UPDATED Google Drive users are reporting files mysteriously disappearing from the service, with some netizens on the goliath’s support forums claiming six or more months of work have unceremoniously vanished.

The issue has been rumbling for a few days, with one user logging into Google Drive and finding things as they were in May 2023.

  • grimacefry@aussie.zone
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    10 months ago

    I’ve used MEGA for about 6 years now, previously Dropbox. I switched after Dropbox lost over 2TB of my data.

    MEGA hasn’t lost my data but something glitched on their side and duplicated every file, and with the amount of data I had in there it wasn’t feasible to manually fix. So I had to delete everything and start again.

    I have all my cloud data stored on a NAS at home, that is backed up to a second NAS decice, a MEGA sync client running on home server keeps it all in sync to the cloud. I selectively sync folders from MEGA on different devices, or access files directly from the MEGA app when remote, or work with the local copy of my data when connected to home LAN. At least MEGA works cross platform, and MEGAcmd for Linux allows easy scripting and other automation possibilities.

    All commercial cloud storage has one major problem, your files are hostage to their increasing subscription fees (which will always increase because capitalism). e.g. I was paying $60 a year with Dropbox, if I were still using it, it would be $140 a year now - and I’d have no choice but to keep paying.

    • rengoku@social.venith.net
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      10 months ago

      I switched after Dropbox lost over 2TB of my data.

      How? Randomly gone? Hard to believe that.

      • CmdrShepard@lemmy.one
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        10 months ago

        I mean the OP is talking about the same thing happening with Google so what makes it so hard to believe?

      • Burn_The_Right@lemmy.world
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        10 months ago

        It’s not hard to believe. My experience with Dropbox was fucking terrible. The company engages in bait and switch sales tactics, so there is really no reason to trust the technical portion of their service to be reliable.

      • grimacefry@aussie.zone
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        10 months ago

        This was in 2016. I accepted an invite to join a Dropbox Business account from my employer. This was linked to my personal account. It was early days for this at Dropbox, and there was a bug. When the accounts got linked it completely wiped my personal account.

    • grayman@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      Increasing subscription fees

      What are you talking about? The amount of storage you get increases at a higher rate than the cost. That’s what people generally require… But anyway, you sound fairly technical. Why aren’t you using S3? I’ve got hundreds of gigs backed up and it’s like $10/mo.

      • grimacefry@aussie.zone
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        10 months ago

        I looked at S3 but I wanted easy consumer functionality like link sharing, web apps, mobile apps, desktop apps, photo management. I’m technical but I haven’t got endless time to play around with stuff I am in my 40s. I now have over 12TB of personal data (files spanning back to the 1980s).

  • FiveMacs@lemmy.ca
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    10 months ago

    Perfect example of why letting some company that doesn’t give two shits about you, hold your important documents or whatever is a stupid idea…cloud storage is inherently bad and no company can be trusted more then storing your own data at home on a secure drive or two.

    • kpw@kbin.social
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      10 months ago

      I don’t use any any Google services for good reasons, but I wouldn’t trust myself more not to lose my data than Google.

    • designatedhacker@lemm.ee
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      10 months ago

      You need an encrypted cloud copy. 3-2-1 backup with duply to wasabi (AWS bucket-like). Otherwise you’re hosed if you have a fire/tornado/theft/etc.

    • LemmyIsFantastic@lemmy.world
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      10 months ago

      Lololol every neckbeard nerd a few minutes before they lose years of family pictures.

      I definitely wouldn’t have ever lost that data 🤣🤦‍♂️

  • Burn_The_Right@lemmy.world
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    10 months ago

    I switched to Sync because Google Drive reports that all my files are synced when they are not. There is no way to correct it or force Drive to upload the missing files and there’s no way to know when it is lying. I had to constantly check manually, which was a pain in the ass. They lied constantly.

    Sync.com has been excellent. They are cheaper, easier to use and do everything Google Drive did, including sharing folders for uploads and downloads with non-subscribers (which even Dropbox can’t do). Oh, and they don’t fucking lie. Fuck Google.

  • archchan@lemmy.ml
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    10 months ago

    Self-hosting my files with Nextcloud and couldn’t be happier

  • Radioactive Radio@lemm.ee
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    10 months ago

    Imagine losing your beloved dog’s last photos just cuz you decided to back them up onto someone else’s computer.

  • Otter@lemmy.ca
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    10 months ago

    What do people use to have backups of their google drive content?

      • Otter@lemmy.ca
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        10 months ago

        Do you have it plugged in all the time or do you periodically do a full transfer?

        • Extras@lemmy.today
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          10 months ago

          I do weekly backups. However, if I modify or add something really important I create a backup right at that time

          • Otter@lemmy.ca
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            10 months ago

            Makes sense, I’ll have to start doing that.

            One more question out of curiosity, how do you store the drive after?

            I was thinking of getting a proper fireproof safe someday, but that might make it so I get lazy with the backups

            • Extras@lemmy.today
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              10 months ago

              Hehe thats what I do. I keep mine in a fireproof box inside a bolted down safe.

      • Icedrous@sh.itjust.works
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        10 months ago

        Dumb question,

        If you have an external hard drive for your cloud backup data, why use a cloud service?

        • Neato@kbin.social
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          10 months ago

          Accessible from anywhere and any device. Non-local backups in case of a fire at your house and such.

    • Getting6409@lemm.ee
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      10 months ago

      Backblaze B2, which I’m pretty sure is a repackaged S3 provider, or you can just skip them and go directly to AWS S3; though, both aren’t drag and drop user friendly like onedrive or gdrive. But both work well if you invest a little time with something like rclone.

  • AutoTL;DR@lemmings.worldB
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    10 months ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:


    Google Drive users are reporting files mysteriously disappearing from the service, with some posters on the company’s support forums claiming six or more months of work have unceremoniously vanished.

    There is little information regarding what has happened; some users reported that synchronization had simply stopped working, so the cloud storage was out of date.

    Others could get some of their information back by fiddling with cached files, although the limited advice on offer for the affected was to leave things well alone until engineers come up with a solution.

    A message purporting to be from Google support also advised not to make changes to the root/data folder while engineers investigat the issue.

    European cloud hosting provider OVH suffered a disastrous fire in 2021 that left some customers scrambling for backups and disaster recovery plans.

    Earlier in 2023, the company’s europe-west9 region took a shower after water made its presence felt inside a Parisian Google Cloud datacenter.


    The original article contains 342 words, the summary contains 156 words. Saved 54%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!