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How a bug in Dropbox permanently deleted my 8000 photos

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Re: How a bug in Dropbox permanently deleted my 8000 photos

#91

Post by steven2012 »

DanBC wrote: post #84
steven2012 wrote: post #80

In today's digital age, I believe lots and lots of people will lose a lot of valuable information like photos because they don't have a good understanding of what backing up means. I've warned my friend who is computer illiterate that he is risking losing his childrens' complete photo collection for their entire lives because he is only keeping a single copy of his data on his hard drive. This is probably the situati…

Did that work? Would it have been more effective to just provide him with a list of stuff - a choice of two drives; a choice of two softwares (with really easy URLs to buy and download) and instructions for using and testing. That could be a gift for birthday or Xmas?

I bought him a new hard drive, copied the photos over and gave him instructions on how to do it. He hasn't bothered to update his backup once, and it's been about 5 years and his photo collection has only grown.

Re: How a bug in Dropbox permanently deleted my 8000 photos

#92

Post by bruceboughton »

icebraining wrote: post #78
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

File sync with multiple devices is fraught with danger. Remember the old 'briefcase' on the Windows desktop? There's just no way to distinguish 'I don't want this file on this device' from "I don't want this file on any device'".

In Dropbox, it's very simple: the former is simply not supported at all. Your file should be in all devices or none (mobile excepted).

No, they have Selective Sync.

Re: How a bug in Dropbox permanently deleted my 8000 photos

#93

Post by ToastyMallows »

restlessmedia wrote: post #22

We live in a convenient age, but also a fickle one. I laugh when my wife prints 100 hundreds of digital photos although her disaster recovery process is more stable than mine.

I laughed at this when I first read it, but it's seriously true. For people that aren't computer literate, physical copies can sometimes be the best form of a backup for digital data.

Re: How a bug in Dropbox permanently deleted my 8000 photos

#94

Post by dspillett »

Silhouette wrote: post #62
dspillett wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think this bug should be considered completely separately from how unwise it is to use a cloud service as the sole storage of important files. YES: from DropBox's point of view - this is a serious bug even ignoring what other actions the users have/not taken to protect their data. And NO: this sort of thing is one of the key reasons not to use such a service as a sole backup - linking the two when trying to educa…

Of course this is a fair bit of work for something that won't happen often If you think about it, that sums up almost any robust back-up system you go to the effort of setting up, properly testing, and maintaining over time. For that matter, it applies to almost any insurance policy in any context. I expect most of us would still agree that potential catastrophic damage if you're the unlucky one can justify spending…

> If you think about it, that sums up almost any robust back-up system you go to the effort of setting up

Exactly, which is why people should think harder than they do about backups. You should make sure that you are not exposed to risk you don't want to be exposed to because someone else's development priorities differ from your point of view.

True data protection is unfortunately a complicated business and most people see the flashy presentations on services' sites and trust all is well without giving it a second thought.

While I agree it should be the service's responsibility to cover these eventualities, it is not good practise to assume that they do. You might misunderstand what they do and not see risk were it is present, they might have honest coding mistakes that cause problems down the line, there could be ineptitude anywhere down the line, and so forth. If you are paying for their service then you might legitimately expect to be covered by some for of insurance for loss in the event of it being caused by a problem in the code/infrastructure, but never assume that until being explicitly told it is present and you have read the small print, and don't ever assume this at all for a free/cheap service.

Re: How a bug in Dropbox permanently deleted my 8000 photos

#95

Post by nodata »

ai_ja_nai wrote: post #83
gabemart wrote: post #13

I think this bug should be considered completely separately from how unwise it is to use a cloud service as the sole storage of important files. Regardless of the circumstances, losing user files against the wishes of the user is the absolute worst thing a cloud backup provider can do . Even for files that are deleted intentionally and unambiguously by the user, I'm astonished that Dropbox actually deletes the files…

Is Dropbox a backup service? Nope. Dropbox is folder synch, a network version of a pendrive. Dropbox makes no guarantees about the durability of the data on their servers, which are merely a browsable cache. Use proper backup services, instead, like Memopal.

Hardly.

"Dropbox is a home for all your photos, docs, videos, and files". -- https://www.dropbox.com/tour/1

Re: How a bug in Dropbox permanently deleted my 8000 photos

#96

Post by therealmocker »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #76

My buddy Tom says "If its not on your current computer, its lost". Imagine when Dropbox closes one day (as every company ultimately does), how much will be lost.

Since all the files are sync'ed to the computer, nothing would be lost unless selective sync was enabled.

Re: How a bug in Dropbox permanently deleted my 8000 photos

#97

Post by achr2 »

rayiner wrote: post #37

The bug in question: > From all this information it seems that Dropbox client first deletes files locally before it informs the server about the new selective sync settings. Consequently, if the client crashes or is killed before the server is contacted, the files remain deleted without any trace. After the client restarts again, it only sees there are some files missing and syncs this new state with the server. It c…

This is actually the point that makes no sense to me - after removing a folder from selective sync, the default (in my mind) should be to leave the folder alone. At the very least the user should be prompted or an option setting should be available to delete or leave the folder. 'Security' and 'disk space' are only two of the many reasons to not sync a folder.

Re: How a bug in Dropbox permanently deleted my 8000 photos

#98

Post by slantyyz »

mkesper wrote: post #17
blablabla123 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've bought myself a Blue Ray recorder half a year ago and it's as easy to use as Dropbox with OS X...

Are you using dvdisaster to secure against data-loss?

I would also add that when using optical discs for backup, M-Discs are probably preferable over conventional dye-based discs.

Re: How a bug in Dropbox permanently deleted my 8000 photos

#99

Post by mayneack »

gabemart wrote: post #38
egypturnash wrote: post #19

Sync is not backup. Sync is not backup. Sync is not backup. My strategy: a big external drive used for Time Machine, and a subscription to Backblaze. Both of these are all about retaining multiple versions, recovering from accidental deletion, and continuously backing up in the background. Dropbox is about syncing stuff between computers.

Dropbox keeps deleted files and previous versions of files for 30 days. With Packrat, a free feature for all paid accounts, Dropbox keeps deleted files for the lifetime of the account. How is Dropbox not a backup provider? It may not be a very good backup provider, depending on your point of view, but it clearly markets itself as a backup provider ("your stuff is always safe in Dropbox and can be restored in a snap")…

I'm paying for packrat on top of pro. Are you getting it for free?

Re: How a bug in Dropbox permanently deleted my 8000 photos

#100

Post by slantyyz »

yoda_sl wrote: post #31

As many others mentioned already "sync is not backup". If you really want true backup then on a Mac I will suggest to have a setup like: 1- local backup for quick recovery with Time Machine 2- remote backup with a true backup solution like CrashPlan (or similar) I personally have such setup with a local one with my Time Machine, and having CrashPlan running all the time, it did save me a couple times when after many…

I use my Time Capsule's USB port to attach an external drive that is shared so that Crashplan can backup to a folder on it. That's in addition to using Crashplan Central for cloud backups and Time Machine.
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