PBS broadcaster loses access to 50TB of data comprising 70 years of TV history after contracted cloud storage vendor goes defunct — public TV channel sues Iron Mountain data center, which hosts archival materials, to ensure preservation
- ID
- 13805
- Status
- summarized
- Published
- 13 Aug 2026, 6:40 PM
- Fetched
- 13 Aug 2026, 8:28 PM
- Provider
- Tom's Hardware
- Category
- technology
- Original URL
- https://www.tomshardware.com/software/cloud-storage/nine-pbs-loses-access-to-70-years-of-data-after-contracted-cloud-storage-vendor-goes-defunct-public-tv-channel-sues-iron-mountain-data-center-which-hosts-archival-materials-to-ensure-preservation
- Source URL
- https://www.tomshardware.com/feeds/all
Summary
- Score
- 6.0
- Created
- 13 Aug 2026, 8:28 PM
- Tags
- Audience
- developerssaas_founders
What happened
PBS lost access to 50TB of archival data spanning 70 years of TV history after its contracted cloud storage vendor went defunct. PBS is now suing Iron Mountain, the data center hosting the archival materials, to ensure the data is preserved and not lost.
Why it matters
If your startup or project relies on a single cloud storage vendor for irreplaceable data, a vendor bankruptcy can lock you out entirely. Review your storage contracts for data portability clauses, maintain offline or multi-vendor backups for critical archives, and verify what happens to your data if the intermediary vendor disappears — not just the underlying data center.
Discussion angle
What's your actual recovery plan if your cloud storage intermediary goes bust overnight — do you have a contract with the underlying data center, or are you just a customer of a customer?