tinosa Loc: Grand Rapids Michigan

The following article is from the Data Center Knowledge website published in 2009.

Carbonite CEO Dave Friend e-mailed us with additional information about the company’s recent lawsuit against a vendor, in which the company disclosed that it had lost data belonging to 7,500 customers. Friend didn’t deny that the lawsuit states that Carbonite “lost the backups of over 7,500 customers, but says number of customers who actually lost data – rather than having a snapshot of their data disappear – was much smaller. In the interest of thoroughness, here is Friend’s account of the incident:
http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2009/03/25/more-on-carbonites-data-loss/

justbreathe Loc: Colorado

FYI... Her drive stopped functioning because you never pack your hard drive in a box to be moved. Hard drives are very sensitive and should be wrapped in bubble wrap and handled delicately. The arm that sits on the drive is balanced very precariously and one major bump unseats it and it can't be reseated. Getting data recovered is about $175 a drive. Not bad if you really want your pictures back.
Like Tramsey said, I too love, love, love Carbonite! (Or any other online backup.) This is my recommendations to those of you who have photos worth $$s. My favorite photos I have stored on DVD and put in a fire chest. I might add though, that in extreme fire, they won't be protected because they will melt. However, for burglary, they would be safe.

mremery Loc: From Maine, living in Virginia

I've spent nearly 30 years in IT. There are three levels of backup; primary, secondary and tertiary. Just like government, do everything in triplicate.

fotogk Loc: Tuftonboro, NH

all those who you fire proof safes, yep you drive is safe from fire but the drive does not work because it was ruined do to heat. Yes off site takes a long time for to back up,(it also took you a long time to create all that data) but once done all new work backs up quickly

noknees438 Loc: NYC

In addition to my hard drive, I use flash drives (nothing mechanical and can't "break") as well as cloud storage. If all three fail, then I guess it's Murphy's law at its worst...

Lucian Loc: From Wales, living in Ohio

Flash drives do fail as well and if they do, there is no way of getting the data off them as there is a with a HD.

Lucian Loc: From Wales, living in Ohio

Just breathe wrote:

"FYI... Her drive stopped functioning because you never pack your hard drive in a box to be moved. Hard drives are very sensitive and should be wrapped in bubble wrap and handled delicately. The arm that sits on the drive is balanced very precariously and one major bump unseats it and it can't be reseated. Getting data recovered is about $175 a drive. Not bad if you really want your pictures back."

A $175 a drive??? A HUNDRED AND SEVENTY FIVE A DRIVE ???? Where in the world are you able to get a HD recovered that has had a mechanical failure such as a drive arm dislodging for such a small amount of money? Pu-Leez tell me because I just had a 27 day old internal Laptop Seagate 750GB fail and they want from $700 to $2,500 to recover the data, if they can do it at all!

Every place I have called want the same amount or more, because a mechanical failure means it has to go to a clean room system to be dismantled and that is tons of money, far too much for me. If it is a simple problem it may only cost $200 to recover data but not for anything mechanical so please tell us all where you can get this done for $175.

I'm praying you are correct in this and not me having to correct you "justbreathe".

ole sarg Loc: south florida

I always send the dearest pictures - those of family - to all the members of the family and thus store all over the place.

TP Loc: Georgia

I was (wrongly) under the impression that storing data on hard drives, CD's and DVD's was "for ever". Doing some research on conservation techniques learned by conservators (they usually work for museums and art galleries) I learned that all of the above mentioned storage devices have a finite life! Seems that chemically almost all substances tend to oxidize or breakdown in some way. Gold DVD's seemed to be about the best! The only way to get reasonable longevity for your stored data is to make multiple back up copies and then to recopy the backups every 5 or 10 years.

Lucian Loc: From Wales, living in Ohio

Well actually the medium for storage usually changes in about ten years so you simply copy over onto what ever is the latest and greatest storage medium at that moment in time, thereby staying current with technology but yes gold discs are the best so far.

RedIris Loc: MN, USA

I thought Kodak made a Gold Archival Disk media, but I didn't find it by searching.. I found these though, Verbatim and some 'alternates'.

http://www.amazon.com/Verbatim-95355-UltraLife-Archival-50-Disc/dp/B000H3B6EO

RMM Loc: Suburban New York

Nothing is "forever." You can expect to have to transfer from one medium to another periodically, perhaps once a decade.

$175 for recovery? I don't think so, not unless you have friends in high places. $400-$2,500 is about par for the course with the major recovery services. The more you get back, the more you pay.

Personally, I don't trust the cloud services. Amazon had a major outage, and apparently Carbonite did a number on some of their customers.

I usually use alternating backups to two different drives. In case one fails, I have the other. If I were a bit more paranoid, I'd get a big drive and bring it in once a month for a full backup, then store it off-site.

fotkaman Loc: Earth

I quess I've been lucky so far (nock on wood) for I've never had any problems whatsoever with my hard drives due to fire, lightning, break-in, dropping laptop, etc. I've been regularly backing all my data on an external hard drive that I keep in a bank vault box. Every time I get a new laptop or a pc, I also purchase a new external hard drive to go with it.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

That one second leap event caused quite a bit of trouble for some web sites. Google chose to add fractions of a second several times during the day, so it worked OK for them. This is why many scientists were against the leap second.

saichiez Loc: Beautiful Central Oregon

Anybody using CD's DVD's...

I suggest you go to Yahoo or Google and search CD Rot or DVD Rot. If you read this open minded, you will STOP using optical media altogether. Not Archival and Not Safe!