Kinda touched on this in a thread on photos, but I find myself constantly running low on my HD space. I am a packrat and I have many gigabytes of music, photos, and other such media files, plus files I am not using but want to keep (such as program install exe files which can be handy in case of a need to reinstall.) Some of this I want to actually back up, but I could also use a place to move files to clear space and be able to access at a later time if needed.
Recommendations? I have Dropbox basic, but that is only 3 gig and I’ve really only used it for storing documents I’m working on on more than one device/location.
Well, no feedback so I decided to try Google Drive. I already use Google Docs for some things, and people have been raving about Google Photos. Paid $9 for 1T of space and downloaded the Google Drive PC app. and proceeded to try to move some files to clear up some space.
First thing I discovered is the Google Drive app on the PC is a synched drive that takes up space on my hard drive. It’s not clear to me how to use it to MOVE files off my HD to the Google Cloud drive. In fact, it looks like it takes up space on my HD for the Google Docs files I had on the cloud.
So - I’ll just go to drive.google.com and move the files directly to the cloud that way. Two issues there: one, it will only let you move a folder if you are using Chrome as your browser, apparently. Will not with FF, my default browswer. OK, I have Chrome installed (I use it for Plex and my Chromecast.)
But, and this is not Google’s fault, I forgot that moving a folder that is 85 gig when your internet service is 50/2 is sloooooooooooowwwwww. I supposed I just need to let it run overnight.
Not crazy about the Google interface, they like to do things their way, but I suppose if I could learn to tolerate Gmail’s quirks I can live with it.
Why not use Google Photos for free with lossy uploads?
I have/had the following paid services (of course I have, I’m QT3’s resident paid-app fetishist) and am moving everything over to MS OneDrive:
Microsoft OneDrive (2TB free but essentially unlimited with yearly $99 Office365 subscription)
Apple iCloud (20GB for $0.99/month)
Google Drive 100GB ($1.99/month)
Dropbox Pro 100GB before they went to 2TB although friend has managed to get permanent free 50GB or so from referrals
CrashPlan Pro family plan
Box and Dropbox Pro (nevermind a bunch of fly-by-night startups with “sale!” prices) have a hard problem getting people to keep their subscriptions going now that the massive incumbants are throwing out essentially unlimited storage as loss-leaders for other products.
Dropbox had the early lead in encouraging integration with the most popular apps (and are even an option in the new MS Office suite on mobiles) but I’m not sure how they can monetize going forward–they’ve stalled in terms of subscriber growth.
I need to store a lot of files that are not photos, video projects, etc. I’ll use the photos for the photos though.
The killer is how slow this is, it may be unusable. I’m timimg it, and for some reason it is uploading far slower than it should. Just tested via another app, andf was getting the full 2 upload I should be getting. It is uploading at about 1/4 that speed for some reason.
I’ve found file uploading to Google to be painfully slow (in the ballpark of 120-200k/sec) with Google Music’s upload service as recently as a few months ago.
Yeah, Dropbox has consistently been the fastest for me in terms of upload and syncing. I’m about to pay for BitTorrent Sync Pro and I’ll let you guys know how that works out.
The service in this case isn’t the primary culprit–your upstream is kind of slow at just 2. I suspect that North American bandwidth is just as bad everywhere eh? I’m at 60/10 on mine.
Oh whoops, I thought this was photo focused like int eh other thread. I just use Google Photos and Flickr for pictures, Google All-Access Music for music, and, uh, local storage (media server and random external drive) for large movie/media. Everything else is small enough for Dropbox/Drive/OneDrive (yea, I use all three). I don’t set those services to sync with my computer(s) either.
The initial sync can be painful, but remember you’re not going to be syncing 50GBs at a time in the future. It’ll just be differential ones.
I find Dropbox the fastest for me so I use it for work stuff (I have 10GB mostly through gaming the referral system). I also have my 1TB plan through Office365 for OneDrive which I also quite like. Both services offer you the ability to specify what you want to sync and not want to sync.
Google Drive has actually been my worst experience in terms of speed, but that was soon after they launched. I just never found a need to go try them again.
Dropbox - my daily syncing needs
OneDrive - my large / long term sync needs (photos, etc) for stuff I don’t access often but want backed up.
So tangent time - how are you guys encrypting the stuff you shove up on the cloud (assuming you bother to encrypt)? I typically haven’t bothered with cloud services at all, but seems silly to not make use of a free 2TB.
I use OneDrive because it’s free with my Office 365 sub (which is free through work). It does the job but is sometimes very slow. I don’t know why the speed varies so wildly.
I’ve got about, oh, 100 gig I’d like to pull off my laptop and store where I can access it when I need it. A lot of video stuff I use for clips, etc. when putting together projects, and the same for a lot of other large files.
I am not looking for synching, actually; all I synch tends to be documents of various types to which I need access from various locations. I also use Carbonite as a safety backup system. My first shot at the Google Drive as a cloud storage medium to move this stuff reveals what a calculator would reveal - too slow for my needs. I suppose I’ll just need to have redundant external removable USB drives; the appeal of the cloud was no worries about a mechanical failure.
Do any of these services let you mount your cloud drive over the network, instead of using local sync or a web browser? For situations where your local storage is tight, or perhaps your cloud data exceeds your local space?
