How to pitch a server to a business stuck in hard drive hell?

[Lumen_99]

Hey guys, this might be a problem you've encountered at your workplace, but I need some advice. I work on a small creative team for a large-scale non-profit in South Carolina. We've been serving our area for over 30 years, have launched 3 campuses, and serve over 3,000 people weekly across all 3 locations. Not only do I do creative work (Motion Designer and Editor), but I also facilitate broadcast video for all locations, and am the sole support for our (frankly non-existent) IT department. With that out of the way, here's the problem: We're in Hard Drive Hell. Meaning the way we do data management is that we store everything on external hard drives (cheap ones at that). Here's a brief description of our structure.

 

Each staff member has a work-issued computer, whether it's a laptop or desktop. For the creative team, we have what we call "Working Drives" which are 2TB Samsung T7s, and a backup drive which is a 2TB WD MyPassport. We (try to) back up our files every day to the backup drives but it doesn't always work out. Other staff work off of the internal drives in their computers, with occasional files in Google Drive. Speaking of Google Drive, that's how the creative team delivers files to each campus' broadcast team for service, and the band uses DropBox to sync click track and Ableton Live files.

 

My dept manager (Creative) says that she wants to get more hard drives and label them with what year/projects are on them, but not attach them to the network. That's frustrating to me because we'll keep running into the same problems (no one backing up, file structures not being the same, etc). And if they get damaged, yes there is 1 other backup, but life happens.

 

The structure I'm trying to pitch is a working SSD server that backs up to an HDD server, which then automatically backs up to a cloud backup service like AWS or BackBlaze. So as follows: SSD Server > HDD Server > Cloud.  If we had some IT infrastructure, I feel like a lot of our problems would be alleviated. Another issue is that we don't have an MDM solution, but that is one we are actively pursuing.

 

The main problem is that we've had drives disappear, no one knows who does what in Google Drive, and no one person has the same copy of a project as someone else. I've been trying to tell them to get a Server/NAS for some time now, but every time I make a case I get shot down because of cost, even though I know money isn't an issue. How do I convince my organization's leadership that even though it's a massive expense now, it will save headaches for everyone for the next several years?

[tikker]

30 minutes ago, Lumen_99 said:

The main problem is that we've had drives disappear, no one knows who does what in Google Drive, and no one person has the same copy of a project as someone else. I've been trying to tell them to get a Server/NAS for some time now, but every time I make a case I get shot down because of cost, even though I know money isn't an issue. How do I convince my organization's leadership that even though it's a massive expense now, it will save headaches for everyone for the next several years?

The most important points from a management perspective would to me be

1. Who will manage and maintain said servers? Do I need to hire someone for that and how much will licensenses and maintenance cost?
2. How much time and money do I need to waste getting people used to the new system?
3. Why should I spend much more money on a server vs a few loose drives?
4. Who will manage and maintain said servers? Do I need to hire someone for that and how much will licensenses and maintenance cost?

The thing about "money isn't an issue" is that it's often indeed not about the money, which is usually there, but about the justification why one should spend it. Especially number 1 and 4 are of huge importance.

30 minutes ago, Lumen_99 said:

If we had some IT infrastructure, I feel like a lot of our problems would be alleviated.

How clearly (read basic) have your pitches been in explaining how a server would solve this? Relatable examples help strengthen a case. You can't convince them with just "a server would fix this". Show them the actual problems, how they affect the company, how you propose to solve them and then what it might cost. For example:

30 minutes ago, Lumen_99 said:

The main problem is that we've had drives disappear, no one knows who does what in Google Drive, and no one person has the same copy of a project as someone else.

Are they aware of this in simple layman terms? Might there be paper trails from emails etc. of people asking where what is or what the latest version is? Of multiple people working on the same thing? Of unfortunate delays because a drive went missing?

 

Finally, baby steps. Don't try to too radically change the system in one go. For example, people working off their machine or portable drives may be fine with the tweak that every day you synchronise your progress or backup drive with the main server. This can be tied into the previous points by pitching central data storage, less risk of random data going missing and how data is protected against drives breaking (if in a RAID or RAID-like setup) and people losing them. And at the end of the day they say no, then not much you can do except try again if they're not annoyed yet or let it be.

[Lumen_99]

Quote

The main problem is that we've had drives disappear, no one knows who does what in Google Drive, and no one person has the same copy of a project as someone else

This is one example I've laid out, and I've stated in writing that I'm willing to take over and manage the servers and IT as a whole. I agree with not changing the system radically, but instead going one step / user at a time until we have everything centralized. I appreciate the tips! Thank you!

[wseaton]

There are two problems here. The first is actual local storage. For just simple document storage which can be handled by relatively inexpensive NAS units with bulk drives. Set them to back up to Backblaze - done. What's likely happened is your boss was quoted some absurd prices by rip off MSP's that want to install mini data centers and charge you tens of thousands of dollars. MSP's won't quote NAS servers, at least rarely. The will want to sell you full blown rack servers running Active Directory and Virtualization, and...and..and. $$$$

 

4 bay Synology -  done. And you don't need SSD if it's just 1Gb networking. Other than the price of the NAS ($400-600) the price of storage is the same because you have to buy the drives anyways.

 

The other issue is versioning, and that can't be solved unless you go with a cloud solution to link everything together. That will get expensive.

[ToboRobot]

On 6/13/2022 at 2:05 PM, Lumen_99 said:

How do I convince my organization's leadership that even though it's a massive expense now, it will save headaches for everyone for the next several years?

Log incidents where problems cost people time and money.

When you have a log that indicates a number of expensive problems, present a solution that will save money.

So you will need to come up with a costed solution.