No, I'm pretty sure this has always been the case. Some early adopters lost data when it was on local volumes and not backed up, and everybody who paid attentio

No, I'm pretty sure this has always been the case. Some early adopters lost data when it was on local volumes and not backed up, and everybody who paid attention learned from the public post mortems. Separately, even hardware you own and operate is ephemeral. You never know when the disk, PSU, or cooling fan will kick the bucket and the host wedges one way or another. If you want the illusion of permanence, VMWare had a solution for you ... for a price you're not gonna like!