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Epic.

fucking legend

> but what ever happened to the 3-2-1 backup rule?

I wasn't 100% sure, but the data backs this up[0]; the "3-2-1 backup rule" is a relatively modern concept, at least by that name. I also remember things like "have one backup in one place, another in another place" since before this mnemonic, but I feel like it's unfair to judge a 70+ years archive on something that just recently actually became a widespread mantra.

- [0] Interestingly, Ngram (https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=%5B3-2-1+backu...) says ~2010 while Trends (https://trends.google.com/explore?q=3-2-1%2520backup%2520rul...) says slow build up from ~2020, guess "everyday" language would sit somewhere around those two different truths.

The backups (and servers) seem to still exist, but KETC's vendor is estranged with its own hosting / siting provider, Iron Mountain, which is a going concern.

IM seem to be holding KETC's data hostage, which is Not Cool.

From the article: It's not clear if the channel has backups of its data, but based on its determination, we suspect not. This is strange, though, especially for a major organization, as one can easily purchase a six-bay NAS on Amazon and populate it with the best HDDs. This also goes against the 3-2-1 backup rule, which says you should keep three copies of your files stored in two different mediums, with one of them running offsite. Hopefully Nine PBS will implement a better backup system once it regains access to its data.

It's worth noting that PBS affiliates are non-profits that have fairly constrained budgets, especially now that the Corporation for Public Broadcasting has been dissolved due to DOGE.

Non-profit IT has always seemed, to me at least, to be a land of compromises. There's rarely enough money, knowledge, or time to do things "the right way", so you have to do the best you can. If I could only choose one backup to have, it'd be remote on a provider like Iron Mountain. It would seem as if they are storing things on Iron Mountain through an intermediary company, who may or may not have actually paid the bill.

So, y'know, fraud's a possibility here.

We also have 5?

It's not PBS, PBS - but an affiliate, Nine PBS (https://www.ninepbs.org/)

From the article it seems like Iron Mountain was doing the actual storage, and OSS was just acting as a middleman and taking some money off the top.

Yeah, we are talking about 3 20TB drives in a closet here.

I'm an independent photographer and I have my 20TB drives behind my monitor, backing up to backblaze with an offsite synology. Keeping this archive up does take time and money, but PBS should have the budget and IT deparment for this.

Your assuming it's all digital and can be stored on drives. It might be a large amount of physical film reel, magnetic tape, and tons of mixed legacy formats

Don't trust Internet Archive as your only backup method though. There has been instances where they delete files without warning with the only explanation being that they don't meet TOS

It's incredibly frustrating. The Internet Archive offers a Vault product, where you pay $2-3/GB one time for perpetual storage into the future of your collections, items, media, etc. This pricing was previously predicated on the cost decline curve of storage. It's gotten a bit more expensive due to the AI bubble inflating the cost of storage, but to your point, the Internet Archive is a superior custodian than some rando tier 2 cloud provider who won a contract from a non profit and will lose all of the data when they go bust.

https://archive-it.org/vault/

(huge fan of Stokes as a fellow archivist, recommend the documentary on her: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recorder:_The_Marion_Stokes_Pr...)

I read it as a statement of just how little data this is by modern standards more than anything else. This company is going out of business and PBS is losing this valuable data, and there's legal drama and multiple corporate entities involved, and if you read all that you might think this is some amazing amount of data that is actually difficult to deal with. Instead it's something I could stroll down to Best Buy right now, plonk down my personal credit card, and walk out with enough stuff to do a credible backup job myself, and we're not even challenging my credit limit or anything.

10 years ago, this was a lot of data. It isn't anymore and it makes it that much more bizarre that they're having that much trouble getting it back. It would be less to just give them access and let them download it themselves and perhaps stick it somewhere else temporarily than to pay lawyers to deal with legal filings.

To put it in vaguely physical terms, what once was a university library is now a good solid bookshelf full of stuff. Legally wrangling over a huge library is one thing, but if it's just a bookshelf, metaphorically, let them come in for an hour and clean it out themselves rather than bringing in the law. Obviously not a perfect metaphor on data size, this is more about how lawsuits are more of a hassle then just giving it to them.

> It's not clear if the channel has backups of its data, but based on its determination, we suspect not. This is strange, though, especially for a major organization, as one can easily purchase a six-bay NAS on [Amazon] and populate it with [the best HDDs].

I think they just put that stuff in so they could shill their affiliate marketing articles rather than out of any actual concern.

Having that be there only backup solution would have been silly and dangerous. Having it be part of their overall backup solution including with something like the provider would have been smarter and better and prevented this entire problem

The point still stands, but in what world can you build a 50TB NAS for $1,000 these days? I want to go there

3 copies, 2 different media, 1 offsite. One backup is none

Technically you're still correct even when you would advocate for both. Every additional copy increases the risk that the data is accessed by someone else.

A NAS is at risk from malware that can erase all of it. 100GB Bluray discs exist and work more easily for archival storage, as does multi-terabyte tape drive storage, both of which can stay disconnected At least two offline copies, combined with error correction codes, are advised. A cloud backup is also advised.

> Iron Mountain initially agreed to turn over Nine PBS’ data, but it eventually backtracked and claimed that OSS owned the data it stored. Because of this, Nine PBS now has no choice but to sue Iron Mountain, too, to ensure the data is not deleted.

This does make sense. I'm guessing the first request some rep just went sure its you're data why not, but in reality, it's OSS's data, and you paid OSS to store it. It's also likely encrypted in someway.

TLDR still, is especially when it's a reasonable amount of data, just have more than 1 backup.

This local PBS wasn't playing it's own footage 24/7. The data in question could be just their local segments, an hour or two of local coverage and maybe their fundraisers.

Isn't 50TB just 6 years of videos, in even the best case (1GB/h)?

They weren't recording in 4K last century.

One hour of 1970's-grade NTSC video is around 300MB.

More to the point, it's not like they archived 70 continuous years of video. Many local PBS stations produce an hour or less of video each week. This being a St. Louis station, however, it's probably somewhat more.

How do we know the content isn't on BetacamXR or straight film reels ?

Not really, you're never "supposed to" rely on a single company with 3 tapes for your only copy

That made me feel relief until I realized it's my own local PBS station.

Pretty clear that this is AI copied slop that no one at Toms Hardware bothered editing as it has no clarity that Nine PBS is the PBS affiliate in St Louis, Missouri.

Here is the source article...

https://current.org/2026/08/nine-pbs-sues-iron-mountain-over...

Ah, "Channel Nine PBS", not a cluster of nine pbses