radiojohn

"MySpace admits losing 12 years' worth of music uploads"

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-47610936

Sure makes you want to upload all your stuff!

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

I guess there is no such thing as a perfect, safe, guaranteed backup.

StanMac Loc: Tennessee

Always buy two vinyl albums, copy one to cassette tape, rip one to a CD, and store them all in separate places. Bits and bytes are ephemeral. Hardware will last longer, much longer. 😏

Stan

DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

Cloud storage should be used as a complement to local storage.

Storage should never depend on a single medium.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

I think all of my CD are on my computer - and backed up.

Alan1729 Loc: England UK, now New York State.

And they say trust the "Cloud".
I have my photos and music at least triple backed up. I've worked in IT too long. I'm still looking for another backup medium.

Lost or stolen, when it's out of your hands you have no idea what can happen.

DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

In general, cloud storage is capable of more secure storage than local storage. Cloud storage is managed by people whose job is to keep the system up and running. Local storage is generally done by people who buy a disk and plug it in and expect it to last forever without maintenance (much like all our other appliances).

In the case of MySpace, they were a large company with ~1500 employees a decade or so ago. They are currently down to 150 employees. That should raise some red flags right there. Apparently as they lost popularity they cut back on expenses and got a bit too lean. This is one reason why it's important to (1) keep local copies of all your archives; (2) use different media for your storage, and particularly adopt new technology when it becomes mature; (3) Maintain your equipment. Maintenance should include testing of the data validity, replacing old storage media before it hits the MTBF point, and keeping track of the health of the company that does your cloud storage.

radiojohn

Well written, DF.

Apparently some bands foolishly swallowed the marketing bait and never asked "What could possibly go wrong?" They stored or their recordings 100% on MySpace.

There was so much hype and hot air and promises during the dot-com boom! I used to review products and services on the radio and saw a LOT of stuff come and go. Superdisks, Floptical drives!