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Is Dropbox still the best for cloud storage?
- Thread starter dagdagdag234
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Never mind the fact you'd pay 84% less for the same storage on hubiC
C'mon - YOU run a Mac, clearly all buying decisions aren't raw price-based.
Well I don't mind paying a small premium for quality, privacy and reliability, but I do paying a HUGE premium for the exact same service. It comes from the world's largest hosting company after all.
Clarify the "they" in your statement. Who's been sharing information, Dropbox/Google/etc? Bit Torrent Sync can't share data with the government, because the data doesn't reside on any central server, and the encryption keys are generated on the client side.
Contrast that with Google/Dropbox/Box/etc, where they hold the encryption key, and thus can be compelled to decrypt user data.
BT-Sync is a little more inconvenient, in that there's no nifty website to download your data from in a browser, but the trade-off is worth it, IMO.
Sure. I was referring to private cloud storage companies with servers on US soil.
Surely. Remember, until proven innocent, the US considers anyone as guilty.
I know that, although I assume there are government computers loading torrents. Nothing we took for granted on privacy seems valid now.
As long as you've got one machine always on and with a good connection, which is a major drawback.
My Dropbox renewal is due March 17, so I'm hoping they get their storage in line with the competition. If not, I'll continue to use their free account (as well as several other services) as it'll still be 23GB's worth of space.
23GB - Dropbox (I really hate odd numbers; prefer multiples of 5)
25GB - Google Drive (10GB from QuickOffice; hoping they leave it as is)
40GB - Copy.com
25GB - SkyDrive
50GB - Box
20GB - Pogoplug
50GB - Mega
That's 233GB's of free storage. I see no reason to continue to pay Dropbox. The hard part is dividing it up. I think I'll reserve a couple as a backup of the my main 2 services.
23GB - Dropbox (I really hate odd numbers; prefer multiples of 5)
25GB - Google Drive (10GB from QuickOffice; hoping they leave it as is)
40GB - Copy.com
25GB - SkyDrive
50GB - Box
20GB - Pogoplug
50GB - Mega
That's 233GB's of free storage. I see no reason to continue to pay Dropbox. The hard part is dividing it up. I think I'll reserve a couple as a backup of the my main 2 services.
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I have 20GB on Dropbox (free) and 50GB (free) on Box. However, I say Dropbox is better because while BOX gave me more space they do upload size limits, Dropbox does not. And Dropbox has way better file sharing features and management
Why pay for 100GB? There should be a 50GB plan, just upgrade when you need it to save money.
Why pay for 100GB? There should be a 50GB plan, just upgrade when you need it to save money.
I've used dropbox, ubuntu one, skydrive, icloud, etc. dropbox seems to work the best for me, as its the one that I keep going back to. though I do use each service still, just each gets used for a different reason.
Dropbox used to have a 50GB plan, but a few years ago, they decided to double the amount of space for each plan, while keeping the same pricing.
I think people don't understand that Dropbox is NOT interested in providing lower tiers of storage space. They've stated on multiple occasions that they are more than happy providing free space to the majority of their users.
High-tier users subsidize the free users (2GB of S3 storage is minimal), but creating lower pricing tiers doesn't necessarily increase revenue. If a user needs 20GB of space, the only options are free (with increases) or 100GB. If the space is needed immediately, then the user must opt for the 100GB plan. The paying ends up subsidizing 100's of other free users while he/she is under the plan's cap.
If Dropbox offered 20 & 50GB plans, then paying users would subsidize fewer users each. Many of the 100GB plan users would drop down to one of the cheaper plans (If I only need 35GB of space, why should I pay for 100GB?).
Nope. Dropbox is betting that users won't use the full 100GB of space. I have 142GB of space and I'm only using 130GB of it (mostly photos and Amazon/Google Play music purchases and lots of e-Books and short home videos). That way, they collect the full revenue for 100GB and they are really only giving you the space you use. I know a few people who pay for 100GB of space and use only 25-50% of it.
The fact remains that the price to storage ratio on Dropbox is out of wack. (For 1/2 the price you can go with SkyDrive for $50; or for $150 go with Copy and get 500GB of storage.)
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At least with SkyDrive, the pricing makes a little more sense. It's probably built on Azure, which is owned and operated by Microsoft. GDrive is owned by Google, which also has some good economies of scale with respect to servers & storage.
Dropbox uses S3, which, I've heard, is somewhat expensive for what you get. Would be interesting to know what Copy, Box and others use.
Sorry for being a little lazy, can anyone suggest which of these services are the easiest from which to get a large free allocation?
I do currently use Dropbox, but signed up recently and it seems to require a bunch of jumping through hoops (e.g. referrals, etc) in order to boost the amount of free storage.
I do currently use Dropbox, but signed up recently and it seems to require a bunch of jumping through hoops (e.g. referrals, etc) in order to boost the amount of free storage.
I'm going to test it myself. I'll report back on the outcome. Considered it $5 going to research.
#puke#
Depends how you define "easy". Mega is, but no client, no resume supported. A lot are Dropbox-like, such as hubiC. Completely transparent transition between them. 25GB free, no referrals needed.
520 GB of Copy.com space earned via referrals on Fiverr.
So with the initial 15GB and the 25GB I've earned myself via friends, that's a total of 560GB of FREE space. Dropbox won't see anymore money from me ever. Now I'll wait another day or two and see if Copy.com closes my account.
