Security News > 2021 > December > University loses 77TB of research data due to backup error
The Kyoto University in Japan has lost about 77TB of research data due to an error in the backup system of its Hewlett-Packard supercomputer.
The incident occurred between December 14 and 16, 2021, and resulted in 34 million files from 14 research groups being wiped from the system and the backup file.
To prevent data loss from happening again, the university has scraped the backup system and plans to apply improvements and re-introduce it in January 2022.
While the details of the type of data that was lost weren't revealed to the public, supercomputer research costs several hundreds of USD per hour, so this incident must have caused distress to the affected groups.
The Kyoto University is considered one of Japan's most important research institutions and enjoys the second-largest scientific research investments from national grants.
We have requested Kyoto University to share more details on the incident and its impact on research groups, but we haven't heard back yet.