We talk to a lot of customers about their backups every day. I'd say more than half of the backup failure stories we hear come from failing to adequately test that data can actually be restored.
Some have been comically tragic. Like creating an offsite backup using encryption keys that are only archived as part of said backup... :(
A former colleague was attempting to replace a failed hard drive in a server. So he installed a fresh OS, put the tape in the drive, installed the backup software and watched as the backup software started to reformat the tape...
amen to that! You should see the confused looks I get when doing technical due diligence somewhere and they get that question: "when did you last try to restore a backup ?"
then once they get the point they want to leave the room asap...
