Corrupted Backups, SQL Database is Two Months Old

Hello,

I'm on the CYAN server and my one of my clients checked their collaboration forum (phpBB being used as a collaborative work environment) this morning and found out that all messages since mid-july were not there and that messages they had filed since then were back in the forum.

Naturally I checked with the Tech folks and they responded by saying:

I do keep the website files backed up locally but the SQL databse changes too regularly to keep updating them. Add to that the comfort factor - namely that my files were on a mirrored RAID disk as well as being backed up nightly.

Question: is it possible that a drive died and the techs are unable to recover the data but it still exists elsewhere? (NB: I don't care about anything but the SQL database.)

Comment: if you have modified your site(s) on the Cyan server since mid-June you may want to confirm that they're still up-to-date. If you have a discussion forum (or anything requiring a database) you may want to double-check that the info is still current.

Thanks,
Graham

I'm in the same boat. I don't back up my PHPbb database, except maybe once a week, for the same reason.

I was under the impression that when they said "automatic daily backups" that would include the DB AND that they would keep those in a secure location instead of ON THE SAME SERVER!!!

What good does it do to put backups on the same server!!! As they are finding out now that when the server goes down the backup is lost too... resulting in the same thing as not having a backup!!!!!

I'm pissed, my customers are pissed... and still no response from tech support or Rob.

I'm done. I'm looking for a new host.

Hi guys 100% agreement on this backup situation.

It was pointed out when raid went in that it would not prevent a corrupted file being mirrored.

Rob countered that with an incremental offsite backup to be run daily.

So where is it, if its offsite it cant be corrupted by the same hardware failure
and please don't tell me they just overwrite the backup each night as that would also duplicate corruption as an incremental change

Hello,

Tech responded with the following last night:

The forum is not updated - I'm trying to get the titles of a message or two that would have been created (or moved/deleted) a week ago to make sure it's working properly.

Apparently the tech guys just checked that the forum was working properly, not that there were any postings over the past month.

Graham

Has anyone heard anything from Rob on this?

I've sent emails to the addresses listed in the contact page, but I get absolutely nothing back.

I would like to hear directly from Rob as to how he is handling this situation and how it will be prevented in the future.

It seems to me that advertising "automatic daily backups" could be concidered false advertising when your backups are stored on the same system as what they are backing up and do no good at all. In effect you have no backup system. I know I'm not the only one who foolishly relied on that "backup system" and I would like to hear something (anything!) regarding what is being done. I am seriously shopping for a new host and if Rob continues to be silent then I will be forced to move to a more reliable/responsible company.

I've never had a reply from Rob since the day I requested a refund for Feb March under his advertised uptime agreement.

Anyhow here is the last reply from tech guys regarding backups.

Note I've lost all new hosting accounts added since the 15th (i.e. no backup or recreation data exists on the system to even put the domain back on the server)

Hello,

We have been working with a mirroring RAID setup and Remote FTP backup. But some data from both the hard disk has been lost. There was FTP backups available for most of the accounts. But some of the accounts we can not find any backups. We have restored all the accounts having the backups.

Now we have added a second hard drive in the server itself and configured the back in such a way that there will be always three types of backups (daily, Weekly and monthly) available for all the accounts.

If you are still found any of the missing accounts, you will have to recreate the accounts.

Regards,

Ok so now we have another drive on the server, backing up the backups. Am I missing something !
Does anyone ever check the integrity of the backups
What happened to our incremental backup system, this should enable an incremental restore upto the day before the crash.

Final point my end, a large number of my clients are locked out, just as we were. so if your not already seeing it, expect a few calls asking for cpanel access and in some cases email

Does Rob read this now or is it just those of us with external links to the forum that can still get in ?