Movement towards cloud storage

crossi · 04-17-2014, 09:51 AM

I was reading an article that was talking about Amazon's Cloud Drive. They were noting a progression in amount you can access and convenience from the first tape Walkmans, to portable CD players, to ipods and finally cloud drive storage. Amazon is certainly pushing that by first removing the SD slot from their Kindles, then decreasing the amount of memory in their kindles by more than half. It's like they are trying to force you to use the Cloud.

The Cloud may all be very well but they never mentioned a number of disadvantages. One is privacy, you can never be sure that what is in cloud storage or being delivered is as secure as physical media in your control. Second is you can't access it everywhere. Not just out in the wild but some work places and on some planes you are not allowed internet access. Physical media you can take anywhere. Third is expense. The amount of free storage is limited. Eventually you will pass that limit then to access your files you will need to pay a monthly fee. None of the monthly fees one pays for various services are very high but they quickly add up to a considerable sum so I try to severly limit anything with a monthly charge.

You might be able to tell that I am not a cloud fan. I never even turn on whispernet on my Kindle and I still use a landline not cellphone.

I do use Dropbox for backing up my documents, but I also have backups on a harddrive and often on paper. Just in case.

HarryT · 04-17-2014, 10:00 AM

Nobody's forcing anyone to use it. Cloud storage can indeed be convenient, but it would be madness not to have a backup on local storage, too.

Not sure why anyone would expect Cloud storage to be free. Local storage isn't free.

user743 · 04-17-2014, 10:58 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by HarryT

Nobody's forcing anyone to use it. Cloud storage can indeed be convenient, but it would be madness not to have a backup on local storage, too.

cloud backup??
use it for stuff you will ( - might) need away from your computer not backup. do that regularly on a fiscal hardrive

Quote:

Not sure why anyone would expect Cloud storage to be free. Local storage isn't free.

But it's not a monthly charge.

If cloud storage was a one time payment (as should be), even four times the price of a hardrive. for a decent amount of space ( - not sold as 5-15 gb at a time). much more people would go for it.

crossi · 04-17-2014, 11:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by HarryT

Nobody's forcing anyone to use it. Cloud storage can indeed be convenient, but it would be madness not to have a backup on local storage, too.

Not sure why anyone would expect Cloud storage to be free. Local storage isn't free.

In a way, for Kindles or any reader without large memory and/or a SD slot, it IS forcing it. With a large library while away from your computer backed up books there is no way without the cloud to get your books onto your kindle. With a larger internal memory or a SD card you can have access to all your books with needing to download them from the cloud. This is a choice made by Amazon to de-emphasize physical storage and push for cloud storage for your devices.

I don't expect it to be free. That's why I don't want to need it or use it.

Purple Lady · 04-17-2014, 11:42 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by user743

But it's not a monthly charge.

If cloud storage was a one time payment (as should be), even four times the price of a hardrive. for a decent amount of space ( - not sold as 5-15 gb at a time). much more people would go for it.

Even if it were a one time fee, there is still a charge to download and data limits with more charges for going over the limit.

HarryT · 04-17-2014, 12:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by user743

But it's not a monthly charge.

If cloud storage was a one time payment (as should be), even four times the price of a hardrive. for a decent amount of space ( - not sold as 5-15 gb at a time). much more people would go for it.

You say that cloud storage "should be" a one-time payment, but can you explain the economics of how you see that working, please?

Cloud storage is a service, not a product, and the service provider has an ongoing cost to maintain the network infrastructure, the servers, backups, support personnel, etc. Let's suppose you're 18 years old and you buy a certain amount of cloud storage for a one-time fee. How should that service be priced to allow for the fact that you could conceivably want to access it for the next 70 years, with ongoing costs for the provider that whole time? To suggest that this could be done for 4x the price of a hard disk is wildly optimistic, to my mind.

theducks · 04-17-2014, 12:56 PM

If you shop for a $ERVICE, you get to dictate some of the terms you are willing to PAY for. It is called a CONTRACT.
Don't like the offering...Shop elsewhere.

With Free, you take your chances. Here today, ??? Tomorrow.

Security?

(provider)Mining or data theft?

Simply roll (turn) over when a (agency/lawyer) demand appears?

