Posted: 12th Jul, 2006 By: MarkJ
Some 700GB's (GigaBytes) of customer e-mails have been accidentally deleted by PlusNet following an attempted storage update, which also left 140,000 users unable to send and receive new messages:
A key stage of implementing a new storage solution was set to go ahead at 8AM on Sunday. An engineer was in the process of bringing the new back-up storage server online, which meant wiping the disks.
An explanatory email from PlusNet told punters: "At the time of making this change the engineer had two management console sessions open one to the backup storage system and one to live storage. These both have the same interface, and until Friday it was impossible to open more than one connection to any part of the storage system at once."
"The patches we installed on Friday evening removed this limitation, but unaware of this, the engineer made an incorrect presumption that the window he was working in was the back-up rather than the live server. Subsequently the command to reconfigure the disk pack and remove all data therein was made to the wrong server."The Register reports that
Plusnet has brought in data recovery experts to help in their efforts, although users will not know whether the information can be recovered until Friday.
PlusNet's e-mail platform hasn't had the best couple of months, having also suffered from other problems over the past few weeks.