Why I no longer trust EMC • Hacker News Board

Re: Why I no longer trust EMC

#11

Post by bwhite » Tue, Feb 15, 2011, 5:03 PM UTC

StavrosK wrote: post #4

From the non-delivery of the "forgotten password" emails, I assume that you weren't checking the email you registered with any more (maybe it was an old one you no longer used)? However, I don't see this as Mozy's fault. They provide you with online backup for free and all they ask is that you regularly check in to show that you're still using the service. Providing services costs money, and it's entirely acceptable…

It's also possible that Mozy's "forgotten password" function "succeeds" without showing any error messages to the user if the user has been removed.

Re: Why I no longer trust EMC

#12

Post by earl » Tue, Feb 15, 2011, 5:03 PM UTC

Mozy is a piece of shit. I'm forced to run it on my laptop by corporate policy. My very favorite bit is how it pegs my hard disk for fifteen fucking minutes to backup a single 0 byte file. What those retards are doing in the meantime, no one knows.

Re: Why I no longer trust EMC

#13

Post by harold » Tue, Feb 15, 2011, 5:06 PM UTC

I would have a hard time going 2 days without a computer, let alone 2 months.

Re: Why I no longer trust EMC

#14

Post by notaddicted » Tue, Feb 15, 2011, 5:20 PM UTC

arethuza wrote: post #9

riobard wrote: post #2

TL;DR: He used free Mozy backup account. Hard drive failed. Replacement took 2 months. He never tried to recover the file within 2 months. Mozy's policy is to delete data of free accounts if no activity for 30 days. Data deleted. He went mad. Does this mean “cloud” fails? Hell no……

"He never tried to recover the file within 2 months" If my hard drive failed I'd be recovering the data back somewhere, anywhere (e.g. a VPS), within hours.

He mentions in a comment that he was using their web interface to access individual files while his laptop was out. Also, the free plan was limited to 2GB. Given that he isn't exactly screaming about it, I think that this was either not his most important data, or not his primary backup recourse.

I sympathize, because in the last 10 years I've probably "OKed" over 100,000 pages of TOS, and not read a single one.

The fact that all his files were gone and he didn't know it means one of two things: either they are disorganized, or pretty fucking nonchalant about wiping user data. Either is unacceptable in a backup company.

Re: Why I no longer trust EMC

#15

Post by MichaelGG » Tue, Feb 15, 2011, 5:25 PM UTC

riobard wrote: post #2

TL;DR: He used free Mozy backup account. Hard drive failed. Replacement took 2 months. He never tried to recover the file within 2 months. Mozy's policy is to delete data of free accounts if no activity for 30 days. Data deleted. He went mad. Does this mean “cloud” fails? Hell no……

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!"

Re: Why I no longer trust EMC

#16

Post by mbreese » Tue, Feb 15, 2011, 5:35 PM UTC

MichaelGG wrote: post #15

riobard wrote: post #2

TL;DR: He used free Mozy backup account. Hard drive failed. Replacement took 2 months. He never tried to recover the file within 2 months. Mozy's policy is to delete data of free accounts if no activity for 30 days. Data deleted. He went mad. Does this mean “cloud” fails? Hell no……

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.

Re: Why I no longer trust EMC

#17

Post by StavrosK » Tue, Feb 15, 2011, 5:54 PM UTC

bwhite wrote: post #11

StavrosK wrote: post #4

From the non-delivery of the "forgotten password" emails, I assume that you weren't checking the email you registered with any more (maybe it was an old one you no longer used)? However, I don't see this as Mozy's fault. They provide you with online backup for free and all they ask is that you regularly check in to show that you're still using the service. Providing services costs money, and it's entirely acceptable…

It's also possible that Mozy's "forgotten password" function "succeeds" without showing any error messages to the user if the user has been removed.

From the post it seems that the user has their data deleted but the account remains (as he was able to log in still), but that is a possibility.

Re: Why I no longer trust EMC

#18

Post by Osiris » Tue, Feb 15, 2011, 6:03 PM UTC

I've been using Hybir Backup for online + offline backup, which I found out about on HN. The application can backup to multiple locations, including their online service. So I have a local ioMega NAS plus the online backup service. They keep your data as long as you pay.

Plus, Hybir does an image backup so you can use a boot CD to restore your HDD to the exact state it was in at the time of the backup. They de-dupe across all their clients so for online backup you only have to upload a small percent of your total data as much if (like Windows 7 files) will already be in their repository.

I certainly feel a lot better about having BOTH an online backup and a local offline backup. I believe CrashPlan offers the same option, but without the image-style backup/restore.

Re: Why I no longer trust EMC

#19

Post by barrkel » Tue, Feb 15, 2011, 6:08 PM UTC

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.

Re: Why I no longer trust EMC

#20

Post by barrkel » Tue, Feb 15, 2011, 6:12 PM UTC

Osiris wrote: post #18

I've been using Hybir Backup for online + offline backup, which I found out about on HN. The application can backup to multiple locations, including their online service. So I have a local ioMega NAS plus the online backup service. They keep your data as long as you pay. Plus, Hybir does an image backup so you can use a boot CD to restore your HDD to the exact state it was in at the time of the backup. They de-dupe a…

CrashPlan does better cross-OS support; Windows, Mac, Linux and Solaris, including, with moderate hacking, Nexenta. This works out well for my Nexenta NAS, which uses ZFS for multi-terabyte local storage. My home PCs can back up to both the NAS and the cloud, for redundancy and speed of restore.