Google lowers Drive price - $1.99 for 100GB/$9.99 for 1TB

[swindle]

http://googledrive.blogspot.nl/2014/03/save-more-with-google-drive.html?m=1

Unheard of prices here. How cool is that. 1TB for $10 is


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_05qJTeNNI fucking good.

[Arseynimz]

I was excited, until I saw that it's monthly. USD$120 for a year's worth of 1TB. Not bad in the grand scheme of things, but considering it's the price of a 1TB drive, I'll take the local drive, and go from there I think.

[swindle]

It would be safe to assume you are aware of the benefits of having storage that you can access from anywhere, using any phone or PC on servers that have multiple levels of redundancy?

[Arseynimz]

It would be safe to assume you are aware of the benefits of having storage that you can access from anywhere, using any phone or PC on servers that have multiple levels of redundancy?

Yeah.

But spennies. 

[Codex]

I was excited, until I saw that it's monthly. USD$120 for a year's worth of 1TB. Not bad in the grand scheme of things, but considering it's the price of a 1TB drive, I'll take the local drive, and go from there I think.

Doesn't taking the local disk kind of defeat the purpose of have the reliability and security of a managed cloud storage that won't fail?

It's not for dumping your 1tb of porn, it's more as a means of cloud backup.

[Apostrophe Spacemonkey]

$120 is not bad.

How well does it integrate with Windows, can I just drag and drop files?

I can!

[Apostrophe Spacemonkey]

I have loads of photos on my harddrives, I really need to back them up.

IN CASE OF FIRE!

[Arseynimz]

I was excited, until I saw that it's monthly. USD$120 for a year's worth of 1TB. Not bad in the grand scheme of things, but considering it's the price of a 1TB drive, I'll take the local drive, and go from there I think.

Doesn't taking the local disk kind of defeat the purpose of have the reliability and security of a managed cloud storage that won't fail?

It's not for dumping your 1tb of porn, it's more as a means of cloud backup.

I'm more practical - back up fast to local drive, drop it to storage unit, rotate when necessary.

EDIT: Hmmm, now you guys got me thinking - I'm just about to boot my storage unit, so could just roll out with this...

[Bounty Hunter]

It would be safe to assume you are aware of the benefits of having storage that you can access from anywhere, using any phone or PC on servers that have multiple levels of redundancy?

I assume you know about the benefits of remote access?

[Xenolightning]

I have loads of photos on my harddrives, I really need to back them up.

IN CASE OF FIRE!

OR FLOODING!

[swindle]

It would be safe to assume you are aware of the benefits of having storage that you can access from anywhere, using any phone or PC on servers that have multiple levels of redundancy?

I assume you know about the benefits of remote access?

What are you playing at son?

[Bounty Hunter]

What are you playing at son?

I'm just saying you can set up remote access to a physical 1TB drive that you own, which trumps a 1TB drive in the cloud. In my humble opinion.

[Codex]

I'm just saying you can set up remote access to a physical 1TB drive that you own, which trumps a 1TB drive in the cloud. In my humble opinion.

Disagree, while the storage is easy to setup for access remotely via any non trash router, it doesn't in any way stump the cloud offered solutions in terms of data integrity.

If you're happy to leave stuff on there that isn't too important then sure it's great but it in no means replaces what the main benefits of large cloud based storage are, a very good backup method. Although if you have the ability to use both then I would.

[Bounty Hunter]

Disagree, while the storage is easy to setup for access remotely via any non trash router, it doesn't in any way stump the cloud offered solutions in terms of data integrity.

If you're happy to leave stuff on there that isn't too important then sure it's great but it in no means replaces what the main benefits of large cloud based storage are, a very good backup method. Although if you have the ability to use both then I would.

Yes exactly. User can weigh their options, personally I'd take the disk drive and run.

[swindle]

Disagree, while the storage is easy to setup for access remotely via any non trash router, it doesn't in any way stump the cloud offered solutions in terms of data integrity.

If you're happy to leave stuff on there that isn't too important then sure it's great but it in no means replaces what the main benefits of large cloud based storage are, a very good backup method. Although if you have the ability to use both then I would.

Yes exactly. User can weigh their options, personally I'd take the disk drive and run.

Remote access is just so much... harder. And I know, it's not that hard, but it's not all that secure. Unless you're running some form of redundancy and have an amazing internet connection it's not really even close to what dropbox/drive can offer.

[Growler]

what's this backup thing you guys are talking about... surely you can just re-get everything.

I have 75TB of porn, and that would only take a few weeks to gather up.

[swindle]

what's this backup thing you guys are talking about... surely you can just re-get everything.

I have 75TB of porn, and that would only take a few weeks to gather up.

Basically

http://www.wd.com/en/products/network/networkstorage/

Or a NAS, or whatever. Call it whatever.

I call it destroyed in a fire, fucked in water and without RAID (most of the time) covering your ass. She ain't no enterprise drive neither.

[Arnifix]

I'm exceedingly pleased by this news. In all honesty, there is little reason not to have the 100gb offering (which is actually 125gb with the bonus datas). Considering the ability to transfer data between disparate pcs and phones, with near-system level integration on Android... DELICIOUS!

[Bounty Hunter]

Basically

http://www.wd.com/en/products/network/networkstorage/

Or a NAS, or whatever. Call it whatever.

I call it destroyed in a fire, fucked in water and without RAID (most of the time) covering your ass. She ain't no enterprise drive neither.

