“A Surrey, B.C., man is suing the Apple computer company for $25,000 after his Time Capsule backup drive crashed, taking with it a year of photographs including those showing the birth of his first child,” CBC News reports.
“In his suit filed in B.C.’s small claims court, Perminder Tung says he bought the Apple Time Capsule in June 2009 and used it to back up two MacBooks and an iPhone,” CBC News reports. “It failed last month, he alleges, and when he took it back to the Apple Store, he was told the data was lost and irretrievable.”
CBC News reports, “Tung, who is a lawyer, says he’s since learned of many other Time Capsule failures, which have spawned online forums, a memorial register and dubious fix-it yourself videos. In his claim, Tung is suing Apple Canada for just over $25,000 to replace the hardware and to compensate him for the loss of recorded memories like the birth of his first child.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Not Apple’s problem. Users are responsible for backing up properly and backing up properly means having multiple backups, made at regular intervals, which are not all located at the same site. Perminder Tung, through his own incompetence, is responsible for the loss of the photos showing the birth of his first child, not Apple.
Nobody accepts responsibility for their own actions any more.
At the risk of getting shouted at round here, couldn’t he just backup to Google Drive? 😀
I have had several problems with both Doctor’s and Attorneys. The Doctor’s always seemed to use the “Importance” for their job as a means to gain advantage. The attorneys would state code and threaten to sue and this was their way to gain. I am sure with Tung, he is upset because his significant other is pounding the hell out of him for screwing up with not having a copy. In turn, he figures he can redeem himself and add a few bucks to the significant other’s personal project account. The only reason he knows about any other time capsule problems is he looked, or had another look for him, is to take heat off his then toasty bottom. Not me dear! See Apple is the Villian!
Poor Tung! He sandwiched in the middle…
The hard drive was 3 years old. They fail. Hard to believe he didn’t have the originals on his computer. How else were they being backed up?
I have had time capsules fail 3 times over the past few years, including one recently that was bought this year. Unlike drives in a computer, there is no mechanism for disk repair provided by Apple. Apple does not properly support time capsule.
First off the guy is a lier and a lawyer and the suit will go nowhere. He claims the failure of the TC lost the back-up of his iPhone. Oops you can’t directly back-up an iPhone to a TC. So either it never existed or he deleted the back-up from his Macbook and compounded his stupidity by not bothering to back-it up again after the TC failed. He had two MacBooks that he could sync with and back-up the data in less then 20 minutes but he didn’t do it. 100% his fault.
Obviously, you should never keep really important data on only one hard drive, because hard drives DO fail.
But here’s my beef – ever put your hand on a Time Capsule that’s been doing hourly backups all day? Those things get hot, crazy hot. Here’s why that’s normal for backup drives:
– The Time Capsule has no built in fan.
– The default settings for Time Machine to backup every hour, never giving it sufficient time to cool down (In fact, I don’t even think there is an accessible option for less frequent automatic backups).
– It moves data over the network, which is much slower than USB, Firewire, Thunderbolt. So backups take a lot longer than on most hard drives, causing more stress to the hard drive.
Most Time Capsules I’ve talked to people about fail after about 15 months of continuous use. The design issues I’ve listed above, along with the anecdotal evidence I’ve encountered, seem to support the claim that Time Capsules fail far more frequently than typical backup hard drives.
The TC does have a built in fan – I’ve seen it! However, it is useless because there is no path for air to flow through the TC and the fan only turns on when the TC is at very high temperature. I solved this problem by removing the rubber base of my TC and drilling many vent holes in the aluminum base plate. I also mounted upside down on my ceiling with a 1″ gap between the TC and the ceiling for better airflow.
Wow, I just assumed there were no fans because I couldn’t or hear any fans, see any vents, or feel any air flowing out. I wouldn’t have imagined something as stupid as fans with no exhaust vent. Mounting it with a 1″ gap sounds like a sensible way to add additional airflow, but needing to drill holes to allow hot air to exit is just ridiculous.
Apple specifies the customer is responsible for there data in there terms. This case will be tossed.
ALL companies have that disclaimer. When a company sells a product to consumers and then says they’re not responsible if it doesn’t work as they advertise and sell, such disclaimers can be thrown out in court.
I can’t imagine a court holding such companies fully responsible to every consumer for data loss, but there can still be responsibility, or shared responsibility, assessed in some cases…especially where there has been a higher incidence of failure than might normally be expected.
As the owner of an original Time Capsule, let me say that the TC design is one of Apple’s worst. I’ve completely disassembled mine and there is virtually no ventilation in it. The hard drive, server grade or not, slowly cooks to death inside the case. Mine went belly up when the power supply capacitors blew, which Apple was kind enough to replace despite not being on AppleCare. That said, it seems very unlikely that a Time Capsule and the Macs it was backing up failed at the same time. More likely that the TC failed and the user paid no attention to the failed backup attempts, so when his Mac’s internal HD failed he was out of luck.
