>>>We've had more than one customer that didn't realize that it's not a good idea to keep backups on the same physical drive as the software. Even had more than one irate IT manager that DEMANDED that we "FIX the OBVIOUS BUG" in our software because he was unable to restore the backup of the data that was stored on the crashed harddisk... Had to fight really hard the temptation to call the guy an idiot.
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>>That's a good point and not a simple thing to address. If I ask myself, "How many of my clients' IT operational staff can give me a clear, succinct and accurate explanation of the differences between physical disks, volumes, and drive letters?" - the answer is, not very many.
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>That would work over here most of the time up to spanning volumes and RAID 1. Too many TCP/IP bellyaches your side of the pond ?

Well, I figure if they don't know about disks/volumes/drive letters there's little hope they'll know about arrays, spanned volumes, SANs, tiered storage, content management/deduplication etc. etc. Baby steps first :)

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>>In a perfect world, backup software wouldn't let you store backups on the same physical hardware, or at least give multiple severe warnings if you insist on doing so.
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>I hate SW forcing me down 1 path only: 1 or 2 severe warnings at most are my definition of "perfect" (external port might be damaged....)

Just as long as the software is able to say, "I told you so" ;)