Google has a TAPE backup of all of Gmail

[moeloubani]

http://edition.cnn.com/2011/TECH/web...und/index.html

Google still stores e-mail data on tape.
Yes, tape. Like, essentially the technology behind the cassette. Google doesn't specify what kind of tape it's using exactly, but as Seth Weintraub notes on a blog on the CNN partner site Fortune.com, using tape is a mess.
Weintraub estimates Google would need 200,000 tapes to make a single backup of every Gmail account. "That is a stack of tapes four kilometers high to back up Gmail," he writes. "Ouch."
The blog Data Center Knowledge, however, says tape is still a worthy method of backing up data, even if it seems obsolete to outsiders:
"Even today, tape has two significant advantages over other media: cost and portability. Unfortunately, these two advantages outweigh the more significant (logically speaking) disadvantages of tape media: fragility, replacement rate, failure rate, vulnerability to theft, and unencrypted data storage."
Google puts it this way:
"To protect your information from these unusual bugs, we also back it up to tape. Since the tapes are offline, they're protected from such software bugs. But restoring data from them also takes longer than transferring your requests to another data center, which is why it's taken us hours to get the e-mail back instead of milliseconds."

Pretty crazy that they can backup everything on to tapes!!

[DangerX !!!]

Ok, but what if I delete my contact and emails? Does this mean that my shit is still there on the backup tape? WTF,
Mr. G claims in their privacy terms that when I delete the shit then it's deleted ...permanently. Now WTF is that?

[2MuchMark]

Tape is still really popular. The LHC has thousands of servers, the Grid, and all kinds of other super high-tech stuff, yet do all their backups on tape.

[Supz]

Although tapes are not the best method of doing backups in this day and age, most companies still do it. It has been part of most companies disaster recovery manual for many years. A lot of companies have been going away from it or using as a 2nd level of protection. If you look into things like SonicWALL Continuous Data Protection and Barracuda Networks Backup Server. This is what most people are looking into now. They do local disk to disk back-up, including data deduplication then it encyrpts the data and sends it over the network to there cloud data centers for off-site digital backup. It makes it extremely easy to restore data. Once they get these things working on VMDK files, it will sky rocket. Even though these are hot items right now as it is. They will also take these out of appliances soon and make it so you can purchase them as a virtrual machine file to use your own local storage.

With that said. As someone who helps build network infrastructures for medium to enterprise level businesses, I would be suprised if Google would have to ever use them. I do not know what happened with all the email accounts got deleted. But they have to have system replications and snapshots where they can just go back an hour or two and load the old email accounts. If not, shame on them. This is simple shit.

[jaYMan]

I had them for one of my first computers. They sounded like what model dial in's use to sound like. lol, man that was for EVER ago....


Back when I was recording "fart" tapes.

[RyuLion]

Of course. moving on..

[pamon]

can you imagine being google's tape guy..... how many servers x tapes = bang your head in frustration...

[d-null]

Originally Posted by DangerX !!!

Ok, but what if I delete my contact and emails? Does this mean that my shit is still there on the backup tape? WTF,
Mr. G claims in their privacy terms that when I delete the shit then it's deleted ...permanently. Now WTF is that?

I was thinking the same thing, what if 50 years from now you don't want your great grandkids to read all of your private email, is there any assurance this is deleted or will they think it is trivial to just let people search through everything with very powerful search algorithms and extremely fast computers in the future. will all this stuff eventually get out for "archeological" interest?

[leg4]

Nothing is ever deleted. I have Spoken

[xxweekxx]

none of your emails are ever deleted.. some guy i know very well deleted an account with all emails in there 3yrs ago.. then he got into some trouble and google sent all his emails/login ips/replies/etc to the ppl who requested it.. lets just say he wasnt too happy..

but no none of your emails are ever deleted.. heck even crap you delete on your drive can be retrieved by simple software.. unless u purposely use data protection services..

so many people download illegal crap, watch, delete, empty recyle bin, then get surprised when gov can retrieve it.lol

if u wanna delete data, bring the drive out, microwave it for 2mins, burn it, then drive 4-5hrs away, enter a forest, smack the drive, buy a box, put ocean water in the box, then put smashed drive inside box, then bury it..

[INever]

Every time you leave a voicemail on Google Voice....

[CYF]

Originally Posted by xxweekxx

if u wanna delete data, bring the drive out, microwave it for 2mins, burn it, then drive 4-5hrs away, enter a forest, smack the drive, buy a box, put ocean water in the box, then put smashed drive inside box, then bury it..

You don't put a metal hard disk in a microwave. Metal also doesn't burn easily.

You erase the drive, take it apart, sand or grind the platters and drill holes in the platters. Throw the platters away individually in different dumpsters.

[Inter-Sex]

I sent regulary my Backed-Up Hard Drives to J. Assange

[INever]

Originally Posted by Inter-Sex

I sent regulary my Backed-Up Hard Drives to J. Assange

[cooldude7]

many major companies uses tapes for backups , not a big deal.

[Davy]

Pretty crazy. Who knows, they could store the stuff indefinitely.

[DamianJ]

Originally Posted by d-null

I was thinking the same thing, what if 50 years from now you don't want your great grandkids to read all of your private email, is there any assurance this is deleted or will they think it is trivial to just let people search through everything with very powerful search algorithms and extremely fast computers in the future. will all this stuff eventually get out for "archeological" interest?

If you're worried about that, don't use a free email service.

Simple, really.

I don't understand when people bitch about something that is free. If you don't like it, pay for an alternative you have more control over.

[Chosen]

At least they DO backup the information...

[pornguy]

Tape is still used and will be for a while yet.

Nothing new. And if you think G did not keep copys of everything you are mistaken. they have it all and wont delete it.

[PromoterX]

What did you expect from a free e-mail service.... to use the most expensive option for backups?

[Antonio]

Originally Posted by moeloubani

Even today, tape has two significant advantages over other media: cost and portability

cost - you would have to hire a cat thief to steal tapes for you from the local museum and that's gonna cost you

portability - really? how many tapes do you need to store the data that you can store on a single DVD or (god forbid) a hard drive?

[seeandsee]

G fucked some people , but still...

[Due]

That's it, pulling links now

[Ravage]

Originally Posted by Antonio

portability - really? how many tapes do you need to store the data that you can store on a single DVD or (god forbid) a hard drive?

You got that backwards. How many DVDs would you need to store the data on a single Tape. You're obviously not versed well in tape storage sizes as tapes come in a wide variety of sizes, up to 1.6Tb compressed.

Tapes have been the most reliable and cost-effect backup option for years, nothing else has compared to it. You also have to take into consideration the size and amount of your backups. For Google, tapes make the most economical sense as there is no way they are going to double their storage servers for backing-up all this nor are they going to need the backups to "restore your emails" on request. In the long run, its cheaper and more reliable for G to backup to tape.

[CaptainHowdy]

That will be kinda embarrassing for so many people ...

[Puremeds-J]

tapes have been used forever