Read those terms of service. Even when you pay, some of those are pretty cr*ppy. Phone company voice mail retention: HA!

user743 · 04-17-2014, 01:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by HarryT

You say that cloud storage "should be" a one-time payment, but can you explain the economics of how you see that working, please?

Cloud storage is a service, not a product, and the service provider has an ongoing cost to maintain the network infrastructure, the servers, backups, support personnel, etc. Let's suppose you're 18 years old and you buy a certain amount of cloud storage for a one-time fee. How should that service be priced to allow for the fact that you could conceivably want to access it for the next 70 years, with ongoing costs for the provider that whole time? To suggest that this could be done for 4x the price of a hard disk is wildly optimistic, to my mind.

70 years???

in 5-10 years it'll be free

in 10-20 years there wont be any demand for this service just like there is no demand for tapes.

(ever wonder why Windows is a one time payment, they offer lifetime support - shouldn't it add up? No. how many people have Windows 98?!)

HarryT · 04-17-2014, 01:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by user743

70 years???

in 5-10 years it'll be free

in 10-20 years there wont be any demand for this service just like there is no demand for tapes.

Doesn't change the fact that, under the setup you're proposing, you could go back to them in 70 years and demand access to your data. You're requiring someone to give you a virtually limitless commitment. How much are you willing to pay for that?

latepaul · 04-17-2014, 01:36 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by user743

70 years???

in 5-10 years it'll be free

Why? Why will the cost of maintaining servers and the electricity and all the other fixed costs suddenly disappear in 5-10 years?

Perhaps the proportional cost of those overheads relative to what's a reasonable amount of storage will be much lower. But then if what's considered reasonable goes up then so will the amount the customer wants to store.

Quote:

in 10-20 years there wont be any demand for this service just like there is no demand for tapes.

That's a category error. Demand for tapes went away because a better product doing the same job took over. But demand for this service will only go away if people don't want that type of service any more. I think the chances of people not wanting to store data in the future are low. And a combination of enough people not overly concerned over privacy/security and companies investing in solving those problems, will mean there's some market for cloud storage.

Quote:

(ever wonder why Windows is a one time payment, they offer lifetime support - shouldn't it add up? No. how many people have Windows 98?!)

They don't offer lifetime support. They just stopped supporting XP. And in any case support costs tend to fall over time as people upgrade.

The fallacy here is that local storage is a one-off cost. It isn't really. It's not a regular monthly cost like a cloud service. But if you think local storage is a one-off cost then you're only planning to keep your data for the lifetime of a harddrive.

fjtorres · 04-17-2014, 01:45 PM

Several hardware vendors sell consumer-grade NAS storage that lets you set up your own private cloud.
One time payment, you get private access to the data forever. (Or as long as the hardware lasts.)
Dlink and western digital both offer products like that.

crossi · 04-17-2014, 01:48 PM

It's not the monthly fees so much as they are fairly reasonable. It's just my preferred way to access my books and music is first internal memory and second removable media like sd cards or usb sticks which mimic internal memory. The cloud is fine for backup and long term storage but the interface is provider determined and not customizable for your preferences. I just haven't figured how to from my kindle look through my books stored in calibre and retrieve them to my kindle so I'm keeping as many as possible in my kindle and am running out of space. I do not use the archive for anything.

latepaul · 04-17-2014, 01:51 PM

One time payment for the initial hardware. But hardware fails over time. Then there's the ongoing cost of power and connectivity. Unless "private cloud" really means "home network storage" I assume this is visible on the internet. Internet access has an ongoing cost.

fjtorres · 04-17-2014, 02:47 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by latepaul

One time payment for the initial hardware. But hardware fails over time. Then there's the ongoing cost of power and connectivity. Unless "private cloud" really means "home network storage" I assume this is visible on the internet. Internet access has an ongoing cost.

I did say "as long as the hardware lasts".
And the only internet charges are the same anybody with home internet access pays.

Not saying it is a panacea or anything, but that anybody who is serious about cloud storage is better off building their own.

HarryT · 04-17-2014, 02:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Not saying it is a panacea or anything, but that anybody who is serious about cloud storage is better off building their own.

To build the type of fully redundant system with multiple levels of backup that a commercial Cloud provider has would unquestionably cost you hugely more than simply using a commercial Cloud provider in the first place.

