Should a sys admin backup important data in anyway he can, even if he disagrees with the backup strategy? [closed]

Recently, one of the main file servers at our company failed. It was using a 4 disk RAID array, but apparently 3 of the disks died, and all the data on the server has been lost.

Speaking to the sys admin, he says that he has been warning the upper management about the backup situation for months. He had been trying to get approval to buy an enterprise-level backup solution, but he never got the budget approved for it - because management thought it was over the top.

The sys admin is a dedicated properly certified sys admin, whereas his managers are not IT-oriented.

His manager is asking why he didn't buy a cheap external drive and use this to backup the file server. The sys admin thinks that this is just a mickey-mouse solution that's suitable for use at home, but not a professional IT company - which is why he did not do it.

It seems to me that the sys admin wants proper, text-book IT strategy that costs a lot more money, whereas the management (without a deep IT understanding) wants cheaper solutions that they think are adequate.

I'm wondering what is the opinion of other sys admins? Was this sys admin correct in his actions? Or should he always make sure there is a backup of the important data, even if he believes that the cheaper way is not good enough?

Edit: based upon the answers, I'll add that the sys admin has an IT manager who would've known of the situation. He reports to the ultimate boss. I don't know if the manager ever reported the full situation to the boss. I think it is quite tough for the manager, as he is stuck in the middle, and he wants to be diplomatic with both sides.

I would agree that doing it right is the preferred method. But, to stand by and do nothing is unprofessional. Was management informed that there was no backup in place? It is the admins job to present the options, including costs and risks, to management. He presented his preferred option, and when it was denied, he did nothing. Not cool.

i would honestly say it is a failure on both parts.

The logistics of the situation might mean that he would have to take away time that he should have been spending doing other, immediate, important tasks.

However, ultimately, yes, he should have done something. A bunch of hard drives from here and there would have been better than nothing as has been said repeatedly.

On the other hand, the entire purpose of management is to make sure that the people beneath you can do their jobs, and do. and thus from a leadership point of view, the managers failed miserably and can be held equally responsible, if not moreso.

If there are no backups, as far as I'm concerned it's the sysadmin's responsibility to:

1) Explicitly tell the higher ups that there is NO backups, in no uncertain terms, so that they are aware of it

2) Back up the data anyway, any way he can

Frankly I would expect to be fired if this happened, because even if management are making my life hard, that's not an excuse, especially if they're still under the impression that they have something rather than nothing.

It's damned if you do, damned if you don't. Frankly, if there was no money spent by management on a backup solution, then it's their fault. On the other hand, the admin should have been active in trying to work out a stopgap solution, rather than just sitting on his ass waiting for something to break (I don't think any sort of external drive solution is acceptable. You're never going to get a decent backup with that.) You can't just say, "Well I don't have what I want, so I'm not responsible" but you can say, "I've repeatedly tried to get you to do something and you've given me nothing and this is not my problem."

I was actually in a situation once--I wasn't even an ADMIN at this job--where I was working on a database, and made a backup before I changed it (which is s.o.p), and I (as I usually do, whenever I can) saved it to my own local machine. Two days later they lost the raid array, and ooops, turned out there was no backup solution. They'd been backing up the database to the raid array.

So I come in late on this, and I say, "Oh, I backed it up myself day before yesterday."

You know what the outcome was? I was censured for my bad backup solution. For a machine that I was in no way responsible for. And it wasn't because the backup I had was too old, it's because I'd only backed up the database I was working on, not every database.

So the problem is this: if you do a mickey mouse solution, if you do anything, and it's not quite good enough, you're going to get just as much hell as if you do nothing at all. If backups are your responsibilty, explicitly, and there is no budget, you should try to cobble something together, but you better make damn sure it works, and you need to raise hell about it. Repeatedly. At every opportunity.

If it's not your responsibility, point out that there exists a problem, and absolutely, categorically, refuse to take responsibility for an unfunded mandate when they try to assign it to you. No one makes disaster recovery a priority until there is a disaster, and then they scapegoat everyone to try and make up for their own shortsightedness.

Unfortunately, companies skimping on backups is all too common. Most never change until they get burned and lose everything.

BUT

If you are employed to be the sysadmin you have to work with the tools that you have including your brain. No matter what management or anyone else says on good days, when the poop hits the fan everyone gets selective memory.

A mickey mouse backup is better than no backup at all.