Comments on: More on Carbonite’s Data Loss http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2009/03/25/more-on-carbonites-data-loss/ News and analysis about data centers, cloud computing, managed hosting and disaster recovery Mon, 13 Feb 2012 17:24:17 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v= By: W. Curtis Preston http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2009/03/25/more-on-carbonites-data-loss/comment-page-1/#comment-5124 W. Curtis Preston Sat, 01 Aug 2009 20:47:15 +0000 http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/?p=8667#comment-5124 First, promise doesn't make servers. They make storage controllers, so I'm confused from the start. Second, every piece of equipment in your infrastructure can crash -- especially storage. That's why you have backups. So this company that makes their money off of backups didn't have any backups? They were storing all of their customer's backups on arguably the least expensive RAID 5 solution on the market and they didn't make a second copy anywhere? I can see them trying to blame them for down time or something like that, but to blame them for the actual data loss? I don't see that. First, promise doesn’t make servers. They make storage controllers, so I’m confused from the start. Second, every piece of equipment in your infrastructure can crash — especially storage. That’s why you have backups.

So this company that makes their money off of backups didn’t have any backups? They were storing all of their customer’s backups on arguably the least expensive RAID 5 solution on the market and they didn’t make a second copy anywhere?

I can see them trying to blame them for down time or something like that, but to blame them for the actual data loss? I don’t see that.

]]> By: vijay http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2009/03/25/more-on-carbonites-data-loss/comment-page-1/#comment-3276 vijay Tue, 31 Mar 2009 20:33:53 +0000 http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/?p=8667#comment-3276 Carbonite customers’ data loss is not Promise’s fault. For some more context on this case, see Promise's response in a letter sent to customers this week at http://www.promise.com/support/Announcements.asp. Carbonite customers’ data loss is not Promise’s fault. For some more context on this case, see Promise’s response in a letter sent to customers this week at http://www.promise.com/support/Announcements.asp.

]]> By: Marc http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2009/03/25/more-on-carbonites-data-loss/comment-page-1/#comment-3265 Marc Mon, 30 Mar 2009 13:35:35 +0000 http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/?p=8667#comment-3265 Nor is a dual drive failure on a RAID set unheard of. It does not have to be a simultaneous failure, in my case the second drive failed while the set was rebuilding after the first failure. It is also important to note that the probability of a multiple drive failure increases as the number of drives in the set increases, so that move to RAID 6 was a good idea. But another near- or off-line backup should be used. In the case of our failure, the set was recovered only at large expense. I imagine that recovering a 15 drive set (if not corrupted by a twitchy backplane) would range into $50K-80K. Expensive, but I wonder if Carbonite thought to pursue that route to save face? Nor is a dual drive failure on a RAID set unheard of. It does not have to be a simultaneous failure, in my case the second drive failed while the set was rebuilding after the first failure. It is also important to note that the probability of a multiple drive failure increases as the number of drives in the set increases, so that move to RAID 6 was a good idea. But another near- or off-line backup should be used.

In the case of our failure, the set was recovered only at large expense. I imagine that recovering a 15 drive set (if not corrupted by a twitchy backplane) would range into $50K-80K. Expensive, but I wonder if Carbonite thought to pursue that route to save face?

]]> By: Ky http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2009/03/25/more-on-carbonites-data-loss/comment-page-1/#comment-3227 Ky Thu, 26 Mar 2009 14:28:44 +0000 http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/?p=8667#comment-3227 RAID firmware failure is certainly not unheard of. I once had a top-of-the-line HP StorageWorks controller lose its brains and lost over 5TB of data....that was nearly 100% recovered (over 24 hours) only via TAPE BACKUP. My advice to those who CANNOT lose data....backup your data via multiple technologies in multiple locations, and test your RESTORE process with some frequency. And always remember that nothing is 100%...but you can limit the risk with diversity. RAID firmware failure is certainly not unheard of. I once had a top-of-the-line HP StorageWorks controller lose its brains and lost over 5TB of data….that was nearly 100% recovered (over 24 hours) only via TAPE BACKUP. My advice to those who CANNOT lose data….backup your data via multiple technologies in multiple locations, and test your RESTORE process with some frequency. And always remember that nothing is 100%…but you can limit the risk with diversity.

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