I'm not sure how Copy.com can afford to give this much space for free. Granted, they use their own servers, but still.
So with the initial 15GB and the 25GB I've earned myself via friends, that's a total of 560GB of FREE space. Dropbox won't see anymore money from me ever. Now I'll wait another day or two and see if Copy.com closes my account.
I'm not sure how Copy.com can afford to give this much space for free. Granted, they use their own servers, but still.
Iv been using dropbox since it came out and just recently had my first issue with it. Let me note, I have had a windows machine and wireless device linked to it since I signed up. I brought home my new rMBP on Sat and one of the first things I downloaded was dropbox. Well, in doing so, it erased ALL of my files, because I guess it did not see them on the Mac. I did not realize that until today and lucky they do have a recovery feature otherwise quite a few IMPORTANT files would have been gone. I am now backing everything from my dropbox to my Google Drive just to have a second copy.
520 GB of Copy.com space earned via referrals on Fiverr.
So with the initial 15GB and the 25GB I've earned myself via friends, that's a total of 560GB of FREE space. Dropbox won't see anymore money from me ever. Now I'll wait another day or two and see if Copy.com closes my account.
I'm not sure how Copy.com can afford to give this much space for free. Granted, they use their own servers, but still.
So the copy signup referral qualification appears to be the same as Dropbox:
Refer a new email address, email address used to create a new Copy account + login using one of their apps on a unique device.
So fake emails alone <shouldn't> qualify, putting files on storage where they could just uncover the presumably fake compliance that has taken place....well seems a fast way to potentially lose the files....
I used Fiver to get all my Dropbox referrals a year or so ago. Never been a problem. Besides, I still have backups on other cloud services.
Got it, thanks.
Can't say I disagree with you there, given Dropbox and Google's privacy policies, in particular.
Agreed. Everything's just a matter of time. The only plus side is that the sheer amount of data is overwhelming for them.
It is, however seeing as how you can go as simple as a $60 Raspberry Pi and a nice big USB hard drive, I don't see it being a huge issue. I've got a virtual machine running Linux on an ESX host at my house running one mirror, and another mirror running on a Linux-based crusty Pentium 4 at my in-laws, functioning as read-only and backup. Works great!
"Skydrive" is being renamed "Onedrive" apparently.
Just got an email yesterday from MS advising so. I guess they think "it's your 'onedrive' to store everything in" marketing speak, or something.
Personally, a pet hate of mine is having to use different providers as certain apps only support cloud access from their own cloud storage service: why oh why?!
I should be able to access a single storage service of my own choosing, where I may choose to store everything, instead of being forced to use MS's cloud storage service if happening to use an MS app – Apple do the same with their iCloud too, and their's doesn't even work properly yet either.
And I also agree that the pricing is absurd from many of them. Apple's costs way too much and is half-baked and flaky (to be fair, I think it's down to them not having their datacentres up and running just yet to handle more volume with better efficiency at lower cost options), but even more so Dropbox $100/£70 per year for just 100GB (ie. $1.00/GB per year – WTF!?). They don't seem to realise that we do actually know as customers that 1GB of quality local storage can be had for between ¢2-4 don't they, and that may be kept for several YEARS so ~500th of the cost they are asking...
Yes we understand they are 'adding value' in their syncing technologies so deserve a markup for doing so, but the cost has hardly decreased over time, and other services like Bitcasa.com have come along offering 5 terabytes for $/£499 per year (around ¢10/GB per year, or a tenth of Dropbox pricing!) or even INFINITE storage for $/£999 per year!
Dunno how reliable Bitcasa is (my upload speed of 10 mbps would make uploading tera's of content much too cumbersome!), but if it is reliable then those with faster upload speed have other options to the main big-name suppliers of iCloud/Onedrive/Gdrive/Dropbox now.
Just got an email yesterday from MS advising so. I guess they think "it's your 'onedrive' to store everything in" marketing speak, or something.
Personally, a pet hate of mine is having to use different providers as certain apps only support cloud access from their own cloud storage service: why oh why?!
I should be able to access a single storage service of my own choosing, where I may choose to store everything, instead of being forced to use MS's cloud storage service if happening to use an MS app – Apple do the same with their iCloud too, and their's doesn't even work properly yet either.
And I also agree that the pricing is absurd from many of them. Apple's costs way too much and is half-baked and flaky (to be fair, I think it's down to them not having their datacentres up and running just yet to handle more volume with better efficiency at lower cost options), but even more so Dropbox $100/£70 per year for just 100GB (ie. $1.00/GB per year – WTF!?). They don't seem to realise that we do actually know as customers that 1GB of quality local storage can be had for between ¢2-4 don't they, and that may be kept for several YEARS so ~500th of the cost they are asking...
Yes we understand they are 'adding value' in their syncing technologies so deserve a markup for doing so, but the cost has hardly decreased over time, and other services like Bitcasa.com have come along offering 5 terabytes for $/£499 per year (around ¢10/GB per year, or a tenth of Dropbox pricing!) or even INFINITE storage for $/£999 per year!
Dunno how reliable Bitcasa is (my upload speed of 10 mbps would make uploading tera's of content much too cumbersome!), but if it is reliable then those with faster upload speed have other options to the main big-name suppliers of iCloud/Onedrive/Gdrive/Dropbox now.
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