[General Topics] flamingcrumb:
Oh my gosh that sound horrible! 48 hours plus down! I have given 4smartphone.net a couple of trials in the past but always ended up going with other services, mainly due to the lack of a control panel with some extra user settings at 4smartphone.

Thank goodness I did not sign up!

Although I have used a fair few Exchange services I am definitely not an expert. This is critical stuff and I would not want to give incorrect advice. But to attempt a little reassurance, 4smartphone state in their FAQ that they run a full real-time "mirror" back-up of all data, plus an additional daily tape backup for long term protection.

It is almost certain that ALL data will be restored to your accounts, but they are a big company and with a lot of data. If they were down for 2 days this could take several more (at least) to fix and fully restore everything.

Also, most email servers keep attempting delivery for about 2 days, so messages that could not get through should still arrive... hopefully. Worst case they will bounce back to the sender with a message saying they couldn't be delivered so people know there was a outage and will hopefully resend.

Once you have data back I would suggest looking at other services... and I would try and pick one that specifies they have co-location if possible i.e Datacenter 1 is in Phoenix, Datacenter 2 mirrors everything in Norway or where ever.

I have used 1 and 1. I would not call them "good" and customer support is extremely weak. But they do have servers in the US, the UK and Germany. It would be quite hard for them to lose all their systems as they are just so huge. But I am sure there are much better services. I guess another reason I might pick 1 and 1 over 4smartphone is 1 and 1 let you have Outlook right away and it doesn't interfere with your right to cancel if you are dissatisfied. They also bill in just 3 month blocks. 4smartphone make you pay for the full year before you get Outlook. Many handhelds still only come with Outlook 2002 so many people really need at least the 03 version or it is not possible to check out the account properly (You have to have 03 at least to fully use the features of Exchange)

Take this is a reminder to have your own independent back up stategies. For example, I do not have my various domains registered with the same companies that do my hosting... I have an account with a domain reg company seperately. That way, if the hosting crashes, I can quickly set up another account elsewhere and point my DNS records at the new nameservers.

I also do not use Exhange as my primary account. My email accounts are hosted elsewhere and forward to Exchange for Direct Push. So I just have it for Push and as an archive. I have everything on my PC too.

Actually, I go one step further, I don't actually use Outlook for email (other than Push. It is probably a great email client at this point, but it has not always had a stellar history. I prefer Thunderbird. That's just me.

I also always retain offline data on my local PC and back it up every day or so (if only by dragging a copy of outlook.ost to another folder and dating it).

I also use a back up program on my handheld and use it daily.

If my Exchange hosting crashed with a total loss, all I would lose is the ability to use direct push temporarily. I would not lose a grain of data.

End of the day, there is only one person who really truly cares about your data and can take charge of protecting it.. YOU! Don't leave that solely to anyone else!

Sound like hell. Sympathies to all involved. Hope it is fully resolved very soon.

Edit: Here is the link to the list of MS Hosted Exchange Partners on their website. Might be useful to anyone considering looking at other providers:

http://www.microsoft.com/serviceproviders/solutions/catalog.aspx