A user on LowEndTalk reported that shared hosting provider SmallWeb has emailed customers to report that their London shared hosting has suffered a “catastrophic data loss”.
“Dear friend,
At 6:03PM UK time on 25th July 2021 I received an email stating that the server and licenses for London were suspended.
Shortly after, I was alerted that the service was infact terminated in error by the infrastructure provider’s WHMCS installation as opposed to being suspended.
Because of this, I am sorry to tell you that catastrophic data loss has occurred in London. With the server terminated, no live data remains.”
They are still undertaking emergency measures to attempt to restore service and backups.
SmallWeb also suffered a serious issue in January 2020 in their Los Angeles location which required the immediate closure of the site.
This news highlights the need for users to always have their own backups and not rely on a provider’s backups.
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Raindog308 is a longtime LowEndTalk community administrator, technical writer, and self-described techno polymath. With deep roots in the *nix world, he has a passion for systems both modern and vintage, ranging from Unix, Perl, Python, and Golang to shell scripting and mainframe-era operating systems like MVS. He’s equally comfortable with relational database systems, having spent years working with Oracle, PostgreSQL, and MySQL.
As an avid user of LowEndBox providers, Raindog runs an empire of LEBs, from tiny boxes for VPNs, to mid-sized instances for application hosting, and heavyweight servers for data storage and complex databases. He brings both technical rigor and real-world experience to every piece he writes.
Beyond the command line, Raindog is a lover of German Shepherds, high-quality knives, target shooting, theology, tabletop RPGs, and hiking in deep, quiet forests.
His goal with every article is to help users, from beginners to seasoned sysadmins, get more value, performance, and enjoyment out of their infrastructure.
You can find him daily in the forums at LowEndTalk under the handle @raindog308.
This is the second time smallewb had such an event where they failed to ensure working backup, they didn’t learn anything from his LAX1 fiasco.