PBS loses 50TB of data; 70 years of TV history after cloud vendor defunct

Copy link Facebook X Whatsapp Reddit Pinterest Flipboard Email Nine PBS is afraid that it will lose over 70 years of archival materials and programming after its contracted cloud storage vendor has apparently gone out of business. According to Current, the channel used Open Source Storage, or OSS, for storing over 50TB of data — but it suddenly lost access to its data earlier this year. Nine PBS has been working with OSS and its predecessor since 2019 and intended to renew its contract on March 6 of this year. The company never responded and abruptly cut off the station’s data access even though it still had 30 days to retrieve its data after the contract ended. The station dug a little bit deeper when it discovered that the OSS website no longer existed and was listed as delinquent under the Colorado Secretary of State. It also discovered that OSS utilized Iron Mountain’s services, so it sent a demand letter to the latter to preserve its data and to "pay any reasonable costs associated with its demand." At the time, Iron Mountain did not confirm or deny that it possessed Nine PBS’ data. AI data centers are swallowing the world's memory and storage supply The future of DRAM: From DDR5 to future ICs High-bandwidth memory roadmap Here's why HBM is coming for your PC's RAM At the same time, the channel also sued OSS and its leadership, which it paused after someone who claimed to be a "managing partner of the group that officially acquired" the company reached out. The person, named James Tramel, initially communicated with Nine PBS for about a month. However, this also ended abruptly, with the channel eventually receiving an automated reply from Tramel stating he is no longer connected with OSS. The channel was able to get in touch with him, and he said that he had "been defrauded" into acquiring the cloud storage company and that ownership and operations have now reverted to the previous owners. This left the channel at a loss, so it continued its case against OSS, and the court ruled that Nine PBS had all the rights to access its data stored with OSS and that the latter should "facilitate its transfer to a new vendor." The channel’s attorney also reached out to Iron Mountain to inform the company of the pending case in Colorado; Iron Mountain finally admitted to holding the data. Iron Mountain initially agreed to turn over Nine PBS’ data, but it eventually backtracked and claimed that OSS owned the data it stored. Because of this, Nine PBS now has no choice but to sue Iron Mountain, too, to ensure the data is not deleted. The entire thing is a nightmare scenario for Nine PBS, especially as it’s still unclear what will happen to its data. The channel can only assume that its former cloud storage provider is no longer paying data center bills, so it’s rightfully concerned that its data might end up lost forever. And even if Iron Mountain is willing to give Nine PBS its data, it risks getting sued by OSS — it is simply protecting itself by refusing to turn over the said stored data. It seems that the safest legal way to resolve this issue is for Nine PBS to get a court order requiring Iron Mountain to turn over its data. But the channel must act quickly to ensure that its data, which Nine PBS VP and CCO Leah Freeman said to Current represented "70 years of our organization’s history," stays safe. It's not clear if the channel has backups of its data, but based on its determination, we suspect not. This is strange, though, especially for a major organization, as one can easily purchase a six-bay NAS on Amazon and populate it with the best HDDs. This also goes against the 3-2-1 backup rule, which says you should keep three copies of your files stored in two different mediums, with one of them running offsite. Hopefully Nine PBS will implement a better backup system once it regains access to its data. And at least there's still a chance — it's not like the fire that the South Korean government experienced last year, which saw 858TB of data go up in smoke. Get Tom's Hardware's best news and in-depth reviews, straight to your inbox. Follow Tom's Hardware on Google News, or add us as a preferred source, to get our latest news, analysis, & reviews in your feeds. Jowi Morales is a tech enthusiast with years of experience working in the industry. He’s been writing with several tech publications since 2021, where he’s been interested in tech hardware and consumer electronics. If you don’t own the storage you don’t own the data. Reply If it is 'in the cloud' it is just vapor when you get right down to it. Reply probably didn't Due Diligence with the contract Reply "What, me worry?? Ha! My data is safe and happy in the Cloud. The joke is on you for buying hard drives and such!!" Reply If after 70 years it never occurred to them that hosting your own data is safer and cheaper than paying big money every month for cloud storage, then they deserved this. Reply rgd1101 said: probably didn't Due Diligence with the contract Even if the contract was iron-clad, it's not going to be of much help if the company just goes under with no advanced notice, and stops responding. Sure, they may be able to sue to recover some costs, but by that time the data could be gone. OSS's website may be gone, but a LinkedIn page still exists: Open Source Storage (OSS) empowers businesses with high-capacity, open-source storage solutions designed for archiving, managing, and retrieving large volumes of content, offering flexible deployment options and centralized control. OSS provides a comprehensive suite of products: 1. Vault Systems: Storage servers & tape libraries for on-premises deployments. 2. Vault Manager: Digital archive management platform for streamlined workflows. 3. Vault Cloud: Flexible cloud storage for scalable and accessible solutions. 4. Vault AI: Intelligent media management powered by artificial intelligence. lt sounds like this station went with option 3, probably an up sale from a previous on-site solution. I don't know who convinced them on-site was no longer necessary, but the cloud should be redundancy, not the only copy. As for Iron Mountain, they have a solid reputation, but primarily for storage of physical media. I'm going to guess OSS was sending tape backups of their cloud data there. In that case, I can see Iron Mountain's predicament, since while the data on the tapes may be this PBS Channel's , the tapes themselves are OSS's property, and Iron Mountain likely isn't authorized to do anything with the tapes directly, just store them. I do wonder if the best option is to run a crowdfund campaign for the PBS station to just buy OSS. It's really going to depend how much debt and liability there is there. Finally, I'm surprised it's only 50TB of data for 70 years of data, especially if any of it is video. I'm storing only a fraction of the video I think a PBS station would generate, over a fraction of that time, and I still have about 25TB of data. Reply rgd1101 said: probably didn't Due Diligence with the contract Open Source Storage (OSS) empowers businesses with high-capacity, open-source storage solutions designed for archiving, managing, and retrieving large volumes of content, offering flexible deployment options and centralized control. OSS provides a comprehensive suite of products: 1. Vault Systems: Storage servers & tape libraries for on-premises deployments. 2. Vault Manager: Digital archive management platform for streamlined workflows. 3. Vault Cloud: Flexible cloud storage for scalable and accessible solutions. 4. Vault AI: Intelligent media management powered by artificial intelligence. 70 YEARS of data and they didn't even notice their cloud provider had gone out of business? Lol! Not sorry for them. Must be a top-notch IT organization! Reply Buzdalys said: If after 70 years it never occurred to them that hosting your own data is safer and cheaper than paying big money every month for cloud storage, then they deserved this. It's not safer. A fire, multiple drive failure, someone accidentally or purposely hitting delete, software bug, electrical surge, theft, etc and your data's gone. Better to have at least one on-site and one cloud copy, although 3-2-1 is best. Reply Buzdalys said: If after 70 years it never occurred to them that hosting your own data is safer and cheaper than paying big money every month for cloud storage, then they deserved this. Should have had a local copy or two AND used a more reputable cloud provider like Google, Microsoft, or Amazon. Reply View All 9 Comments