Yesterday at Gustav's, a restaurant near CRU world headquarters in Vancouver, Washington, we kicked off a series of local events in which we’re talking with our partners (and partners-to-be) who specialize in delivering IT solutions to small/medium businesses and professional practices. As we find in many conversations, the talk inevitably turned from German food and our recent snowy winter weather to safety of data, whether that means encryption or physically removing hard drives full of data to an offsite location.

This post was written by Whitney Kemper, an SMB Specialist in our Vancouver office.

Industrial design is the art of creating products in a way that makes them visually appealing, easier to use, and convey a brand identity. It combines engineering, marketing, and creativity in a way that can lead to products that not only look cool, but that also can provide a better experience for the user.

Stewart Low, Sr. Mechanical Design Engineer at CRU®, led the design efforts for the new CRU ToughTech m3. I asked him about what it was like designing and developing this new product.

Just like many of you, I have tons of files– images, videos, and other precious data–on my hard drives. I am interested in making sure I can back up and protect my data, even though I have learned that hard drives will eventually fail. So, how do we protect our data?

As you can imagine, there is quite a bit of behind-the-scenes engineering that goes into each of CRU’s products, all the way from concept to production. One part of this effort is a couple of special devices that were made by CRU® engineers to test and verify components. They call them “Thumper One” and “Thumper Two”.

A busy commercial photography and video studio in Portland, Oregon, Polara Studio relies on CRU® hard drive enclosures at each point in their workflow to provide dependable backup and storage.

Welcome to a new year! College bowl games (in my house, anyway) and resolutions are themes of the day, and it’s also that time when people start thinking about getting better organized and making plans for the year, both personally and on the business front. Data safety and integrity are crucial issues for any business, and with the headlines coming all the time about security breaches (the latest being Target, Snapchat, and Skype), it’s time to think about whether you’re doing your best to look after your business data. Computer backup plans, encryption, and offsite copies of data that you can get to quickly in case disaster (mother nature or plumbing) strikes are important to build into your daily business routines. If you need help, let us know. We have some ideas on how to help you get started or who to point you to if you like.