858TB of Government Data May Be Lost For Good After South Korea Data Center Fire (datacenterdynamics.com)
(Wednesday October 08, 2025 @11:25AM (msmash)
from the stranger-things dept.)
- Reference: 0179714208
- News link: https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/25/10/08/155239/858tb-of-government-data-may-be-lost-for-good-after-south-korea-data-center-fire
- Source link: https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/858tb-of-government-data-may-be-lost-for-good-after-south-korea-data-center-fire/
South Korea's government may have [1]permanently lost 858TB of information after a [2]fire at a data center in Daejeon . From a report:
> As reported by DCD, a battery fire at the National Information Resources Service (NIRS) data center, located in the city of Daejeon, on September 26, has caused havoc for government services in Korea. Work to restore the data center is ongoing, but officials fear data stored on the government's G-Drive may be gone for good. G-Drive, which stands for Government Drive and is not a Google product, was used by government staff to keep documents and other files. Each worker was allocated 30GB of space.
>
> According to a report from The Chosun, the drive was one of 96 systems completely destroyed in the fire, and there is no backup. "The G-Drive couldn't have a backup system due to its large capacity," an unnamed official told The Chosun. "The remaining 95 systems have backup data in online or offline forms." While some departmers do not rely on G-Drive, those that do have been badly impacted in the aftermath of the fire. A source from the Ministry of Personnel Management said: "Employees stored all work materials on the G-Drive and used them as needed, but operations are now practically at a standstill."
[1] https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/858tb-of-government-data-may-be-lost-for-good-after-south-korea-data-center-fire/
[2] https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/fire-south-koreas-state-date-infrastructure-centre-halts-online-government-2025-09-26/
> As reported by DCD, a battery fire at the National Information Resources Service (NIRS) data center, located in the city of Daejeon, on September 26, has caused havoc for government services in Korea. Work to restore the data center is ongoing, but officials fear data stored on the government's G-Drive may be gone for good. G-Drive, which stands for Government Drive and is not a Google product, was used by government staff to keep documents and other files. Each worker was allocated 30GB of space.
>
> According to a report from The Chosun, the drive was one of 96 systems completely destroyed in the fire, and there is no backup. "The G-Drive couldn't have a backup system due to its large capacity," an unnamed official told The Chosun. "The remaining 95 systems have backup data in online or offline forms." While some departmers do not rely on G-Drive, those that do have been badly impacted in the aftermath of the fire. A source from the Ministry of Personnel Management said: "Employees stored all work materials on the G-Drive and used them as needed, but operations are now practically at a standstill."
[1] https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/858tb-of-government-data-may-be-lost-for-good-after-south-korea-data-center-fire/
[2] https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/fire-south-koreas-state-date-infrastructure-centre-halts-online-government-2025-09-26/
Couldn't have a backup (Score:2)
by Mononymous ( 6156676 )
The Korean government couldn't afford a petabyte of storage to back up documents without which "operations are at a standstill".
Project Mayhem (Score:2)
by butt0nm4n ( 1736412 )
Banks next, space monkeys of Fight Club.
storage in the cloud (Score:2)
by ole_timer ( 4293573 )
is not a backup
now, it's a cloud of smoke :) (Score:2)
by stooo ( 2202012 )
now, it's a cloud of smoke :)
No backup. (Score:3)
by 0xG ( 712423 )
They could however have mirrored the data in another location.
Talk about putting all your eggs in one basket!
Heads will roll....
Re: (Score:2)
by oldgraybeard ( 2939809 )
Does not matter which country it is. Government will always protect the incompetent and dodge any responsibility.
Improtant things should have remote backup... (Score:2)
by Lavandera ( 7308312 )
I was working 10+ years ago for one of the EU governments and the rule was that there should be backup located at leaset 30km away from the prime location.
They obviously did a risk analysis. (Score:2)
Since they decided the users files were not worth having a backup of.
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe the risk analysis found a catastrophe would be their only chance of moving the country and government off of ActiveX.