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Using OVH for backups is a crazy choice. They had a datacenter burn down (in large part because it was fully built using wood) and lost all customer data and d

Using OVH for backups is a crazy choice. They had a datacenter burn down (in large part because it was fully built using wood) and lost all customer data and did not take any action for 6 months after the incident. They're just not a serious company.

sdoering 5mo ago
Any source for this? Would love to read up on this.
- dijit 5mo ago
  https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/opinions/ovhclouds-data-center-fire-one-year-on-what-do-we-know/ https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/opinions/ovhclouds-dat... Wooden floors contributed to the fire, they were fire resistant but that only lasts so long. Fire-doors are often the same type of wood.
  - sdoering 5mo ago
    Thanks a ton. Much appreciated. I am looking for German/EU options so this is highly relevant.
- deleted 5mo ago
  [deleted]
- riffraff 5mo ago
  this was 5 years ago. There were many threads on it on HN that may be of interest to you https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=ovh%20fire&sort=byPopularity&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
  - sdoering 5mo ago
    Thanks a ton. Greatly appreciated. I am currently evaluation options. So this is relevant to me.
- hohithere 5mo ago
  This is in baguette but with many pictures: https://lafibre.info/ovh-datacenter/incendie-sur-un-site-ovh-a-strasbourg/ https://lafibre.info/ovh-datacenter/incendie-sur-un-site-ovh...
pcmoore 5mo ago
I've been dabbling with OVH and it feels very pricey and fragile. Has a very lipstick on a pig approach to whatever they used to be doing before piling into cloud.
louiskottmann 5mo ago
This is borderline adversarial propaganda. While the incident did happen, a lot of actions were taken and most of the data was recovered. OVH now also keeps backups even for clients that don't pay for it. I was hit by that datacenter catastrophe and got my data back almost immediately, in a new VM. I've been using them for years with little issue (no more than happened on my AWS or Azure accounts, I would say less because it's less of a mess in general). Stop spreading false rumors.
- mystifyingpoi 5mo ago
  I was hit by the fire outage too, and the response was... mixed. I was able to start a new VPS in different region the same day and reconfigure everything, but data on the old instance has been lost. They also kept double-billing me for 3 months without me realizing, support had to step in to delete the instance that wasn't showing in admin panel, but kept generating costs. No refund suggested. I ignored it, since it was like $15 overcharge. Also months later the "deleted" instance reappeared and I had to kill it again. Strange stuff. Aside of that exceptional case - overall they are pretty great and cheap.
- iLoveOncall 5mo ago
  > most of the data was recovered I had a VPS there and all the data was lost. I'd like to see any proof that data was recovered, because that's simply not true.
svetlins 5mo ago
It's important to distinguish between a backup strategy and a backup location. A real backup strategy would involve multiple locations (3-2-1 etc)
gucci-on-fleek 5mo ago
It's fine to have an unstable backup system, as long as any failures in your backups are uncorrelated with failures in your primary system. And a random datacentre burning down probably isn't correlated with anything else, unless you're foolish enough to host your primary and backup copies in the same building. All else equal, a more stable backup is of course better, but any backup is better than no backups, so choosing the cheapest possible option is often the best strategy since that's the one that you're the most likely to keep using long-term.

sdoering 5mo ago

Any source for this? Would love to read up on this.

dijit 5mo ago
https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/opinions/ovhclouds-data-center-fire-one-year-on-what-do-we-know/ https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/opinions/ovhclouds-dat... Wooden floors contributed to the fire, they were fire resistant but that only lasts so long. Fire-doors are often the same type of wood.
- sdoering 5mo ago
  Thanks a ton. Much appreciated. I am looking for German/EU options so this is highly relevant.
deleted 5mo ago
[deleted]
riffraff 5mo ago
this was 5 years ago. There were many threads on it on HN that may be of interest to you https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=ovh%20fire&sort=byPopularity&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
- sdoering 5mo ago
  Thanks a ton. Greatly appreciated. I am currently evaluation options. So this is relevant to me.
hohithere 5mo ago
This is in baguette but with many pictures: https://lafibre.info/ovh-datacenter/incendie-sur-un-site-ovh-a-strasbourg/ https://lafibre.info/ovh-datacenter/incendie-sur-un-site-ovh...

pcmoore 5mo ago

I've been dabbling with OVH and it feels very pricey and fragile. Has a very lipstick on a pig approach to whatever they used to be doing before piling into cloud.

louiskottmann 5mo ago

This is borderline adversarial propaganda. While the incident did happen, a lot of actions were taken and most of the data was recovered. OVH now also keeps backups even for clients that don't pay for it. I was hit by that datacenter catastrophe and got my data back almost immediately, in a new VM. I've been using them for years with little issue (no more than happened on my AWS or Azure accounts, I would say less because it's less of a mess in general). Stop spreading false rumors.

mystifyingpoi 5mo ago
I was hit by the fire outage too, and the response was... mixed. I was able to start a new VPS in different region the same day and reconfigure everything, but data on the old instance has been lost. They also kept double-billing me for 3 months without me realizing, support had to step in to delete the instance that wasn't showing in admin panel, but kept generating costs. No refund suggested. I ignored it, since it was like $15 overcharge. Also months later the "deleted" instance reappeared and I had to kill it again. Strange stuff. Aside of that exceptional case - overall they are pretty great and cheap.
iLoveOncall 5mo ago
> most of the data was recovered I had a VPS there and all the data was lost. I'd like to see any proof that data was recovered, because that's simply not true.

svetlins 5mo ago

It's important to distinguish between a backup strategy and a backup location. A real backup strategy would involve multiple locations (3-2-1 etc)

gucci-on-fleek 5mo ago

It's fine to have an unstable backup system, as long as any failures in your backups are uncorrelated with failures in your primary system. And a random datacentre burning down probably isn't correlated with anything else, unless you're foolish enough to host your primary and backup copies in the same building. All else equal, a more stable backup is of course better, but any backup is better than no backups, so choosing the cheapest possible option is often the best strategy since that's the one that you're the most likely to keep using long-term.