For almost 30 years now (I know, can you believe it!), Woody and Buzz have been entertaining us and warming our hearts. I remember going to see the first one in the cinema and being drawn into the antics, insecurities and uplifting outcomes of the two small toys lost in a big world.
Toy Story was a huge success for a young Pixar studios at the time, and they quickly drew up plans for a follow up movie, Toy Story 2, for release in 1998. But it very nearly never came to pass.
An IT admin, deciding to clear out some old computer files, accidentally ran a command that wiped out the entire movie. Animators tell stories about watching elements of the characters that they were working on start to disappear in front of their eyes – first Woody’s hat, then his boots, then entire scenes gone!
A bit of panic went around the offices, but nothing to worry about too much, as they could just restore from backup and get back to work.
The thing is though, the backup tapes had filled up four months ago… and hadn’t been replaced!
150 peoples work… and over $100 million… gone…?
Now Panic!
By pure chance, a Technical Director had recently had a baby and was working on a copy of the movie on a computer at her house. The only copy, in existence, in the entire world!
She strapped it into her car and drove the forty minutes back to Pixar studios (at a cautious 35mph!), to deliver this multi-million dollar package to the grateful network admins!
Backups are great, but you know what is even better…?
Test restores!
————————-
If you are interested in getting a free copy of my guide to backups, drop me a message saying ‘Backups’ and I’ll send you the checklist