Hard drives fail. I see it all the time with friends who ask me to fix their computers. I always tell them to use a TC and replace their hard drives every 3 to 4 years, regardless. But you can’t make people care about their data when they have the option to sue anyone for anything.
I have had TWO Time Capsules fail. One is still not replaced. MDN’s comment is wrong here. Consumers can not be expected to handle redundant backups when they believe they are using an Apple system that is supposed to be doing the backups.
Too many are failing. Apple’s problem here.
Whoa, let’s not pick on the doctor too much. Apple is supposed to be for non-technical people, isn’t it? I back up on 4 different media and I’m quite competent technically. I’ve had Time Machine fail on more than one occasion. There was nothing wrong with the disks–I test the daylights out of them before putting them in a system and I test them again after Time Machine failures. MTBF in modern drives is a very long time.
While I agree that multiple strategies should be used, I don’t think Time Machine is all grown up yet. I’m actually rooting for the doctor on this one.
Agreed, Mikey, though I don’t expect he will get the amount he is asking.
I don’t get it. On a Time Capsule you make Backups of your Computer. If the Time Capsule fails, you still have the original photos on your computer. How could they got lost?
Not always true, TomTom. You may or may not have the originals even if you use Time Machine to backup to a Time Capsule. You can delete originals you feel you backed up with Time Machine. But a Time CAPSULE without using Time Machine to back up to it can be used as a separate hard drive where you can manually put files into it. When you think you have backed up your files to it, some users delete the originals to free up space.
Therein lies the problem.
If it is a rare disk failure, fine. But the Time Capsules appear to be having too many failures. Consumers don’t necessarily know that though.
Ah, I somehow thought he used Time Machine, my fault. Anyway, if you do not store your data on at least two separate media, you should consider them lost at any time.
I almost lost my photos once because of a hd crash. I bought an external drive the next day and also started online backups soon after. My most important files(photos) are backed up to multiple places. Locally for quick retrieval and online for maximum security. And I’m not even a lawyer…
And when his hard drives and computers are stolen? Happened to someone I know. Then what? Get those important photos backed up off-site as well as locally. I have my photos backed up via 1) time machine to one drive; 2) SuperDuper to another drive; 3) Flickr account. Dude. You cannot replace photos of your kids. Back them up. Back them up. And then back them up again. Hard drives fail, even in Apple devices.
Mac Dan, you know that. I know that. Most on this site know that. But there are grunches of users who don’t. Many seniors (and younger users) who are still intimidated by technology. They cannot be expected to understand the reasons for using multiple backup strategies, let alone the various methodologies of how to do them, some of which you correctly mention.
People here are judging from their own experience, not the far lesser experience of so many others. And most here are tech savvy enough to understand the how’s and why’s for multiple backup strategies.
If the method he used (Time Capsule) was regularly reliable and just happened to fail this one time, well, maybe Apple might have a better case. After all, nothing is foolproof.
But, in this case, there has been a history of unreliability among many users of Time Capsule, including me and other posters here.
He may well have a case. Time Capsule’s reliability needs to be addressed…by Apple.
This will be my last visit to this callous site. Someone reports a problem, and both staff and readership blame the victim for his unfortunate experience with what appears to be faulty back-up hardware. Shameful and pathetic.
Hey, Last Visit, if you actually read all the comments, you would have seen a number of us understanding the “victim’s” position on this one. Exactly which Mac sites will you now be “visiting” that will always take your side on things? Are you new on these sites?
I can’t say I’m really impressed with the reliability of the Time Capsule.
A better design would have been to house 2 hard drives in the device so that backups would be mirrored, just in case a drive failed which they seem to do with monotonous regularity.
I wouldn’t buy another.
Oh great – Canadians are getting litigious – and unwilling to admit their own stupidity. Any mechanical device can fail and backing up is common sense. Failure to do so is your own fault. Get real Perminder!
Sounds like he interpreted the name “Time Capsule” a little too literally.
The pictures he is looking for are on his computer. The backup failing does not delete them from his computer.
Apple’s marketing has shot itself in the foot. In their own words, “It automatically backs up everything, so you never have to worry about losing your important files.” – http://www.apple.com/timecapsule/
We can sit here and lambast the ‘idiot’ user but compared to tech savvy people here, most computer users are ‘idiots’ much like I’m a DIY ‘idiot’.
I think it’s unfair to criticise this person’s lack of tech knowhow as he is following Apple’s lead and trusting in their message. I don’t see any more education on best backup practices.
Personally I think Apple’s backup systems are a waste of time. It should be a dual HDD RAID or nothing.
No redundancy means it’s not backed up.
Fail. No other way to put it.