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Why I no longer trust EMC

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Re: Why I no longer trust EMC

#21

Post by SpikeGronim »

mbreese wrote: post #16
MichaelGG wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least they could have emailed him a few days beforehand saying "Hey, you haven't used our service for 4 weeks. We're about to delete the data!"

This was a customer service fail, in that they didn't notify him. But this isn't a cloud or enterprise EMC fail at all. I think blaming all of EMC for this is a little over the top.

If your backup provider elects to delete your data due to an obscure ToS clause then it is their fault for sure. The article does not say anything new about cloud providers - you have to trust their competence. But this is a critical failure by EMC / Mozy and is nobody's fault but theirs.

Re: Why I no longer trust EMC

#22

Post by roel_v »

btilly wrote: post #7
roel_v wrote: post #5

I was a paying customer of Mozy. Their 'restore' does not do resume. Yes, that means that after restoring 50 GB and losing internet connection, you have to restart. Needless to say I was quite happy that I tried the restore before I actually needed it. And also that I'm not a Mozy customer anymore, although I'm still paying them so I guess technically I am - but that's just because they refuse to cancel my subscripti…

If they are charging your credit card at this point, go to your credit card company, now, and dispute the charges. By law the credit card company has to believe you, and won't pay them another cent.

Yeah that's what I thought, too. I'm in the Netherlands though, Land of Cheese, Clogs and Worst Customer Treatment Ever. Credit card companies cannot be contacted directly here, cc's are issued through banks, who then do the customer 'service' for these cards. So I called them and they basically told me that I could a) cancel my whole card, which would mean that I would have to change all subscriptions etc. that use this card; or b) file a complaint, but the lady at the customer service desk basically told me I wouldn't stand much of a chance 'because it's a subscription'. This doesn't make sense of course so I'm going to file it anyway - this is all on a card in someone else's name though (company card) and only the person whose name is on the card can make a complaint. So now I have to get my boss to call, wait for god knows how long to actually get someone on the phone, and all for getting a freaking cc dispute. Ugh.

Re: Why I no longer trust EMC

#23

Post by geuis »

mbreese wrote: post #16
MichaelGG wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least they could have emailed him a few days beforehand saying "Hey, you haven't used our service for 4 weeks. We're about to delete the data!"

This was a customer service fail, in that they didn't notify him. But this isn't a cloud or enterprise EMC fail at all. I think blaming all of EMC for this is a little over the top.

He wasn't a customer. He was using a free service. Unless you're paying someone money, you're not a customer. If you live next to a coffee shop and use their wifi without ever buying coffee, do you expect the shop to help you reconnect if their internet goes down?

So no, it has nothing to do with customer service. Its someone who A) was using a free service and B) never bothered logging in to make sure his data was still being hosted by said free service.

Re: Why I no longer trust EMC

#24

Post by masnick »

I'm surprised that a computer science professor didn't have a better method for backups.

It seems common sense to me that you should have at a very minimum:

- Continuous onsite backup onto a different physical device (e.g. Time Machine on ext. HDD)

- Weekly or monthly backups onto a different physical device kept offsite (e.g. ext. HDD in a safe deposit box)

- Continuous cloud-based backup (e.g. Backblaze, Mozy, etc.)

I personally use Backblaze as a last resort, in case my laptop HDD fails and something happens to my Time Machine backups. The probability of this is so low, if it happens I'll be happy to pay $200 for them to send me a hard drive.

Also, IMHO it seems ridiculous to me to expect restoring tens of GB over HTTP to work flawlessly. One of the reasons I chose Backblaze is that they have the ability to physically send me my data. Web restore is for the files you can't live without until the package from Backblaze arrives.

(formatting edits)

Re: Why I no longer trust EMC

#25

Post by danielsoneg »

mbreese wrote: post #16
MichaelGG wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least they could have emailed him a few days beforehand saying "Hey, you haven't used our service for 4 weeks. We're about to delete the data!"

This was a customer service fail, in that they didn't notify him. But this isn't a cloud or enterprise EMC fail at all. I think blaming all of EMC for this is a little over the top.

His argument, though, isn't about the core technology or the viability of the 'cloud', it's about trust. He makes clear in the beginning that the primary reason he chose EMC was because he trusted them not to lose or do something stupid with his data - and they did just that.

A Customer Service fail, in this case, is identical to a technical fail - his data is Gone, Gone, Gone, and all he's got for it is platitudes.

Re: Why I no longer trust EMC

#26

Post by jeroen »

roel_v wrote: post #22
btilly wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they are charging your credit card at this point, go to your credit card company, now, and dispute the charges. By law the credit card company has to believe you, and won't pay them another cent.

Yeah that's what I thought, too. I'm in the Netherlands though, Land of Cheese, Clogs and Worst Customer Treatment Ever. Credit card companies cannot be contacted directly here, cc's are issued through banks, who then do the customer 'service' for these cards. So I called them and they basically told me that I could a) cancel my whole card, which would mean that I would have to change all subscriptions etc. that use…

Not entirely true. I have a card straight from Amex. Fortunately I can't tell you if that makes things better.

Re: Why I no longer trust EMC

#29

Post by makmanalp »

barrkel wrote: post #19
jwcacces wrote: post #8

2 months, seriously? Ignore Yale's process, go to the computer store that night get a new hard drive and swap it out. 500GB laptop hard drives cost approximately $60. What was the cost of not having your computer for 2 months? Also, here's another case of don't outsource your bread and butter. You have no control over what Mosy does with your data, and you're relying on trust alone that it will be there when you need…

I have no idea what it's like at Yale, but I have known people in colleges in Ireland who are not allowed to do any maintenance on their own machines for IT union reasons.

What sort of union is this?

Re: Why I no longer trust EMC

#30

Post by barrkel »

makmanalp wrote: post #29
barrkel wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no idea what it's like at Yale, but I have known people in colleges in Ireland who are not allowed to do any maintenance on their own machines for IT union reasons.

What sort of union is this?

A workers union to which the IT department workers belonged, but the lecturers didn't. I don't know the particulars.
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