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What if your VPS provider HDD gets corrupted?
I have been using different services on LET.
Recently, I faced an issue with one of the providers.
Their storage server HDD got corrupted, and as a result, some users lost their data.
I'm not here to blame anyone.
I'm just curious about the industry standard in situations like this.
What generally happens when a storage server's HDD fails? Should the provider be expected to have restore points/backups, or is data recovery typically the customer's responsibility?
Thanked by 1Mainfrezzer
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You get a blank VPS and an SLA credit for lost days.
You can then activate your disaster recovery process.
Isn't a storage server supposed to be more reliable? People usually use them to store backups and other important data.
In a case like this, shouldn't there be some kind of redundancy, restore point, or disaster recovery process on the provider's side?
What a hilarious timing, I did discover that this has happened to one of my servers today. Well, there were more issues than just that.
I like coincidences.
I just restored from a backup, well, actually I'm still restoring but most of it is done
In my case, no clear communication from the provider; I am just keep on waiting; either build a new server or they fix it.
Storage costs money. Some providers offer automated backups, others offer snapshots for you to take manually, others offer block storage as a different product. No matter how you look at it, storage costs money, therefore services like these are either included and you pay extra, or these are features which you order separately. If you don't opt in for any of these because you probably don't need them, that's great, because it means you make backups yourself and don't wish to pay extra for something which you don't need at this provider (whoever this is).
Hi,
you are supposed to get what is written in your contract.
Does your contract include backups of your data taken by the provider? Then the provider must have them.
Does your contract not include it? Then you must have them.
The best choice is to make sure that YOU always have them - no matter if your provider is responsible for it. If the data is important for you, you should have multiple copies and not rely on one ( the provider ).
Imagine the provider deadpool, datacenter catches fire regards to ovh or the dog bite the power cord of everything. Even you might have a contractual right that the provider has to have backups, what do you do if he does not? Your data are gone. No money can bring them back.
So if your data are important, you hast have a backup / restore strategy that you control.
If not, then not... maybe the loss of all those cat pictures is nothing that much bad... ;-)
Every server should ideally be reliable. The term storage doesn't make a huge difference in that regard. It mostly means that there's (usually a lot of) storage. Now if every bit gets mirrored 10 times or if it's just yolo raid... who knows? That's a question of quality, which again is likely a question of price and even the highest possible quality can still fail. In the end storing something in just a single location is always a gamble that might result in loss.
all i got was sorry your data is gone, we can either move you to LocationA or LocationB.
Which makes me wonder if I’m receiving inadequate support because I bought the server at a discounted rate
The truth is data backup is 100% the customer's responsibility. Budget hosts use RAID for uptime, but if the whole filesystem gets corrupted, RAID can't save it. If you check the ToS, providers never guarantee data safety. They’ll just give you a fresh blank server and move on. Always keep an offsite backup. Never trust a host with your only copy
Did you just imply that a respectful LET member can not go naked and enjoy the YOLO motto?
I know what you refer to, what they 'owe' you is just putting back service to working condition again.
Your lost or corrupted data is not their responsibility, it's your call to get daily backups
This damages the trust as in 'if this will happen again or not' with that provider.
But overall, if they just put service to working condition again their responsibilities would be done. Offering SLA or alternative location is just good will gesture.
Depends what they offer for it. I've no clue what the Hostsystem I'm on actually runs, I would suspect zfs but no clue. Certainly was a surprise and that's already a big crux. If they do not advertise like redundant replication, you're looking at keeping your backups yourself 100% of the time, cause hardware faults will just screw you. With something like a ceph cluster, I would start to dare storing without keeping backups.
Now, if you can just rely on s3, you can get somewhat of a piece of mind if you use garage for example for some geo distributed redundant setup, I would dare to trust that. I did try to break it and so far it handled it well.
Hi,
no of course not sir! I would never dare to give any disturbing advices to free people!
Everyone shall enjoy his freedom in choosing his favorite path down to hell
There is a german phrase: "Nur die Harten kommen in den Garten" it means something similar like "Only the toughest shall enter heaven"
Yeah, in those cases (esp on LET, but in general), it depends on how quickly you need it back up and running. Always have a contingency plan.
Also: some providers offer storage server that isn't even RAID-redundant. You need to read the fine print/offer sheet. Those that do, are pretty diligent in communication as they didn't expect a failure. Still, 1-2-3 backup plans are a must if it's important to you.
Easy, you just need another storage server to backup your storage server!