Lightning storms is not the first thing that comes to mind when a business seeks to protect its data. But the reality is that transient surge events cause over 2 billion dollars of damage annually in the USA. Many times by the time a company realizes the dangers of surge events and it seeks to protect itself, it’s too late.
The first step in protecting data is protecting the hardware that stores it. Proper grounding is the obvious first step in that process and thankfully most buildings that are code compliant already have proper grounding implemented.
The other tools that afford protection are lightning arrestors and TVSS or transient voltage surge suppressors. These actually serve to absorb the high voltage caused by a lightning surge or divert the voltage away from sensitive equipment.
This past June Kars4kids was struck by lightning and received extensive media coverage, there was minimal damage to the building but there were various pieces of hardware that were damaged. No data was lost but in an effort to provide an even greater level of protection to their data kars4kids began researching the other options available.
Installing a TVSS became the clear choice in protecting against power surges. The cost can range anywhere from a few hundred to a few thousand dollars depending on the ratings and complexity of the system but the price is well worth the protection of hardware and business data.
