Wednesday, August 8, 2007

Your files are coming back

Your files are coming back. John Hood of Mediamax has just posted this comment on the entry asking how long the missing files will take to process.

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We usually do about 800GB a day in uploads when everything is running smoothly. We're obviously not back to that level yet, but are running at a few hundred GB per day.We are about a third of the way through restoring access to files. I don't have a timeline for you beyond what Steve has already stated. We have more than a petabyte of files to sift through. What I can say is that 99.9998% of the files that we have tried to restore access to have been successful. We're working with our vendor to speed up the process.
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A petabyte is 10 to the power 15. So at 10 terabytes (10 to power 12) per day, as Steve stated, we are looking at 100 days to completion. If it has taken this long since 15 June to get through a third, that sounds about right I guess.

So now we know.

If someone wants, you could calculate the volume that is not expected to be recoverable.

20 comments:

Anonymous said...

http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/08/07/nirvanix-to-challenge-amazon-s3/

What a joke. You'd have to be nuts to invest in anything mediamax are associated with. It'll end in tears for sure. They are not an ethical company. When the crunch comes they will just split with your money.

Luzo Orbit said...

Okay, so 800 GBytes when things are running smoothly. A few hundred at present. So maybe a 30% chance of success your file will be uploaded. Maybe higher as presumably a lot of people have given up even trying to upload at present.

I tried uploading yesterday. On third attempt it said I had. But the file is nowhere to be seen even today.

What was the last word on the oh so useful official blog on this topic? (5 August):

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We've still got some tweaking to do, but upload volume remains high. We realize that some uploads are still not completing and are working on a solution. We are also still working on access to some user files. Much progress has been made in this area over the last week.
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Doesn't quite admit to a possible 70% upload failure rate and a petabyte of files to sift through which will take 100 days.

Anonymous said...

Where is the FTP?It takes forever to upload and this xl app is the worst creation in the universe

Anonymous said...

A 30% chance that you can squeeze your file through isn't nowhere near a smooth service .... and IF you get your file actually uploaded THEN you'll have to wait and see if it actually gets processed so the total success rate is even less then 30%.

Not something you'd expect after all the new hardware that (supposedly) was installed and I also would assume that a new datacenter would mean MM is trying to upgrade the level of service also, but sofar since the move of datacenter things have improved only marginally.

Anonymous said...

From - http://www.techcrunch.com
/2007/07/26/
streamload-upgrade-goes-very-wrong
-some-users-revolt/

Here’s the comment somebody got from the big boss Steve himself

Yes, that article is true. Unfortunately, I (and MediaMax) am under a strict confidentiality agreement that prevents me from providing any additional details at this time. Michael at Techcrunch did his homework and put together all this information from an unknown source – we did not provide it to him as Nirvanix has wanted to wait until their launch to announce their new company.

No – this is very good news for MediaMax and does not change anything we’ve said. We still currently have the same problems we have detailed and are working to solve them. The rushed datacenter move was a result of this split, but now we are a separate operating entity and can concentrate 100% on MediaMax. Everyone at MediaMax is very pleased about this split (it’s a good thing to now only having to concentrate on 1 thing – build the best consumer file storage and sharing web site) and our customers should see a massive improvement later this year.

-Steve

This looks like nirvanix is a spin off. This Patrick Harr first gets all the blame and now he’s involved in this nirvanix. what kind of game are they playing with all their paying customers??? It is really pissing me off because I am thinking they are using us paying customers for testing on behalve of this nirvanix. When it’s done probably mm goes broke.

What does it mean expect a massive improvement later this year?
On other posts Steve and some of his crew like John Hood are saying they are working on their problems now. These problems are already going on for 8 weeks. Why is it not solved by now. If I leave these kind of problems for my boss our company will be bankrupt in less then 8 weeks.
They are still not telling everything and I fear it will not be solved. So my 2 cents for everybody who is a customer at mediamax postpone or cancel any payments.

Anonymous said...

Sinking Ship anyone ?

Anonymous said...

I paid $45 for a 10gig account to store pdf's. I uploafed 60 pdf's adding up to a grand total of just 91 meg, less than 1% of my allowance, AND NOW 90% OF THEM ARE UNAVAILABLE or totally lost. Some back-up service. This company is a disgrace.

Anonymous said...

Their uploading system is still totally worthless as well. Their singel webupload stalls frequently, the multiple file upload crashes and is wildy erratic with it's speed and IF you actually get a file uploaded, there is a high probability it won't show up in your account. Yes, I've again loads of fun with trying to upload to MediaMax these last 48 hours.

I also realised that if MM normally handles 800GB of uploads every day and that at present they can only handle 200GB that this means that 600GB doesn't get through ... not for lack of trying and I assume this is at least part of the problem why the MM uploading system is hopelessly screwed up atm. Also, if one takes 600GB and multiplies this with the number of days the MM upload service is as it is, it's not such a big assumption that even if MM gets it to their normal 800GB they still will be completly swarmed because of all the backlog. And the longer they keep up this mess the bigger the tidal wave is going to be.

