The major points being - 1 - It's highly likely (almost certain, in fact) that the government uses some variant of Microsoft Exchange for their email servers. They have built-in exchange mail database redundancy. So, unless they did not follow Microsoft's recommendations they are lying. Check out the diagram below for a basic example. If you have three servers in a DAG you have three copies of the database.
![[Image: nvcW4wl.png]](http://i.imgur.com/nvcW4wl.png)
2 - Every IT organization that I know of has hotswappable disk drives. Every server built since 2000 has them. Meaning that if a single disk goes bad it’s easy to replace.
3 - ALL Servers use some form of RAID technology. The only way that data can be totally lost (Meaning difficult to bring back) is if more than a single disk goes before the first bad disk is replaced. In the diagram below you can see that its possible to lose a single disk and still keep the data.
![[Image: fj3ew6N.png]](http://i.imgur.com/fj3ew6N.png)
4 - If the server crashed (Hardware failure other than disks), then the disks that contain the DATA for the Exchange database is still available because the server hardware and disks are exchangeable. Meaning that if I have another server with the same hardware in it, I can put the disks in and everything should boot right up.
5 - All email servers in a professional organization use TAPE backup. Meaning if all the above fails, you can restore the server using the TAPE backups.
6 - If they are talking about her local PC, then it’s a simple matter of going to the servers which have the email and getting them from the servers. If the servers have removed the data you can still get them by using the backups of the servers to recover the emails.
I don’t know of any email administrator that doesn’t have at least three ways of getting that mail back. It’s either on the disks or it’s on a TAPE backup someplace or in an archive server. There are at least three ways the government can get those emails.
So -
They. Are. LYING.
The only way that they could NOT be lying is if the IRS is totally mismanaged and has the worst IT department ever.
And we all know that is not only not the case, but they would NEVER accept that kind of excuse from you or anyone other entity (individual or corporate) they have ever audited.
2 - Every IT organization that I know of has hotswappable disk drives. Every server built since 2000 has them. Meaning that if a single disk goes bad it’s easy to replace.
3 - ALL Servers use some form of RAID technology. The only way that data can be totally lost (Meaning difficult to bring back) is if more than a single disk goes before the first bad disk is replaced. In the diagram below you can see that its possible to lose a single disk and still keep the data.
4 - If the server crashed (Hardware failure other than disks), then the disks that contain the DATA for the Exchange database is still available because the server hardware and disks are exchangeable. Meaning that if I have another server with the same hardware in it, I can put the disks in and everything should boot right up.
5 - All email servers in a professional organization use TAPE backup. Meaning if all the above fails, you can restore the server using the TAPE backups.
6 - If they are talking about her local PC, then it’s a simple matter of going to the servers which have the email and getting them from the servers. If the servers have removed the data you can still get them by using the backups of the servers to recover the emails.
I don’t know of any email administrator that doesn’t have at least three ways of getting that mail back. It’s either on the disks or it’s on a TAPE backup someplace or in an archive server. There are at least three ways the government can get those emails.
So -
They. Are. LYING.
The only way that they could NOT be lying is if the IRS is totally mismanaged and has the worst IT department ever.
And we all know that is not only not the case, but they would NEVER accept that kind of excuse from you or anyone other entity (individual or corporate) they have ever audited.