South Korean government learns it needs a backup the hard way - embarassing fail sees fire destroy over 850TB of data

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A fire destroyed over 850TB of data - with no backup

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  • A battery fire has destroyed storage hardware in South Korea
  • The issue has brought the South Korean government to a grinding halt
  • Over 850TB of information has been lost forever

A fire at the National Information Resources Service (NIRS) data center in Daejeon, South Korea, has perfectly illustrated why we emphasize such importance on backup services. Reports suggest the incident was the result of a battery fire, and it destroyed over 858TB of data - which is now permanently lost.

In the fire, 384 battery packs were burnt, which took down 96 government systems. Whilst this is obviously still a huge loss, 95 of these had backups - but the G-drive system (government drive), used primarily by the Ministry of Personnel Management, did not.

This is exactly why we talk (probably too much) about how important it is to have the best cloud backup to look after your data. The best advice we can offer is to use the 3-2-1 rule - which means three copies, on two media types (cloud and hardware, for example), with one kept offsite.

Total loss

Whilst there is data recovery software available, coming back from a loss of this scale is unlikely to be easy. Each worker was allocated 30GB of space on the drive - which, incredibly, wasn’t backed up due to its large capacity.

The most recent data suggests only 115 of 647 networks have been restored, making the recovery rate only 18% so far. It’s expected that recovery will take up to a month.

Government email, websites, and the national 119 were taken down due to the fire, and reports estimate that 8 years worth of data was lost, and around 17% of central government officials are impacted.

The departments that rely on G-drive have been significantly impacted following the incident. A source from the Ministry of Personnel Management confirmed;

“Employees stored all work materials on the G-Drive and used them as needed, but operations are now practically at a standstill.”

Via DCD

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Ellen Jennings-Trace
Ellen Jennings-Trace
Staff Writer

Ellen has been writing for almost four years, with a focus on post-COVID policy whilst studying for BA Politics and International Relations at the University of Cardiff, followed by an MA in Political Communication. Before joining TechRadar Pro as a Junior Writer, she worked for Future Publishing’s MVC content team, working with merchants and retailers to upload content.

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