I challenge mr. Hood to deliver us with a fix ... and a mighty speedy one at that. Not something like "expect vast improvements before the end of the year" (or words to that effect) I saw somewhere else.

Anonymous said...

A new post on the MM Blog states that it will take 6-8 weeks to recover all the data they lost. Unfortunatly not a word about the uploading woes.

David said...

Yes I read that as well, if they state 6 - 8 weeks then you can virtually double that.

I have given up on them and gone to Carbonite.

Do they really expect people to wait that long?

Just goes to show they have been bull shitting us all along, trying to conceal the real story.

Luzo Orbit said...

Regarding the uploads that never appear - it seems to me re-uploading doesn't solve it. We've learned through this blog already that you can only replace a file if the checksum is different. In other words you have to modify the file. So it seems if they upload, but don't appear you can't replace the invisible file. Anyone had a different experience? After a file has uploaded, but not appeared, have you had success later?

Anonymous said...

I'm not sure if your totally correct on this one Luzo.

As I understood it, a reupload of a file that already was on MediaMax won't work if you try and upload the exact same file again. If you however have uploaded a file that doesn't appear (i.o.w. doesn't make it through processing) you can try and re-upload the same file again and hope it appears then.

I've had a couple of files that wouldn't appear after the first try, but showed up on the 2nd.

If you want, give me one of your files in question and I'll try.

Anonymous said...

I seem to be loosing more and more files...

Anonymous said...

As of August 19 the XL app STILL keeps timing out...this is a disgrace

Anonymous said...

Their Webupload is (for me at least) not much better as it stalls on completion every freaking time and trying more then 4 files is a 100% chance of failure.

Unknown said...

I have not used this service for very long and have some very simple (i.e., naive) questions.

1. How long should a video clip that is 250MB take to upload?

2. Does the speed of an upload change by what time of the day it is?

I am sure I have tons of other questions, but for now that will do. Thanks.

Anonymous said...

Tom,

The first question is one MediaMax can't answer as most of what determines the outcome is out of their hands. For starters, your own upload bandwith is a factor and do you use it only for uploading to MediaMax or do you have other bandwith consuming programs (like BT) active? I'm from europe and when MM XL still worked as it should 2 months ago I could max out my upload bandwith uploading to MM (240Kbyte). The odd thing was that FTP (and the old uploader) never managed to get over 80KByte. Atm, MM XL max speed for me is 20Kb and fluctuates wildly. Webupload (single file, multiple won't work for me) achieves around 200Kb for me so it also a matter of which program you use allthough the situation varies from person to person (community members have the speeds for MM Xl and FTP reversed from mine).

As for the 2nd question ... again when MM XL worked as it should it didn't matter at what time of the day I uploaded as it was equally fast (usually I did it either starting from midnight or around 7 in the morning (european time). Normally MediaMax should be able to handle the traffic they're getting no matter what time of day it is, but according to their own admittance they currently only manage 25% so there might be a quieter time, but I doubt it.

Christian L said...

Sooo let me get this straight after 1.5 years of waiting for our files to be "restored" or to quote on quote "to come back" we will have to wait another 100 days.

I seriously believe that we shouldnt have to pay for this service for the next 4 months then, if they are really being real about what they are saying about this subject.

stream: thechainremains

Anonymous said...

I hate to say it, but at some point a report to a federal, state and municipal consumer protection authority becomes all but inevitable.

If I have uploaded files so that I have more room on my computer and erased them, is it any faster to download them back on to my computer so that I can upload them elsewhere? I think I know the answer.

Anonymous said...

It's true, the files ARE coming back!

Let me state at the outset that I am no apologist for MediaMax. I am a long term subscriber with a collection of some 30,000 audio files stored on MediaMax and like everyone else was horrified to find that almost all of these files became inaccessible on 15 June. Dismissal was very light retribution for the former employee who was responsible for this debacle!

The 30,000 files have been uploaded regularly since July 2003 and should provide a representative sample over time of the restoration of files by MediaMax.

I have performed a 100% audit of the availability of all these files on August 18 and again around August 31 and there was a marked improvement at the second sampling with the overall inacessible rate down to (only!) 45% from more than 80% a fortnight ago.

The availability improvement varies greatly with the date that the files were uploaded and this graph shows how well the file restoration is proceding for the files uploaded during the past four years.

http://tinyurl.com/2ea3f2

There is still a long way to go before all files are restored and my own estimates of how long this will take are are 6-8 weeks and are consistent with those quoted by John Hood of MediaMax (no relation).

I am encouraged by the results of this research but will reserve judgement about the effectiveness of MediaMax's file recovery until the end when I see what the residual loss rate is. Even a modest 2% final loss rate will be totally unacceptable for me as this will be 600 files that need to be reloaded and 15Gb of bandwidth. With the current frustratingly unreliable uploading options, that is a huge amount of work.