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Saving files on the cloud

edited May 2011 in Technology
What do you guys use to host your online files? I'm thinking about getting a Dropbox subscription to save my pictures and other stuff on the cloud. Is it worth it? My docs are on google docs, but that's about it.

Comments

  • pictures
    Flickr/Picasa.
  • Flickr/Picasa.
    Cool, that's a lot cheaper, better yet I was looking for something on google.
  • Dropbox is NOT cloud storage or hosting. If you accidentally delete something in your Dropbox folder on your laptop, it will be deleted from the Dropbox folder in the cloud, and on your phone, and on your desktop computer. It's a fantastic service for synching files, and transferring files, and I use it on a daily basis. But it is not a good system for either backing shit up, nor for hosting files for other people to see, nor for archiving to the cloud.
  • Depends on how you plan to use the online files. I use Mozy for cloud-backup, mostly because I used to work for their parent company and got a really good corporate discount as a result.
  • If you want a backup, and you don't know how to use S3 yourself, try Carbonite.
  • Amazon gives a free 5GB of cloud storage with a web interface to every member. You can buy subscription upgrades if you need more space.
  • edited May 2011
    If you want a backup, and you don't know how to use S3 yourself, try Carbonite.
    If you only need the 5GB then you can't beat free w/ Amazon, but for larger amounts, Carbonite is very cost effective. It's especially good if you sign up for a 3-year plan (I think the price break brings it down to $40-50 per year). The equivalent for $40 on the year at standard storage rates at Amazon is about 20-25GB.
    Post edited by Matt on
  • Arq is like Dropbox just with S3, it costs 30$ but then you have cheap S3 hosting and backup. It's Mac only though.
  • If you want a backup, and you don't know how to use S3 yourself, try Carbonite.
    JungleDisk is pretty easy to use.

    But depending on the size your backup Carbonite or Crashplan might be cheaper. GoogleDocs interface isn't so good but useful for stuff you won't be accessing often or when you do you only need one or two files. I have all of my podcast masters up on GoogleDocs, for example,
  • JungleDisk is pretty easy to use.
    Jungledisk has been awful since it got bought. Not recommend.
  • edited May 2011
    JungleDisk is pretty easy to use.
    Jungledisk has been awful since it got bought. Not recommend.
    Do tell, I'm still using it as a secondary online backup. I haven't noticed any change. However, I also don't actively use it that much since everything is automated.
    Post edited by Dr. Timo on
  • Do tell, I'm still using it as a secondary online backup. I haven't noticed any change. However, I also don't actively use it that much since everything is automated.
    Basically all Jungledisk ever did was give you an easy interface to S3 for a $20 one-time fee. Now it's a $2/month fee. That was on top of the regular S3 bill. It's easy enough to just use S3 directly and not pay Jungledisk anything.
  • Do tell, I'm still using it as a secondary online backup. I haven't noticed any change. However, I also don't actively use it that much since everything is automated.
    Basically all Jungledisk ever did was give you an easy interface to S3 for a $20 one-time fee. Now it's a $2/month fee. That was on top of the regular S3 bill. It's easy enough to just use S3 directly and not pay Jungledisk anything.
    I wasn't aware of that, I paid twenty dollars and was able to install it on all my PCs and Macs. That does suck.

    But it's more than just an interface it has automatic back up features, works cross platform and iPhone, and mounts as a networked drive.
  • But it's more than just an interface it has automatic back up features, works cross platform and iPhone, and mounts as a networked drive.
    I am not a fan of automated backups. They will inevitably automatically backup a bad version of a file on top of a good one.
  • edited May 2011
    Do tell, I'm still using it as a secondary online backup. I haven't noticed any change. However, I also don't actively use it that much since everything is automated.
    Basically all Jungledisk ever did was give you an easy interface to S3 for a $20 one-time fee. Now it's a $2/month fee. That was on top of the regular S3 bill. It's easy enough to just use S3 directly and not pay Jungledisk anything.
    Yes, the new pricing is not competitive. I am one of those who are grandfathered in and basically never have to pay a regular fee so that change doesn't apply to me.

    What does however (and I just learned this) is that JungleDisk doesn't let you use Amazons RRS storage. Since this is a tertiary backup for me at best, I'd be completely OK with using a less robust but much cheaper storage option. Arq has RRS support and currently they charge a one time fee for the software, so I'm going to check them out. As for whipping something together with python myself, meh, been there done that am willing to pay $30 and use the time otherwise.
    Post edited by Dr. Timo on
  • As for whipping something together with python myself, meh, been there done that am willing to pay $30 and use the time otherwise.
    You don't need to code anything. There are plenty of free softwares you can use to upload to and download from S3 directly without paying for any software, other than the S3 bill such as s3cmd, s3fox, or even the amazon web services site itself.
  • As for whipping something together with python myself, meh, been there done that am willing to pay $30 and use the time otherwise.
    You don't need to code anything. There are plenty of free softwares you can use to upload to and download from S3 directly without paying for any software, other than the S3 bill such as s3cmd, s3fox, or even the amazon web services site itself.
    Do they have scheduling, file selection, exclusion lists (preferably with regular expressions), encryption, and file versioning? Looks like they are mainly front ends for mounting S3 buckets so I'd have to do all the other stuff myself. $30 is so close to free, that any amount of work makes it not worth my time.
  • Do they have scheduling, file selection, exclusion lists (preferably with regular expressions), encryption, and file versioning?
    No, but I don't need any of those things.
  • But it's more than just an interface it has automatic back up features, works cross platform and iPhone, and mounts as a networked drive.
    I am not a fan of automated backups. They will inevitably automatically backup a bad version of a file on top of a good one.
    Depends on whether or not the backup software maintains some sort of version history... but you're right in that most automated backup products aren't smart enough to do version histories.
  • I got 17 GB of pics so I need to start with at least 20 GB. On Picasa that's only 5 bucks a year, so I'm sticking to that for the time being.
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