I don't consider setting up a secure remote connection to be difficult so I may be in the minority there. For the average user I would consider the effort required to set up and manage a 1TB cloud drive to be about the same as setting up teamviewer. Because there are so many services too it means you have to workaround some apps. You may weigh that against having to carry a pen drive with teamviewer portable on it, but then I carry one anyway. But then teamviewer isn't really integrated. To be honest the whole app integration thing barely works anyway (in my experience)

As for redundancy, I would say your chances of having a catastrophic failure within 1 year are really really low, 10 years fairly high but still not definite. at a rate of $120 a year I think one could reasonably gamble that their drive isn't going to fail in the first year, but then purchase a new disk drive in the second year and run this as redundancy. At this point you might consider carrying on this routine replacing the nth drive with a newer one each year, maybe 2 years? So now you just have to not burn your house down.

With my model though you pay 2*n for data (If I want a file then I must upload it from home, then download it somewhere else for every transfer), with your model it would be n+1 (upload it once then download it n number of times). However if like me you have a stupidly huge data cap and VDSL then it may not concern.

[toofast]

Basically

http://www.wd.com/en/products/network/networkstorage/

Or a NAS, or whatever. Call it whatever.

I call it destroyed in a fire, fucked in water and without RAID (most of the time) covering your ass. She ain't no enterprise drive neither.

I don't consider setting up a secure remote connection to be difficult so I may be in the minority there. For the average user I would consider the effort required to set up and manage a 1TB cloud drive to be about the same as setting up teamviewer. Because there are so many services too it means you have to workaround some apps. You may weigh that against having to carry a pen drive with teamviewer portable on it, but then I carry one anyway. But then teamviewer isn't really integrated. To be honest the whole app integration thing barely works anyway (in my experience)

As for redundancy, I would say your chances of having a catastrophic failure within 1 year are really really low, 10 years fairly high but still not definite. at a rate of $120 a year I think one could reasonably gamble that their drive isn't going to fail in the first year, but then purchase a new disk drive in the second year and run this as redundancy. At this point you might consider carrying on this routine replacing the nth drive with a newer one each year, maybe 2 years? So now you just have to not burn your house down.

With my model though you pay 2*n for data (If I want a file then I must upload it from home, then download it somewhere else for every transfer), with your model it would be n+1 (upload it once then download it n number of times). However if like me you have a stupidly huge data cap and VDSL then it may not concern.

But having a 2 local drives, does not protect against localized issues. i.e. someone steals your pc, fire steals your pc, power surge steals your pc.

[Pyromanik]

This is why I've decided I fucking hate the shit out of telephones, and encryption.
Encryption is only as good as someone not having physical access.
Phones are too easy to obtain physical access to while they're in operatonal mode.



So when it comes down to it, encryption is only good as communication protection. Which I can agree with. I ain't putting a password in over non ssl. Unless it's something like getsome; where impact is low, and the password is a burner anyway.

Not that I wouldn't be fucked off if someone hijacked my account, but I'm sure some of you lovely chaps would sort it for me.


---edit---

tl:dr, I like the idea of a remote system where I have all the control, but realistically nothing I set up will have the redundancy and availability of something like drive.

[Bounty Hunter]

As for redundancy, I would say your chances of having a catastrophic failure within 1 year are really really low, 10 years fairly high but still not definite. at a rate of $120 a year I think one could reasonably gamble that their drive isn't going to fail in the first year, but then purchase a new disk drive in the second year and run this as redundancy. At this point you might consider carrying on this routine replacing the nth drive with a newer one each year, maybe 2 years? So now you just have to not burn your house down.

But having a 2 local drives, does not protect against localized issues. i.e. someone steals your pc, fire steals your pc, power surge steals your pc.

Yes, I know, I touched on this as above.

To address your concerns directly:

I think my a disk drive is more likely to fail than someone stealing my computer (My mac sitting next to it is worth more and easier to steal - or so a dumbass crook might think) my machine must weigh nigh on 12kg by now. A $14 bike lock would ensure that a meteorite colliding with the ISS and sending a piece of cosmonaut in the direction of my PC is a more likely scenario than my computer being stolen.

In my case I think a power surge is fairly unlikely to corrupt data on two disks.

More likely than either of these scenarios is a cloud account being compromised by poor security protocol. This has happened in the past and it will happen again. There are methods to ensure that only you can ever access your information if you're not a plebeian. Being a plebeian is probably the largest cause for poor security protocol, at the end of the day google, apple, amazon, dropbox would lose so much custom if their system was too difficult to recover a forgotten password.

At the end of the day you evaluate your needs, what you're willing to do and you make a decision. Swindle may be willing to pay $120 pa for 1TB of fairly easy access, reasonably secure storage and that's just awesome. I think for $120 and a little bit of effort you could have a more cyber secure, equally as redundant system. I'd probably use a free/cheap service for smaller, less secure stuff and host my own system for larger more sensitive information.

[Apostrophe Spacemonkey]

The only bad part is that it's google. But I can look past that at this price.

[swindle]

The only bad part is that it's google. But I can look past that at this price.

I hear SkyDrive is a fantastic alternative

/s

[Apostrophe Spacemonkey]

I hear SkyDrive is a fantastic alternative

/s

It is. I use sky drive all the time. I'm hoping the Skydrive prices will come down to compete with google.

You guys should too.

https://onedrive.live.com?invref=a2e3597faea038ce&invsrc=90