With so much of our personal and professional lives stored in the cloud, it’s easy to forget how sensitive these infrastructures can be. I appreciate the convenience of accessing critical files anytime, anywhere, but I make it a point to back up important data on physical media stored safely away from the cloud.
A recent disaster at a data center has underscored the importance of such backups.
The G-Drive system, utilized by 125,000 South Korean government officials, faced a severe setback when its data center caught fire, leading to the loss of 858 TB of essential data—no backups were in place. According to The Chosun Daily, this cloud service is managed by the National Information Resources Service (NIRS) in Daejeon.
Reports indicate that it was not feasible to store backups given the massive size of the G-Drive system. This situation worsened as the Ministry of the Interior and Safety previously instructed government employees to keep all files in the G-Drive cloud rather than on their local PCs.
The fire broke out on September 26 and affected 647 systems, fully destroying 96 hosted by NIRS. The unique challenges of the G-Drive system mean it cannot be recovered from backups. A source within the Ministry of Personnel Management expressed the dire situation: “It’s daunting, as eight years’ worth of work materials have completely disappeared.”
Days following the incident, roughly 10% of affected systems were restored, causing considerable disruption. For example, the ‘National Happiness Card,’ which is used for paying childcare fees, temporarily became non-functional. Thankfully, other vital public systems remained operational, as their hardware was located on a different floor within the NIRS.
This incident serves as a stark reminder of the vulnerability inherent in cloud data services where physical hardware remains a crucial component, capable of failure. It highlights the need for robust backup solutions, whether for government agencies or everyday users concerned about data resilience.
When the best external hard drives and best SSDs for gaming are now more affordable than ever, there is little excuse not to have backups in multiple locations. When was the last time you backed up your data, and was it stored in more than one place?
