PBS broadcaster loses access to 50TB of data comprising 70 years of TV history after contracted cloud storage vendor goes defunct

https://www.tomshardware.com/software/cloud-storage/nine-pbs-loses-access-to-70-years-of-data-after-contracted-cloud-storage-vendor-goes-defunct-public-tv-channel-sues-iron-mountain-data-center-which-hosts-archival-materials-to-ensure-preservation

19 points · 6 comments · view on lemmy.world

6 Comments

cerebralhawks@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 6 pts · 20d (3 replies)

Couldn't the cloud company just sell them the drive(s) their data was on? Since they're going out of business and all. I mean what else are they gonna do with that data?

unwarlikeExtortion@lemmy.ml · 3 pts · 18d (2 replies)

Afaik liquidation requires certain garantees of "highest price" like inventory auctions.

Regardless, a deal or notification could and should have been made.

Just goes to show the cloud is someone else's computer. A computer the someone else can do anything with, like declare bankrupcy and sell off.

cerebralhawks@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 3 pts · 18d (1 reply)

So someone else bought the drives at a higher price.

So they could have been advised that the drives were being sold at auction and given the opportunity to download the data.

I would say they should not be selling someone else's data at auction, but then again, that's how Google, Microsoft, Meta, and others operate.

unwarlikeExtortion@lemmy.ml · 3 pts · 18d

Exactly. The right and responsible thing to do is give users access to their data: give notice, offer a competitor's similar service or offer to sell the drives to them.

But reaponsibility is a high ask. Just start the bancrupcy procedure, sell everything off and be done with it is what most folks do.

The possibilities are there, but most won't follow through.

pineapple@lemmy.ml · 6 pts · 19d

They should have released them as torrents, us data hoarders would happily seed some of it! It's probably mostly on torrent trackers anyway.

umbrella@lemmy.ml · 5 pts · 20d
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antsu@discuss.tchncs.de · 3 pts · 18d

50TB isn't even that much for a large company. This smells like pure incompetence.