Big Changes for Amazon Cloud

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

Well, it lasted longer than a year; but I never used it. The only thing I have in Amazon's cloud is music; all of which was purchased from Amazon, which is always eligible for unlimited storage.

Same.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by TimW

I have a couple documents in mine when I tried the Cloud Drive Desktop App. Otherwise, mine is empty. I haven't decided what I can do with "only" 20 GB storage. I'll probably let mine lapse when the time comes.

I wonder how Amazon's Cloud Drive compares with DropBox, SugarSync, or any of the other clouds. Their $25 a year plan gets you 50GB of cloud storage and 250,000 non-Amazon songs storage and playback, making it the best value I've seen yet.

[covingtoncat73]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

I wonder how Amazon's Cloud Drive compares with DropBox, SugarSync, or any of the other clouds. Their $25 a year plan gets you 50GB of cloud storage and 250,000 non-Amazon songs storage and playback, making it the best value I've seen yet.

Yeah, Amazon usually is the best deal on books and music (they have a lot more sales and deals on that than iTunes). I do find that BestBuy is better for electronics, though. Sorry to get somewhat off-topic.

To get back on topic, that is way more storage than I think I would ever need. I could put the few documents I have from my Genealogy research, the family pictures I've had scanned, and non-confidental-type work-stuff like my module hand-outs on there. It wouldn't come close, though.

I have long since lost old school papers and the files I had of my writing (No, I'm not a writer, I just wrote some fanfic and even some original short-shorts. That stuff is on a couple of websites, though, so not really lost. I haven't written anything in almost 3 years now, anyway). Anyway, the aforementioned documents were lost due to computer crashes and/or losing jump drives/floppy disks). If a cloud had been available and I'd put that stuff in it, I'd still have it, assuming the cloud didn't go belly-up.

/Sorry for rambling.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by covingtoncat73

To get back on topic, that is way more storage than I think I would ever need. I could put the few documents I have from my Genealogy research, the family pictures I've had scanned, and non-confidental-type work-stuff like my module hand-outs on there. It wouldn't come close, though.

You can also store videos.

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

I wonder how Amazon's Cloud Drive compares with DropBox, SugarSync, or any of the other clouds. Their $25 a year plan gets you 50GB of cloud storage and 250,000 non-Amazon songs storage and playback, making it the best value I've seen yet.

I use Carbonite (the $59 per year/Unlimited plan), but my biggest fear (outside of the particular cloud service you use being hacked), is that the company might decide sometime in the future that they no longer want to be in the online backup service business. This is what happened to me with the first backup service I used which was offered by Hewett-Packard. The good news is that HP gave plenty of advance warning to their customers before they pulled the plug.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

I use Carbonite (the $59 per year/Unlimited plan), but my biggest fear (outside of the particular cloud service you use being hacked), is that the company might decide sometime in the future that they no longer want to be in the online backup service business. This is what happened to me with the first backup service I used which was offered by Hewett-Packard. The good news is that HP gave plenty of advance warning to their customers before they pulled the plug.

I backup my important stuff to several locations - PC, standalone hard drive, and DVDs. If I were to use the cloud, it would become a 4th backup.

[WT Sharpe]

I also use an external HD these days. I have a sad history of losing information.

[TimW]

Originally Posted by WT Sharpe

I also use an external HD these days. I have a sad history of losing information.

I also have an external HD...now. I had a hard drive crash a few years ago and lost every furshlugginer thing I had. That was a royal pain in the coccyx, to say the least. The Carbonite backup sounds intriguing. Although it would take a month of Sundays to upload everything, it would be worth the time.

[WT Sharpe]

Carbonite's a pretty good service and the backup works in the background. It took a few days to copy everything I have on hard drive, but the task was done in less than a week. It should noted, however, that video files and files over 4 GB are not automatically backed up for that price. From the website:

Any file over 4 GB must be manually added to your backup.

Video files are backed up automatically with HomePremier. They can be added to your backup manually with Home or HomePlus.