The company I work for has, as one of its many offerings, Cloud storage solutions for people (or rather, for companies) who are indeed "serious about Cloud storage". Believe me, the infrastructure doesn't come cheap.

04-17-2014, 09:51 AM	#1
crossi Guru Posts: 997 Karma: 12000001 Join Date: Nov 2009 Location: Seattle Wahington U.S. Device: kindle	Movement towards cloud storage I was reading an article that was talking about Amazon's Cloud Drive. They were noting a progression in amount you can access and convenience from the first tape Walkmans, to portable CD players, to ipods and finally cloud drive storage. Amazon is certainly pushing that by first removing the SD slot from their Kindles, then decreasing the amount of memory in their kindles by more than half. It's like they are trying to force you to use the Cloud. The Cloud may all be very well but they never mentioned a number of disadvantages. One is privacy, you can never be sure that what is in cloud storage or being delivered is as secure as physical media in your control. Second is you can't access it everywhere. Not just out in the wild but some work places and on some planes you are not allowed internet access. Physical media you can take anywhere. Third is expense. The amount of free storage is limited. Eventually you will pass that limit then to access your files you will need to pay a monthly fee. None of the monthly fees one pays for various services are very high but they quickly add up to a considerable sum so I try to severly limit anything with a monthly charge. You might be able to tell that I am not a cloud fan. I never even turn on whispernet on my Kindle and I still use a landline not cellphone. I do use Dropbox for backing up my documents, but I also have backups on a harddrive and often on paper. Just in case.

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04-17-2014, 10:00 AM	#2
HarryT eBook Enthusiast Posts: 85,544 Karma: 93383099 Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: UK Device: Kindle Oasis 2, iPad Pro 10.5", iPhone 6	Nobody's forcing anyone to use it. Cloud storage can indeed be convenient, but it would be madness not to have a backup on local storage, too. Not sure why anyone would expect Cloud storage to be free. Local storage isn't free.

04-17-2014, 12:56 PM	#7
theducks Well trained by Cats Posts: 31,048 Karma: 60358908 Join Date: Aug 2009 Location: The Central Coast of California Device: Kobo Libra2,Kobo Aura2v1, K4NT(Fixed: New Bat.), Galaxy Tab A	If you shop for a $ERVICE, you get to dictate some of the terms you are willing to PAY for. It is called a CONTRACT. Don't like the offering...Shop elsewhere. With Free, you take your chances. Here today, ??? Tomorrow. Security? (provider)Mining or data theft? Simply roll (turn) over when a (agency/lawyer) demand appears? Read those terms of service. Even when you pay, some of those are pretty cr*ppy. Phone company voice mail retention: HA!

04-17-2014, 01:45 PM	#11
fjtorres Grand Sorcerer Posts: 11,732 Karma: 128354696 Join Date: May 2009 Location: 26 kly from Sgr A* Device: T100TA,PW2,PRS-T1,KT,FireHD 8.9,K2, PB360,BeBook One,Axim51v,TC1000	Several hardware vendors sell consumer-grade NAS storage that lets you set up your own private cloud. One time payment, you get private access to the data forever. (Or as long as the hardware lasts.) Dlink and western digital both offer products like that.

04-17-2014, 01:48 PM	#12
crossi Guru Posts: 997 Karma: 12000001 Join Date: Nov 2009 Location: Seattle Wahington U.S. Device: kindle	It's not the monthly fees so much as they are fairly reasonable. It's just my preferred way to access my books and music is first internal memory and second removable media like sd cards or usb sticks which mimic internal memory. The cloud is fine for backup and long term storage but the interface is provider determined and not customizable for your preferences. I just haven't figured how to from my kindle look through my books stored in calibre and retrieve them to my kindle so I'm keeping as many as possible in my kindle and am running out of space. I do not use the archive for anything.

04-17-2014, 01:51 PM	#13
latepaul Wizard Posts: 1,270 Karma: 10468300 Join Date: Dec 2011 Device: a variety (mostly kindles and kobos)	One time payment for the initial hardware. But hardware fails over time. Then there's the ongoing cost of power and connectivity. Unless "private cloud" really means "home network storage" I assume this is visible on the internet. Internet access has an ongoing cost.

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