Im moving to the cloud, Which service do I pick?

NSFW · #1 08-07-2012, 11:47 PM

Dropbox/ Google/ Amazon/ fuck having all these options.

Which of these services has the best value for the money? Whether its features, price or whatever you like about it. Ill be buying probably 20 gigs of space and will be using it in conjunction with my android phone and tablet.

**Lanny** · #2 08-08-2012, 01:14 AM

Google Drive has been good to me, although I use a chromebook, so I was kinda forced into it. Still, it's a reliable service, upload speeds are dramatically better than Dropbox and it's cheaper. Dropbox has better integration with desktops although Google Drive's sync feature isn't too far behind. Also viewing your media through a youtube-like interface wherever you are is pretty cool.

sevenTwo · #3 08-08-2012, 08:06 AM

I'm assuming that's what you want a syncing storage solution since you mentioned Dropbox and 20 gb of space. (The cloud is an umbrella term.)

Google Drive looks like the most promising option for you! Especially if you're using it primarily in conjunction with your Android devices. It's a cheaper option ($2.49/month for 25gb) than Dropbox($10/month for 50gb), so that's always good and it probably has or will have amazing integration with their products and the desktop. (I can't guarantee that's the case since I use Dropbox.)

Dropbox isn't quite there yet on the smartphone platforms last time I checked, but are much better on the computer for a seamless user experience. Sort of on the expensive, but you get what you pay for, I guess. (User experience is second to none IMO.)

If you want an even cheaper option, Amazon S3 would cost you ~$1.40/month if you actually saved 20gb of storage on there. (You will only get charged for the storage you use.) It's not as user-friendly as Google Drive or Dropbox, but you can use your web browser to download your file off of the web or there's probably an app that makes accessing your data a lot easier too on the Android.

sevenTwo · #4 08-08-2012, 08:16 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lanny

Google Drive has been good to me, although I use a chromebook, so I was kinda forced into it. Still, it's a reliable service, upload speeds are dramatically better than Dropbox and it's cheaper. Dropbox has better integration with desktops although Google Drive's sync feature isn't too far behind. Also viewing your media through a youtube-like interface wherever you are is pretty cool.

I find that kind of weird that you get better throughput with Google vs Dropbox since there IS an Amazon datacenter nearby your city. Are you sure Google Drive is a faster service?

STD · #5 08-08-2012, 11:22 AM

I like Dropbox. Easy. Easy to get bonus storage. Secure; if you encrypt BEFORE uploading.

**Lanny** · #6 08-08-2012, 05:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sevenTwo

I find that kind of weird that you get better throughput with Google vs Dropbox since there IS an Amazon datacenter nearby your city. Are you sure Google Drive is a faster service?

Yeah, I can only assume that Dropbox severely throttles uploads because I get like 3-5KB/s through dropbox, but up to 5Mbits through Google. Mind you, those are done on separate connections, the latter much better than the former, but I still should be getting at least 1Mbit upload if Dropbox wasn't throttling.

sevenTwo · #7 08-08-2012, 11:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lanny

Yeah, I can only assume that Dropbox severely throttles uploads because I get like 3-5KB/s through dropbox, but up to 5Mbits through Google. Mind you, those are done on separate connections, the latter much better than the former, but I still should be getting at least 1Mbit upload if Dropbox wasn't throttling.

Interesting problem... They have no reason to throttle uploads though since it provides no cost benefit for them when they're just uploading it straight to S3... Maybe it's an S3's doing, but they usually can handle Dropbox's load pretty well without hiccups.

sevenTwo · #8 08-21-2012, 09:59 AM

Okay, scratch whatever I said. Amazon Glacier just released. If you can deal with 4.5 hours of wait time for your file retrievals, you're looking at $0.20-0.30/month. Nothing out there is cheaper for highly durable storage.

**Lanny** · #9 08-21-2012, 03:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sevenTwo

Okay, scratch whatever I said. Amazon Glacier just released. If you can deal with 4.5 hours of wait time for your file retrievals, you're looking at $0.20-0.30/month. Nothing out there is cheaper for highly durable storage.

Hey, that's pretty nifty. I can think of a lot of places that could work well. Not sure about OP's case, since "moving to the cloud" typically means no local storage and waiting 3-4 hours for your data, every time you want it, doesn't sound fun. Still, rad service.

sevenTwo · #10 08-23-2012, 06:49 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lanny

Hey, that's pretty nifty. I can think of a lot of places that could work well. Not sure about OP's case, since "moving to the cloud" typically means no local storage and waiting 3-4 hours for your data, every time you want it, doesn't sound fun. Still, rad service.

I bet there will be amazing companies leveraging this platform and coming up with clever methods to making this more fun. Very exciting.