure. Since I'm working with computers from 1987, I wan to share my experience too.

3 years ago my computer won't turn on. Possible causes could be - processor, motherboard or power unit. After some thinking I choosed to buy new power unit, and I was right - motherboard and processor were alive. I was lucky not buying new motherboard, righ?
During last 3 months I hadn't any problems, but
- videocard on my wife's computer died
- motherboard of my daughter's computer died

In first case it took 2 days to diagnoze what happened. The second took 1 day. But, anyway, daugter's computer still don't work, because I hadn't bought new MB and processor.

Alexey's case also shows that it is very important to have hardware nearby to change. So, it means that you computer (server) may stop working because something is dead

1. processor
2. motherboard
3. videocard
4. power unit
5. hard drive

While first 4 parts you may change without affecting your system, last part, hard drive, is a core of your system. If you don't have backup, you will not be able to return server to it's working state. Yes, you can spend some time installing OS at your new hard drive, but, have you ever thought about how much time it will take?

Alexey and I speaking about desktops. Alexey had a lot of computers at home, and a netbook, so, the failure isn't so hard. Also, my daughter is "safe", because all the music and photo's at her hard-drive still undamaged.
But, really, what if the server will stop working? How much time it will take to restore it? Think about software as a hardware. Database failure can cause same damage, as broken hard drive.

p.s. right now we are at contact with the customer, who has broken hdd. Instead of 3 databases restore service produced 9 databases. Now customer need to understand what databases are the latest ones, and which one we need to repair. Also, databases are heavily damaged, so, only copies of that databases may help to restore data.