# Cloud storage is great until your vendor goes out of business

- URL: https://talkfuse.com/story/cloud-storage-is-great-until-your-vendor-goes-out-of-business/
- Published: 2026-08-13T22:04:16+00:00
- Updated: 2026-08-24T04:31:30+00:00
- Original publisher: Engadget
- Original article: https://www.engadget.com/2236717/cloud-storage-great-until-vendor-goes-out-of-business-nine-pbs/
- Topics: Gadgets

## Key points

- Nine PBS wins court order to recover archive from defunct vendor's data
- Iron Mountain must help retrieve data despite contract dispute
- Case highlights risks of relying solely on third-party cloud storage

## Summary

Nine PBS, a public television station in St. Louis, Missouri, has won a court order requiring data centre firm Iron Mountain to help it recover a 70-year archive of cultural material that became inaccessible after its cloud storage provider collapsed. The station sued Iron Mountain in July after it allegedly refused to release data belonging to Nine PBS but hosted on behalf of the now-defunct cloud provider Open Source Storage (OSS), with which Iron Mountain held the contract rather than the station itself. The case highlights the risks broadcasters and other organisations face when relying on third-party vendors to safeguard irreplaceable archives.

The dispute began in March, when OSS informed Nine PBS it would not renew its contract and cut off access immediately rather than giving the usual 30-day grace period. The station briefly regained assurance from OSS's new owner in April that the archive, which includes decades of TV shows, videos and photographs documenting St Louis's history, remained safe, but access problems resumed after that owner departed the company. Following a hearing this week, a judge ordered Iron Mountain to cooperate with Nine PBS in retrieving the data and directed the station to find a third-party vendor to extract it without affecting other OSS clients' data; a further hearing will follow if complications arise. Iron Mountain maintains it has acted appropriately throughout, while commentators note the episode underscores the value of the "3-2-1" backup rule — three copies of data, on two different media, with one stored offsite.

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Summarised by TalkFuse (https://talkfuse.com/). Quote the original publisher for the reporting and link this page for the summary and discussion.