Cloud storage - what do you use?

[Boombastix]

I'm considering adding cloud storage to my backup scheme.

What do you guys use and what is the experience? I suppose I might as well drop 500Gb or 1Tb there, but may use less if I decide to be selective.
Any input and thoughts are welcome.

[Oquasec]

Right now I use carbonite.
So far I'm not even gonna need a TB

[Proboscis]

I have a G-Drive Enterprise account with unlimited storage. I like the way various devices can seamlessly access the files - for example if I want to listen to an album in my car, I can go to any one of the 800+ in there, download within a minute and start listening. I also make privacy a priority, so I figure if Google have troves of data on me already (I exclusively use their spreadsheet & word docs for business & personal purposes, there's no need to share that with a third party. The consideration is also that Google aren't likely to go bust anytime soon. My only gripe is that syncing can' be scheduled to a specific time window.

[Boombastix]

Thanks for input. Carbonite seems to be more of a pure backup function and not so much a storage as the files are encrypted. But unlimited storage is nice. $6/mo.
Google Drive seems to be more like basic storage, so you can access files from anywhere. 1TB is $10 a month. So I could buy a 1TB SSD for $100 and recoup that cost in about a year. Hmmm.

So, I'm thinking, maybe a 1TB SSD stored off site for the sample lib is doable and good enough. I could buy a second 1TB SSD to have at home as a "mirror" in an external case and bring it when travelling, if I have to.

For important non-sample lib type files I need maybe 25Gb. I found Amazon AWS Storage Gateway. They give 100Gb for free, but I am not fully sure if/how it works for this purpose.
Anyone tried Amazon AWS Storage Gateway one?

[gdm41]

I rented a Server and installed owncloud.
https://owncloud.org/

[reddust]

I bought one of the WDMyCloud devices with 2TB which I use quite often but to be honest the hardware is working fine but I don't like its software, it's very buggy and not really well implemented. The company doesn't seem to care much about that either as updates are rare and the support goes actually through a user forum.

I'm planning to migrate to Synology which is supposed to be better, but both these options are domestic solutions, meaning you have a physical drive at home that you can access from everywhere using the dedicated app and of course set the whole thing up depending on your needs. I personally prefer this solution over other cloud services, but I also use some cloud services for minor things like the usual iCloud and Dropbox

[friday]

Office 365 subscription with 1TB Onedrive Storage included. Access from all my devices.

[ShelLuser]

I've been using OneDrive (freely accessible with Windows 10) which gives you 15Gb worth of free storage and that's a nice way to keep a backup copy of my documents. The main reason I'm using it is so that I can work with the same documents on both my regular PC and my laptop, but it also provides some minor backup (minor because things continue to get synced).

[Jackjackdaw]

I've been using Onedrive since about 2012, serves me well. I use it with Windows , Android and iOS. The sub includes Office suite which comes in handy sometimes, makes it pretty good value I think.

[Jmax]

I got my 100gigs of storage with Google Drive for 2.79 or whatever is. I always have to laugh when I get billed. Seriously a latte from Starbucks is 5.65. Only thing with Drive is if I want to listen to a music album etc it won't play song files back to back. I've got to play the next one etc.. Hoping they change that at some point.

[Oquasec]

I think onedrive has a tb of storage

[mcatalao]

I have an Office 365 for my family. All stuff is integrated to there and i never lose anything.
I created an account specific for my Studio PC, so everything is going there too.

I also have a Nas, but is getting less use from day to day.

[mcatalao]

I bought one of the WDMyCloud devices with 2TB which I use quite often but to be honest the hardware is working fine but I don't like its software, it's very buggy and not really well implemented. The company doesn't seem to care much about that either as updates are rare and the support goes actually through a user forum.

I'm planning to migrate to Synology which is supposed to be better, but both these options are domestic solutions, meaning you have a physical drive at home that you can access from everywhere using the dedicated app and of course set the whole thing up depending on your needs. I personally prefer this solution over other cloud services, but I also use some cloud services for minor things like the usual iCloud and Dropbox

I have an old Synology. I can't complain much about it other than some HDD's already crashed on it. Nonetheless... The price you pay for the box, hdd's and hdd replacements, is well worth to look at OneDrive.

From my experience:
Synology 6 years cost for 2 + 2 TB arrays on raid:
Box Price: 250 to 350 eus
initial 4 drives if you don't have them: 60x4 = 240 eur (these were more expensive at the time)
I've already have 3 disks die on me, that's an additional 180 eur.

So total 6 year usage is more or less 720 eur.
At 6 years the Synology gets a bit dated, and a lot of cloud features get REALLY slow. That's time to get another.

