Regularly Scheduled Preventative Maintenance—For our business customers

If the hard drive in your server was about to fail, would you know? Many hardware failures are preceded by soft errors that will only show up through diagnostics or by reviewing your log files. For example, a hard drive that is on its last legs may be retrying several times before it can read or write data to the device. The data is eventually read or written, but performance is slow and at some point data will fail to be read or written correctly.

Any piece of hardware or software can be silently failing and you may not even notice. Systems should be checked regularly to find and correct any of these hidden errors. Servers, in particular, need regular maintenance to ensure reliable and consistent performance.

Some common tasks performed during regularly scheduled maintenance visits include:

• Checking log files for errors
• Verifying backup data
• Answering user questions
• Fixing problems with workstations
• Updating applications and operating systems with security and stability patches.

To maintain a reliable and stable network environment, we recommend regularly scheduled visits from a computer professional. Scheduled visits allow you to:

• Decrease cost of repairs. Fixing a problem before total failure will give you the flexibility to perform repairs at your convenience rather than reacting to an emergency situation. A failing (but still usable) hard drive may allow you to recover data and replace the failing drive without costly downtime during business hours and without restoring data from backups, which can be very time-consuming.

• Fix user problems promptly. Rather than waiting until your employees are distraught, let them know when your computer professional will be around to fix their problems. Fixing minor irritations promptly will prevent them from causing productivity loss.

• Prepare questions for your personal expert. Tell your employees to make note of problems they have. This will allow your computer professional to quickly address each issue. A regularly scheduled visit will help your employees have questions in mind and help prevent the problem of remembering your questions right after your computer professional leaves the building.

If you have questions about preventative maintenance or would like to talk to us about setting up a schedule for your business, please, contact us.

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