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Re: Dropbox big-time

Posted by Owen Densmore on Jan 17, 2013; 3:36pm
URL: http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/Dropbox-big-time-tp7581227p7581329.html

A bit OT but ... Hmm.. Just got thinking about about Amazon being used by Dropbox and their relative pricing.

Amazon charges $.095/GB/Month for its storage.  That's $9.50/Mo or $114.00/Year for 100GB.
     http://aws.amazon.com/s3/pricing/

100GB is the first tier of paid Dropbox which goes for $9.99/Mo or $99.00/year (17% discount).
     https://www.dropbox.com/upgrade

That's surprising: the same storage is actually cheaper on Dropbox!  Why?
- Az only charges for what you actually use, while DB charges for the 100GB even tho you only use a fraction of it.  My guess is that for most folks (say 50% utility) Az is cheaper.
- DB probably gets a volume discount but provides additional services for the user.
- Arq is "just an app" but the same could be said for DB
     http://www.haystacksoftware.com/arq/

But then Google gets into the act: Google Drive costs less, only $4.99/100GB/Mo.  That's considerably less, but then GD is new to the game and it isn't clear just how easily it is used. Possibly Arq, DB and others could offer their services on GD for less?

But boy, this shows that there is considerable competition in the storage world!

   -- Owen


On Wed, Jan 16, 2013 at 3:04 PM, Owen Densmore <[hidden email]> wrote:
Arq sounds great, thanks for the pointer.  Looks like a winner.

Kinda interesting dropbox uses amazon too.

   -- Owen

On Wed, Jan 16, 2013 at 12:50 PM, Barry MacKichan <[hidden email]> wrote:
I'll put in my two cents.

All the files I care about are on a Mac, so I use Arq, which backs up to Amazon's S3 and Glacier services. There are two levels of S3 service which vary in their redundancy. The higher level (S3 standard storage) claims:
  • Designed for 99.999999999% durability and 99.99% availability of objects over a given year.
  • Designed to sustain the concurrent loss of data in two facilities.

    • The price is now $.095 per gigabyte per month. I have watched it go down from $.15 to $.095, but it may not be going down as fast as hard drive prices.

    Amazon's Glacier storage is $.01 per gigabyte per month, but it has a time delay on recovery (about 4 hours, enough time for the gerbils to mount a tape). It can get expensive to move a lot of data in and out of Glacier, but it is fine for long time storage.

    So now I have my home folder tree on Time Machine and Amazon S3. I have a music and old data (carried forth from PC to PC since the late 80's) on Glacier, so for most of my data (but not bought applications) I have copies 1) on my Mac, 2) on my Time Machine, and 3) on S3 and Glacier offsite.

    The next problem is if (when) I have to reduce the amount of data on my Mac (when going to SSD, possibly) I will need a place for the data moved off my Mac and my Tiime Machine. I probably will go with a Drobo, which has a good bit of redundancy and which would require only a Glacier backup ($10.00 per terabyte per month) .

    I am putting some faith in Amazon, but their record is so far quite good, and a disk in a safety deposit box, at least in my case, would be updated rarely if at all.

    --Barry




    On Jan 16, 2013, at 9:30 AM, Owen Densmore wrote:

    I figured out the google drive vs g+ plan.  It turns out they are integrated, a good thing I think.  I was concerned it was yet another half baked stunt but this seems pretty well managed.

       -- Owen

    torage plan pricing

    Learn about your options for purchasing more storage for Google Drive, Google+ Photos, and Gmail.

    Store up to 5 GB between Google Drive and Google+ Photos, then pay for additional storage as your account grows. Here's how it works:

    • Tap into your free storage as soon as you start using Google Drive and G+ Photos.
    • Purchase additional storage that can be shared across Google Drive and G+ Photos. When you purchase additional storage, your Gmail storage limit will automatically be increased to 25 GB.
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