Comparing:
My family package from Office 365 includes 6 1TB onedrive accounts (which i use 2 myself for me and studio), upgraded my onenote to unlimited pages and has 5 Office annual licenses, for 99 eur. A 6 year plan is about 600 eur. On the mid long run, i'd say it's worth to have the Office 365. It's secure, stuff does not get lost, you don't pay to get your stuff back, and you don't have to be worried with backups.

[danc]

I use iDrive and it has excellent tools, scheduling and they offer to send/collect a drive for you to backup/recover if you don't want to spend an age uploading/downloading large amount of content - which is included for free if you only use it a few times a year.

For large amounts of data, iDrive does appear to be the cheapest option - cheaper than OneDrive (but obviously you don't get Office etc. - which I don't need as my business give me access to those applications).

Look at https://www.techradar.com/uk/news/the-b ... ud-storage

It's No.1 in their list. Also - in that review they give you a discount... giving year 1 for about $13 - which is what I did. Try it out on the cheap and decide before moving into year 2.

[xboix]

The following is purely from a Windows perspective:

Apple iDrive - the Windows client is quite resource hungry and not shy of hogging the hard disk at times. I just use the web client to sync with my iPad.

MS OneDrive. A tale of two halves. The personal client works well and is unobtrusive. The "for business" version is a bit ropey. It frequently stops syncing so you have to either manually restart the client or else wait a day or two for the scheduled update to wake it up again. It's hard to complain about though as it is free from my employer!

Mega - what a joke. Just don't.

Dropbox - this is the baby for me. Rock solid and the one I trust the most.

Amazon - keep meaning to try it but I'm very wary of their complicated pricing structure.

I also run an OwnCloud server on a Linux box in my shed. Plenty of free storage on a fast gigabit link and hopefully won't be lost/damaged in whatever disater takes out my main PC (fire/theft/explosion). Yes, I am sad enough to have run a network cable down the garden.

So I try to get the really, really important stuff backed up in Dropbox and the rest on Onedrive for business. I duplicate everything to OwnCloud.

[reddust]

I have an old Synology. I can't complain much about it other than some HDD's already crashed on it. Nonetheless... The price you pay for the box, hdd's and hdd replacements, is well worth to look at OneDrive.

From my experience:
Synology 6 years cost for 2 + 2 TB arrays on raid:
Box Price: 250 to 350 eus
initial 4 drives if you don't have them: 60x4 = 240 eur (these were more expensive at the time)
I've already have 3 disks die on me, that's an additional 180 eur.

So total 6 year usage is more or less 720 eur.
At 6 years the Synology gets a bit dated, and a lot of cloud features get REALLY slow. That's time to get another.

Comparing:
My family package from Office 365 includes 6 1TB onedrive accounts (which i use 2 myself for me and studio), upgraded my onenote to unlimited pages and has 5 Office annual licenses, for 99 eur. A 6 year plan is about 600 eur. On the mid long run, i'd say it's worth to have the Office 365. It's secure, stuff does not get lost, you don't pay to get your stuff back, and you don't have to be worried with backups.

Actually you can get a Synology DS218j with 6TB already for 280 Euros these days...

https://www.idealo.de/preisvergleich/Of ... ology.html

...if you additionally want to buy another 6TB for backup you can go for an external SSD and create some jobs on the app to make copies of your contents every now and then. I don't know how good your HDDs were but I haven't had to replace any of my WD HDDs yet.



Considering that the life of a NAS might and should be longer than 6 years I think financially the NAS is the better option, but you're right about not having to care about backups, setup and many other things that for most users might suppose too much work. I don't know, I think I'll stay with my NAS because for me it doesn't mean too much work and I feel like I have more control over the whole thing, but it's just my personal preference.

[mcatalao]

I'm comparing same security and redundancy. To have the same you increase the cost by 2, because you need a 4 bay nas to create 2 Raid 1 volumes (my configuration), plus the cost of double HDD. I have more than 2 TB in photos, reason projects and so on. If I'd try to backup that to SSD's, i had to be rich!

I had 2 HDD's die, one with 2 TB (seagate) and a 3 TB WD. I might had some misfortune. The 3 TB had nothing important, and the 2 TB was part of a Raid 1 Volume. I now have a 2 TB raid 1 and 4 TB raid 1. The most important stuff also syncs with Office 365 and the studio pc is only syncing with Office 365 now.

PS.: The Synology still gets use here. It's a good device for fast in home sharing (specially videos), thought at 200 Mbs the experience with cloud is getting very near.

[reddust]

Yeah, that makes sense, if you need that level of security and redundancy it's of course more money, I guess it depends on the user's side if so much security and redundancy is needed, for me the internal HDD in my NAS (which is 2TB) and an external SSD for backups is more than enough, I save some money and I only need to pay once, hoping that the hardware lasts longer than just 5 or 6 years... anyways a cloud service seems to be a very good option as well and surely more suitable depending on the needs