Copy is shutting down

[library addict]

Is there a website that accurately compares the various cloud storage sites. Not only for price, but for features such as encryption, maximum file size, etc?

All of the ones I'm coming up with are out of date.

[Blossom]

Originally Posted by library addict

Is there a website that accurately compares the various cloud storage sites. Not only for price, but for features such as encryption, maximum file size, etc?

All of the ones I'm coming up with are out of date.

Same here. I had to go to each service and see what's changed. It's clear Cloud services are at a transition point with plans giving less space and monthly fees going up.

I just checked my Amazon plan and it looks like they took away almost all my space I paid for without notifying me when the new plans came out. I would have lost data had I'd been using them for my than photos.

[Sweetpea]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

Cloud services aren't necessarily flaky, but their future is far from assured at this point in time. Other problems to note are possible price hikes, changes in terms and conditions, and changes in specification.

If you want to use a cloud service, then just buy a good NAS and put it at a family member's home for an off-site backup. Put *his* NAS in *your* home and you both have an off-site backup. Many NAS-es have cloud services and accompanying apps built in nowadays.

I was thinking about that, but decided against it (price being a very big part of this).

Everything I want saved is on a NAS (full backup raid, I never know what number it is, so that if one drive crashes, the other still has all the data the first held, the only drawback is that you have only half the storage space). It's also on one of two cloud services.

The chances that both my house burn down (or both the HDDs of the NAS crash at the same time) and the cloud service closing down without notice is so small, I'll take the risk.

[leaston]

Originally Posted by HarryT

You can't, which is why I'd put more faith in a company which offers cloud storage as part of a much larger business. I feel a lot more confident that Amazon or Apple's cloud will be around in 10 years' time than Dropbox.

Yes, that's my take on it. If you must use cloud storage, go with a company who doesn't rely on that aspect of the business for their primary revenue stream.

Originally Posted by HarryT

I agree entirely. Cloud storage is convenient for instant access, but it should never be relied on as your primary backup.

And yet, so many people do exactly this!

[MikeB1972]

Originally Posted by latepaul

My point is not to get this thread dragged into P&R territory, my point is that we rely on systems, institutions and people who could let us down all the time. And we do it because in most cases these other entities are better at doing whatever it is than we'd be on our own - otherwise I'd be wearing a sack as a smock and eating nettle soup or some such.

Well, at least you can make a sack and start a fire from scratch, come the zombie revolution you will be fine.

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by leaston

And yet, so many people do exactly this!

I know some people (in IT, actually), who are of the opinion that local storage is old fashioned. "I only use local storage for the operating system and hard drive."

Good luck getting your stuff done if you have a slow or no internet connection. Besides, my music collection is huge as it's all FLAC. I can't afford to store over 1TB in the cloud.

[Shane R]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

I know some people (in IT, actually), who are of the opinion that local storage is old fashioned. "I only use local storage for the operating system and hard drive."

Good luck getting your stuff done if you have a slow or no internet connection.

Some companies web use is so pervasive that they already demand always-on Internet service (it's called 5 9's), and an IT professional that doesn't design and run a network that can provide it should be looking for his next job.

One job I worked at had two ISP's and two pieces of equipment connecting to each ISP...and dual power connections...one through a UPS to the local utility, and the other to a hot standby generator.

[Ripplinger]

I loved Copy with the free GBs for referrals, I was up to over 200GB free. I used it to upload photos while I'm away from home just in case my camera and/or laptop get trashed or lost. Once I'm home though, my photos are backed up onto 4 hard drives, as are all of my ebooks (as well as all of my music and documents, anything important really).

So now I'm left with just DropBox for my ebooks only, and there's not enough free space for my entire library any more. As I really only use it for emergencies, it's just not worth the expense for me to pay for any cloud storage.

Ah well, it was a nice safety net while it lasted.

[Atunah]

What in the world is a NAS

I put my stuff on a cloud, so there. Some stuff I might put on some discs also here and there. That is the extend of what I am capable off. I don't know lynux, I have no clue how to make my own cloud, or probably the money even if I knew how. I know my husband knows all that stuff. Its part of his living. But that doesn't mean its gonna help me with my stuff.

We had or have a external drive. It died a horrible death. All on it was gone, poof. All my music is still happily living on the amazon cloud. Most of that music is from CD's old mp3's and new bought amazon mp3. All the discs are in a box. Who knows if they all still work at some point. Some of them I brought with me when I immigrated to the US 20 years ago.

I think if all clouds and all virtual stuff goes poof, I'll have bigger issues to deal with than if I can still listen to "Nena".

I do what I can and I have hard copies in a box, but I do rely on my cloud and so far so good. It is why I want to pay a service, a long standing well known service. Amazon is what I pay right now. I wouldn't mind Dropbox if they had a different plan. They are established at they work. But they don't have a plan for me so Amazon it is.

[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by Atunah

What in the world is a NAS

Network Attached Storage.

They can range from being just an external hard disk that is connected to the network instead of directly to the computer, to being a small server.

[Conan46]

Originally Posted by Ripplinger

So now I'm left with just DropBox for my ebooks only, and there's not enough free space for my entire library any more. As I really only use it for emergencies, it's just not worth the expense for me to pay for any cloud storage.

Ah well, it was a nice safety net while it lasted.

I don't know how large your ebook library is, but you can back up 1,000 ebooks at Google Books for free.

[Conan46]

Originally Posted by Katsunami

Network Attached Storage.

They can range from being just an external hard disk that is connected to the network instead of directly to the computer, to being a small server.

Just curious, I see my router has a usb input on it, if I were to just stick files onto a usb stick and plug it in can I see and reach those files through my router?

[Purple Lady]

Originally Posted by Conan46

I don't know how large your ebook library is, but you can back up 1,000 ebooks at Google Books for free.

How do you have to add them? I gave up on adding books to my library because it's so slow.

[Conan46]

Originally Posted by Purple Lady

How do you have to add them? I gave up on adding books to my library because it's so slow.

These days I'm just adding one at a time, but I think I chose the folder with the ebooks in it and ctrl-a and hit upload to upload a bunch of ebooks at once. You can also download these ebooks or back them up from Google drive. It took me awhile to figure that out, but it is called "takeout" at Google, it downloads a zip file of all of your Google Books.

[Ripplinger]

Originally Posted by Conan46

I don't know how large your ebook library is, but you can back up 1,000 ebooks at Google Books for free.

Over 4000 books at this point. I could make do with just uploading the books I have on my reader. The cloud storage would let me get a few books back to read in case my reader ever locked up while I was away from home and was forced to do a factory reset, so I could download something to still be able to read.

Of course since I'm set up to recover pretty easily, it's never happened yet while out... Murphy's Law.