Periodic fire drills are an effective way to measure your ability to recover from a disaster and to validate your disaster recovery plans. This is the most valuable experience you can have in your disaster recovery planning. Conduct the fire drill in a test environment, and attempt a complete recovery. For the maximum effect, provide no notice to your staff that you are performing a drill. Make sure you use data from production backups. Record the time it takes to recover. This information will assist you in estimating the time it would take to recover after a real disaster. Up to one-third of your recovery time can be spent preparing and getting the correct tools in place to complete the job.