gordonb.qjv0q@burditt.org (Gordon Burditt) wrote in
news:13ikr3aovmqn1ad@corp.supernews.com:

> In a true Worst Case Scenario, you don't get back anything. Your
> server suffers a power surge (it got through the UPS, perhaps because
> it was an EMP from a terrorist nuke) and goes down, frying electronics
> in the process. You power it back up again, a fire starts, and the
> resulting fire takes out all your hardware, all your on-site backups,
> and all the people involved with the application.
>
> The resulting fire is detected as a nuclear explosion. Due to
> various foul-ups and the TSA letting a bottle of hair gel through
> security causing DEFCON 1, the nuclear powers start World War III,
> which takes out all of your off-site, on-planet backups, all of the
> source code to MySQL, and all the MySQL developers. The EMP from
> the nukes takes out any backups you may have had in orbit. Since
> humans are now extinct, nobody really cares that your application
> doesn't work.
>
> Another worst-case scenario: your hardware suffers a problem. You
> try to bring it back up, and it's obvious that the data is all
> screwed up. The tape drive or CD/DVD-ROM drive you use to restore
> your backups is damaged so that it destroys any backups you insert
> in the drive by scratching, stretching, degaussing, or whatever.
> Further, any drive you insert the damaged media into is also damaged.
> (Didn't this really happen with Zip drives?)
>
> Another worst-case scenario: your hardware develops random,
> occasional bit errors that only sometimes cause problems. After a
> year of tearing your hair out you finally realize what the problem
> is. At this point you have a years worth of backups hopelessly
> contaminated with bit errors.


That's it, I'll never be able to sleep again!