TechCrunch reported that a blogging site called JournalSpace lost all of its customers data. It sounds like their database crashed and they didn't have any good backups. What a nightmare!
Have you ever thought about what would happen if you lost access to your email account? What if you logged into your Gmail account one day only to find that all of your email messages were gone? Or what if you just couldn't remember your password and the password reminders went to an old email address? It is also quite plausible that your account could be incorrectly suspended for abuse (the bad guys also try to make it look like someone else).
I use Google Docs, and I have a number of important documents up there that would be quite painful to lose. A few times, I've logged in only to see a warning that my documents weren't available. I almost had a heart attack! Fortunately it wasn't long before they re-appeared.
What about your photos? I have the master copy of all my photos on my local hard drive, I back them up with Time Machine on my Mac, and I also upload them to Amazon S3 with JungleDisk. So I feel pretty safe. But I have heard of lots of people who start out with their photos on their computer and on Flickr, but then their computer crashes and Flickr becomes the master copy. What if your Flickr account got deleted along with all of your photos? Or what if they just decided your pictures were obscene and took down your account?
Have you ever lost something important that you assumed was safe "in the cloud"? Have you heard of any major websites losing customer data?
I'm sure you had fun writing this article.
Posted by: moncler down | October 27, 2011 at 04:32 AM
Good article! The spirit of sharing is really impressive, and I want to share this article to my friends!
Posted by: wholesale | January 05, 2011 at 12:38 AM
I don't care where the files live, I just need a backup - mostly to protect me from myself (accidental or ill-advised deletions and the like). Time Machine is my friend.
The trend towards my data living in the cloud has me concerned that I cannot effectively back everything up. It does not matter how reliable the service provider's backup schemes are if I can't control them.
Posted by: Damon | January 07, 2009 at 12:52 PM
I use Gmail and don't back it up at all. It's one of those things I keep meaning to get to, but haven't yet. I would readily pay a small monthly fee to Google for the promise of a regular backup. If they shut me out, for whatever reason, I would be completely screwed.
Hmm... maybe I shouldn't put off that project any longer!
Posted by: Andrew Baisley | January 05, 2009 at 02:39 PM
I've never personally experienced it, but I'm equally paranoid. I use Google for my email, but I will suck it down with IMAP and work on it locally. I wonder, though, whether there is more risk from JournalSpace style catastrophes or willful shutdown of services. A recent event was written up recently here: http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/1617.
Regardless, I don't trust the cloud for anything that is critical. I'll use the cloud for convenience, but I'll always have a backup that I control.
Posted by: Louis M. | January 04, 2009 at 10:24 AM