A fault in a supercomputer at Kyoto University in Japan resulted in loss of 77TB of research data

A problem with the backup system of Kyoto University's Hewlett-Packard supercomputer resulted in the loss of around 77TB of research data. Between December 14 and 16, 2021, the event happened, resulting in the elimination of 34 million files from 14 research groups, as well as the backup file, from the system.

The university discovered that the work of four of the affected groups could no longer be restored after analysing the consequences of the loss. According to sources, the impacted users were notified of the data loss through email.

According to Bleeping Computer, supercomputer research costs hundreds of dollars each hour, despite the lack of data on the type of work that was lost. Kyoto is one of Japan's most important research institutions, with the second-largest government grant investment in scientific research.

For the time being, the backup procedure has been disabled to prevent additional data loss. The backup system has also been decommissioned, with plans to enhance it before returning it in January 2022. In addition to full backup mirrors, the institution wants to keep incremental backups, which only cover files that have changed since the last backup.