Topic: Cloud Storage Options - August 2022

[opsopcopolis]

I’ve always been a Dropbox guy, and continue to be relatively happy with their services.

[guitard]

I’ve always been a Dropbox guy, and continue to be relatively happy with their services.

I use Dropbox also; but not for archiving stuff.  It's a 2TB account that I mainly use for transferring stuff back and forth between other tapers/filmers. 

In order to archive something like 20TBs on Dropbox, you would need an Advanced or Enterprise account.  Those require 3+ users and cost $24/mth per user for Advanced; and even more for Enterprise.  If you find a good bunch of guys to team up with; that could work out nicely.  But when you start thinking long term ... I don't know.  Most of us are 50s or older.  So you have to keep that bunch of (old) guys together; not to mention, hope Dropbox doesn't go away at some point or make drastic changes to its service or prices.

That's why I have added a NAS to my storage plan.  My 20TBs of stuff is right there at my fingertips; and I don't have to mess with a pile of external drives to maintain it.

[Scooter123]

+1 on Hightail

I just put everything in a single folder, zip it, and upload the zip file.  $16 a month or something like that and no limit to storage.  Easy to share the link. 

[RyanJ]

EDIT: If you are purely looking for a service to SHARE then Google, Hightail, PCloud, etc. seem to make the most sense.  This type of service is sort of a hybrid and is not primarily meant for long-term storage like Backblaze B2 or AWS Glacier.  For $50 per month you can sock away 10TB on B2 but I cannot say how easy it is to link/retrieve.  Keep in mind that STORAGE solutions will charge you a 2nd time for each time it is accessed and pulled back down.

This. I have heard people who have lost their data and go to retrieve it and it's close to $1k to pull it back down.

[guitard]

EDIT: If you are purely looking for a service to SHARE then Google, Hightail, PCloud, etc. seem to make the most sense.  This type of service is sort of a hybrid and is not primarily meant for long-term storage like Backblaze B2 or AWS Glacier.  For $50 per month you can sock away 10TB on B2 but I cannot say how easy it is to link/retrieve.  Keep in mind that STORAGE solutions will charge you a 2nd time for each time it is accessed and pulled back down.

This. I have heard people who have lost their data and go to retrieve it and it's close to $1k to pull it back down.

Yikes!!

[morst]

Cloud storage options - I am embarking on a project to organize my files. They currently reside on many external/bare drives, duplicate copies, etc., but I never know where a particular show is. Rather than have this stuff on external drives, it makes sense for me to organize them to the cloud

Devil's advocate here. JBOD user. (Just a Bunch Of Discs)


I suggest getting an indexing program so you can keep an database of all your files available, even when the drives are in a drawer, a safety deposit box, or your folks's attic!?


I used to use mac Disktracker, but it's no longer supported, so I switched to and paid for NeoFinder and am very very happy with it, and with the support and updates from the creator.
For less than 10 drives, it's FREE.
https://www.cdfinder.de
I thought CDFinder offered a PC version but I can't seem to find it at this groggy hour... Sorry PC and linux folx

[vanark]

It is hard to send a link to shows from a JBOD arrangement. One of the advantages of cloud storage and certainly one of my requirements.

[rigpimp]

It is hard to send a link to shows from a JBOD arrangement. One of the advantages of cloud storage and certainly one of my requirements.

https://cathy.en.lo4d.com/windows

Cathy is an awesome file organizer.

My NAS is a JBOD but I can send anyone a link from within Plex.  I can also share my entire library via an email address and a free Plex account.

[aaronji]

The problem with a NAS solution, in my opinion, is that it is local. Don't get me wrong: I have, and love, a NAS and use it to directly serve music to my playback system as well as getting a little redundancy in case a drive dies. If the house burns down, or floods, or whatever, though, I will lose my main drives AND my NAS. For me, that is the reason for a cloud backup. It can get expensive, so I guess it depends a little on what you want to achieve. Backup? Distribution? Both? And how many TB are we talking about?

[guitard]

The problem with a NAS solution, in my opinion, is that it is local. Don't get me wrong: I have, and love, a NAS and use it to directly serve music to my playback system as well as getting a little redundancy in case a drive dies. If the house burns down, or floods, or whatever, though, I will lose my main drives AND my NAS. For me, that is the reason for a cloud backup. It can get expensive, so I guess it depends a little on what you want to achieve. Backup? Distribution? Both? And how many TB are we talking about?

I know there are cloud backup solutions for the NAS; although I haven't really looked into them very closely.  My initial impression is that they are somewhat expensive because typically they charge monthly by the GB.  It's just a half of a penny per GB ($0.005) per month for storage and $0.01 per GB for download, but that really adds up.

I am still relatively new to the NAS thing.  I haven't looked into closely, and the initial cost will be big; but there is also the option of having a second NAS setup outside your house that's networked with your first NAS.  Possibly find another taper with a NAS willing to do this with you and you become each other's backup.

[aaronji]

^ My IDrive account is about $75 a year for 10 TB. That is more than enough for me (for now) and cheaper than a second NAS. I backup selected portions of my main drives, NAS, and laptop. I have found that I am too lazy to manage a non-local option that requires any effort on my part. The cloud option is completely painless. It helps that I do almost no video and don't take tons of photos...

[morst]

It is hard to send a link to shows from a JBOD arrangement. One of the advantages of cloud storage and certainly one of my requirements.

ok well yeah, if you keep them off line like i do then it's not possible at all.
I have a buddy who swears by his Plex system...

[vanark]

Yep, I'm not running any servers any longer. I like turning on my laptop when I need to do something. I've run servers in the past, no issues with the technology, I just don't want to spend time setting them up and keeping them up. JBOD is what I use now for storage, but not going to invest in indexing them all when I can just upload to the cloud and get the sharing functionality at the same time I am organizing them.

[guitard]

Yep, I'm not running any servers any longer. I like turning on my laptop when I need to do something. I've run servers in the past, no issues with the technology, I just don't want to spend time setting them up and keeping them up.

I've only been running my Synology NAS for a few months, so maybe it's just too soon to say.  But setting up that NAS was so simple, I was dumbfounded when I realized I was finished and everything was running smoothly (and surprisingly, I did it with no help from my tech-savvy youngest son).  From unboxing, installing the four drives, to having it up and running (which included following along with a 34 min tutorial on Youtube) was around an hour.  I shoot 4K video and tape audio, so I need a lot of storage capacity.  So far, I have 18TBs stored on my NAS.  As I said, maybe it's too soon to claim success.  But it has run seamlessly in the background without even the slightest hickup, so maybe it's been a while since you did this and they are easier to set up and maintain now?

[voltronic]

So far, I have 18TBs stored on my NAS.  As I said, maybe it's too soon to claim success.  But it has run seamlessly in the background without even the slightest hickup, so maybe it's been a while since you did this and they are easier to set up and maintain now?

Careful... this is how you anger the data backup gods. 

Just chiming in to say that running NAS is really cool, but be sure to have separate backups for it that are not part of the same array. A NAS array can be a single point of failure with a power surge, or more recently, malware.

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/synology-warns-of-malware-infecting-nas-devices-with-ransomware/

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/qnap-patches-zero-day-used-in-new-deadbolt-ransomware-attacks/