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UPDATED Google Drive users are reporting files mysteriously disappearing from the service, with some netizens on the goliath's support forums claiming six or more months of work have unceremoniously vanished.

The issue has been rumbling for a few days, with one user logging into Google Drive and finding things as they were in May 2023.

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[-] lwuy9v5@lemmy.world 244 points 11 months ago

Ha. Amateurs. I disappeared YEARS of my files by self-hosting.

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[-] _number8_@lemmy.world 76 points 11 months ago

i distinctly remember 10 years ago being so excited about the cloud stuff, it seemed so futuristic, tech had so many wonderful potentials, having it autosave and automatically be accessible anywhere seemed so amazing....

then the enshittification started. i would never dream of letting google or apple touch my files, let alone be the sole backup and arbiter of them. nothing gold can stay...

[-] BassaForte@lemmy.world 15 points 11 months ago

I too, distinctly remember being excited about butt stuff.

[-] elbarto777@lemmy.world 5 points 11 months ago

I see what you did there.

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[-] Salamendacious@lemmy.world 5 points 11 months ago

Do you not have anything in the cloud or do you use another service? I was using carbonite but I gave them up years ago.

[-] d3lta19@lemmy.ca 16 points 11 months ago

I have a local backup of everything in my NAS and then I create a nighty backup to backblaze B2. Costs like 1-2$ a month for 400ish GB. Never rely on one solution.

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[-] grimacefry@aussie.zone 26 points 11 months ago

I've used MEGA for about 6 years now, previously Dropbox. I switched after Dropbox lost over 2TB of my data.

MEGA hasn't lost my data but something glitched on their side and duplicated every file, and with the amount of data I had in there it wasn't feasible to manually fix. So I had to delete everything and start again.

I have all my cloud data stored on a NAS at home, that is backed up to a second NAS decice, a MEGA sync client running on home server keeps it all in sync to the cloud. I selectively sync folders from MEGA on different devices, or access files directly from the MEGA app when remote, or work with the local copy of my data when connected to home LAN. At least MEGA works cross platform, and MEGAcmd for Linux allows easy scripting and other automation possibilities.

All commercial cloud storage has one major problem, your files are hostage to their increasing subscription fees (which will always increase because capitalism). e.g. I was paying $60 a year with Dropbox, if I were still using it, it would be $140 a year now - and I'd have no choice but to keep paying.

[-] rengoku@social.venith.net 5 points 11 months ago

I switched after Dropbox lost over 2TB of my data.

How? Randomly gone? Hard to believe that.

[-] CmdrShepard@lemmy.one 9 points 11 months ago

I mean the OP is talking about the same thing happening with Google so what makes it so hard to believe?

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[-] GonzoVeritas@lemmy.world 23 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Google is fine for most people, but it shouldn't be the sole backup. If you don't have (at least) 3 separate instances of a backup, you don't really have a reliable backup strategy. Preferably an onsite hard backup, an offsite hard backup, and a cloud backup.

[-] Salamendacious@lemmy.world 13 points 11 months ago

I know quite a few tech oriented people and I don't know anyone who actually has the holy trinity of backups. I know quite a few who have physical backups at home and cloud though.

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[-] theherk@lemmy.world 5 points 11 months ago

Considering data durability for some data services are providing 11 9’s, just two of those leads to extremely high durability. So to say that is unreliable is just not reasonable. I have no problem with being risk averse but that is a bit extreme.

[-] archchan@lemmy.ml 17 points 11 months ago

Self-hosting my files with Nextcloud and couldn't be happier

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[-] otter@lemmy.ca 17 points 11 months ago

What do people use to have backups of their google drive content?

[-] MrOxiMoron@lemmy.world 9 points 11 months ago
[-] RobotToaster@mander.xyz 16 points 11 months ago

Unfortunately I've read reports it's actively syncing deletions to devices.

[-] qwertyqwertyqwerty@lemmy.one 11 points 11 months ago

Huh. A google service that keeps working, even after it's supposed to. That's new.

[-] Extrasvhx9he@lemmy.today 5 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

I use an external hard drive for all of my cloud backups

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[-] Burn_The_Right@lemmy.world 17 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

I switched to Sync because Google Drive reports that all my files are synced when they are not. There is no way to correct it or force Drive to upload the missing files and there's no way to know when it is lying. I had to constantly check manually, which was a pain in the ass. They lied constantly.

Sync.com has been excellent. They are cheaper, easier to use and do everything Google Drive did, including sharing folders for uploads and downloads with non-subscribers (which even Dropbox can't do). Oh, and they don't fucking lie. Fuck Google.

[-] krigo666@lemmy.world 16 points 11 months ago

Have you read the Terms of Service of Google Drive for regular users?? You will give Google irrevocable and total rights on everything that is placed there for them to use as they see fit. It bewilders me how people still use that 'service'...

[-] kae@lemmy.ca 40 points 11 months ago

Citation needed?

Google explicitly stated the exact opposite of what you've said here: Google Drive Terms of Service

[-] Newstart@lemmy.world 10 points 11 months ago

Best call out in history lol

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[-] stolid_agnostic@lemmy.ml 15 points 11 months ago

I've been migrating away from Google, little by little. Drive is my next step, I think.

[-] radioactiveradio@lemm.ee 12 points 11 months ago

Imagine losing your beloved dog's last photos just cuz you decided to back them up onto someone else's computer.

[-] HawlSera@lemm.ee 10 points 11 months ago

Glad I took all my stuff out of Google Drive

[-] autotldr@lemmings.world 6 points 11 months ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:


Google Drive users are reporting files mysteriously disappearing from the service, with some posters on the company's support forums claiming six or more months of work have unceremoniously vanished.

There is little information regarding what has happened; some users reported that synchronization had simply stopped working, so the cloud storage was out of date.

Others could get some of their information back by fiddling with cached files, although the limited advice on offer for the affected was to leave things well alone until engineers come up with a solution.

A message purporting to be from Google support also advised not to make changes to the root/data folder while engineers investigat the issue.

European cloud hosting provider OVH suffered a disastrous fire in 2021 that left some customers scrambling for backups and disaster recovery plans.

Earlier in 2023, the company's europe-west9 region took a shower after water made its presence felt inside a Parisian Google Cloud datacenter.


The original article contains 342 words, the summary contains 156 words. Saved 54%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

[-] cholesterol@lemmy.world 5 points 11 months ago
[-] kamenlady@lemmy.world 8 points 11 months ago

Yes? We're here and listening.

[-] BaardFigur@lemmy.world 5 points 11 months ago

I just exported all my data from it a few months ago. Looks like I made a wise decision

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this post was submitted on 27 Nov 2023
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