You know that seemingly unlimited supply of storage that Gmail has provided? Years of correspondence with friends, family, and colleagues all store in one easily accessible and searchable interface. Now, what if you logged into your Gmail account and everything was gone? That’s what “less than 0.08%” of Gmail users have been experiencing over the weekend.
That amounts to about 150,000 Gmail users. Some Google Apps and Google Apps for Education users are also effected. Reports indicate that these long-time Google Mail users are being greeted as new users. All mail and custom settings are gone.
As of 8am EST, the last update on the Google Mail Status Dashboard states:
Our team is continuing to investigate this issue. We will provide an update by February 28, 2011 10:00:00 AM UTC-5 with more information about this problem. Thank you for your patience.
For many, this re-ignites concerns about using cloud storage. Many are advocating backing up your data, which could be a serious chore for the most avid Gmail users and almost defeats the purpose of cloud storage.
Did you lose your email? What’s your backup plan? I know of at least one service up for the task.
via Engadget, ZDNet, Gmail Help Forum, Google Mail Status Dashboard