Still, not bad for $59/year, and my Carbonite iPad app lets me access my files from anywhere there's a Wi-Fi connection.

[Blossom]

So I've been playing around with the new features. I see that storage limit now does not count toward music. You either have 250 or 250,000 limit on music. Then you have Cloud Drive space which 5GB free or what paid plan you have.

I'm a little confused. Their email to me this morning said.

When you upgrade to Cloud Player Premium for $25 per year, you can import up to 250,000 songs. Upgrade before your promotional subscription ends and get 50 GB of Cloud Drive storage at no additional cost.

What does that mean? Does it mean my 20 GB will only go to 50GB only if I renew before it expires? I'm confused. Not that I would ever use the Cloud Drive. I have my Dropbox which is more accessible. I'm only interested in the music part which is why I will be renewing.

I do love we can change tag data through the Cloud player now.
I also love It no longer uploads music but matches it if it can. This saves me alot of bandwidth and time and that alone is well worth the $25 a year. My bandwidth is precious!

One thing it will not match my old WMA files I had to convert them to mp3 for it to match them.

I'm pretty happy with the new features. They do need to raise the 250 limit though. I was able upload 500 mp3s in 20 minutes and that's well over the limit.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by Blossom

I'm a little confused. Their email to me this morning said.

What does that mean? Does it mean my 20 GB will only go to 50GB only if I renew before it expires? I'm confused. Not that I would ever use the Cloud Drive. I have my Dropbox which is more accessible. I'm only interested in the music part which is why I will be renewing.

I got the same email and it doesn't make sense to me either. According to the subscription page, all plans are bundled plans and include both data and music. It says nothing about deadlines or separate plans for data and music. No where do they list a Cloud Player Premium plan for $25 per year.

They have seven plans: 5GB, 20GB, 50GB, 100GB, 200GB, 500GB, 1000GB. The first two include 250 songs and the last five include 250,000 songs.

Do they plan on making another change shortly after people sign up for these new plans?

[Blossom]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

Do they plan on making another change shortly after people sign up for these new plans?

That's what I was wondering too.

[Catlady]

Maybe it was clear to everyone but me, but ...

I just went to the Cloud Drive to upload Amazon-purchased mp3s. Whereas such files that were there previously don't count against the 5gb storage, anything newly uploaded DOES count against the 5gb. I thought it was some mistake, so I called Amazon, and yes indeed, they now count in the Cloud Drive.

I'm supposed to put the mp3s in the Cloud Player, and the only way to do that is through Amazon's automatic importer.

[Blossom]

Originally Posted by Catlady

Maybe it was clear to everyone but me, but ...

I just went to the Cloud Drive to upload Amazon-purchased mp3s. Whereas such files that were there previously don't count against the 5gb storage, anything newly uploaded DOES count against the 5gb. I thought it was some mistake, so I called Amazon, and yes indeed, they now count in the Cloud Drive.

I'm supposed to put the mp3s in the Cloud Player, and the only way to do that is through Amazon's automatic importer.

They are two different services now. Amazon Cloud Player and Amazon Cloud Drive. I agree it's totally confusing. You put your music in the player not the drive.

The importer will match your mp3s which means you listen to Amazon's versions not the ones on your hard drive. There is no need to upload Amazon purchases anymore. They actually imported all past purchases into the player already. I got back a few mp3s I lost due to not saving them a couple years ago.

[Catlady]

Originally Posted by Blossom

They are two different services now. Amazon Cloud Player and Amazon Cloud Drive. I agree it's totally confusing. You put your music in the player not the drive.

The importer will match your mp3s which means you listen to Amazon's versions not the ones on your hard drive. There is no need to upload Amazon purchases anymore. They actually imported all past purchases into the player already. I got back a few mp3s I lost due to not saving them a couple years ago.

They didn't import all past purchases for me, only what I had uploaded to the Cloud Drive.

The only reason I ever used any of this was to be able to re-download purchased mp3s--just like you can re-download e-books. What they should do is simply offer that kind of no-frills capabilty for folks like me who don't want to do anything else.