Recently Google was down due to server errors and it was one of the biggest topics across the social media spectrum. Within a matter of minutes the “#gmail” hashtag was a trending topic on Twitter and two days later there were 547 ReTweets and 1,209 Diggs via Mashable.com alone.
Nearly two hours after the initial situation started, service resumed and Google responded with a blog post stating exactly what happened:
“This morning we took a small fraction of Gmail’s servers offline to perform routine upgrades…we had slightly underestimated the load… a few of the request routers became overloaded and in effect told the rest of the system ‘stop sending us traffic, we’re too slow!’. This transferred the load onto the remaining request routers, causing a few more of them to also become overloaded, and within minutes nearly all of the request routers were overloaded. As a result, people couldn’t access Gmail via the web interface…The Gmail engineering team was alerted to the failures within seconds. After establishing that the core problem was insufficient available capacity, the team brought a LOT of additional request routers online, distributed the traffic across the request routers, and the Gmail web interface came back online.”
After this incident occurred, I realized, if Google were to crash, I would lose a lot of important information. I am one of the many people that take advantage of the convenience of Google’s auto-save! I like that it automatically stores contacts from my e-mail. I never have to delete emails, which means I can save time and space by simply leaving it all within my Google email. However, the recent server error made me think… “Should I have all my eggs in this one basket?”
With many options available for email like Outlook, Yahoo, etc. is it unreasonable to compile most, if not all, your information into a single organized account? No, but it isn’t the safest thing either.
The reality is a “100% safe online storage system” is almost non-existent. The only sure way to eliminate data loss is to save all of your information on your hard drive and to backup to 2-3 or more online backup systems like Mozy and Carbonite.
This is what I have decided to do … create multiple storage systems, basically storing all my information in a few places at the same time, (i.e. Yahoo, Outlook, Gmail and other personal/business accounts). Sure, I could lug around an external hard -drive in case my computer crashes or Google is hacked and destroyed by a rival or disgruntled employee, but that defeats the purpose of a convenient online storage system like my Gmail account.
It seems that the only way to avoid putting all your eggs in one basket is to place them in multiple baskets that may or may not break and destroy your eggs. Nothing is for sure in life and we have no choice but to prepare for the worse and hope for the best!
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2 Comments
I recently came across your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I don’t know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.
-Margaret
Thank you Margaret! I appreciate the support!