A Sugar Land law firm with 24 attorneys and 35 staff had been managing IT reactively for eight years — calling a break-fix vendor when things broke, buying hardware when equipment failed. After a server failure cost them three days of productivity and $40,000 in emergency recovery costs, they made the switch to SpaceTown IT managed IT.
The Break-Fix Reality
Before SpaceTown IT, the firm’s IT situation: one aging server running practice management software with no redundancy, no documented backup procedure (backups existed but had not been tested), IT support averaging 3-5 business days response, no antivirus on 8 workstations, and a 12-year-old firewall with no active subscription. The firm estimated they spent $28,000/year on reactive IT services — plus uncounted productivity losses from downtime.
The Server Failure Incident
On a Tuesday morning, the firm’s primary server failed with a RAID disk array fault. The break-fix vendor took 48 hours to diagnose the hardware failure and another 24 hours to source replacement hardware. Recovery from backup (which had not been tested) took an additional 36 hours and resulted in 18 hours of transaction data loss — work that had to be manually reconstructed. Total cost: $40,000 in vendor fees plus 72 hours of attorney and staff productivity loss.
SpaceTown IT Onboarding
SpaceTown IT onboarded the firm in 10 days: complete environment assessment and documentation, server replacement with virtualized environment on new hardware, Datto SIRIS backup deployment with 15-minute RPO and tested recovery, SentinelOne EDR on all 59 endpoints, advanced email security, network redesign with proper segmentation, and managed monitoring of all systems. Monthly investment: $4,200 — replacing $28,000/year in reactive spend.
Results After 18 Months
After 18 months with SpaceTown IT: 97% reduction in unplanned downtime, zero data loss incidents, one near-miss ransomware attack blocked by SentinelOne before any damage, all 59 endpoints consistently patched within 7 days of patch release, and two successful quarterly backup recovery tests. The managing partner estimates the managed IT investment has generated 8:1 ROI compared to the prior reactive approach.
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