Why Cloud Storage Is Lousy For Enterprises (and Individuals)

storagedude points to this article at Enterprise Storage Forum which argues that cloud-based storage options have fatal limitations for both businesses and individuals: "The article makes the argument that high volumes of data and bandwidth limitations make external cloud storage all but useless for enterprises because it could take months to restore the data in a disaster. It also appears to be a consumer problem — the author spent three months replicating 1TB of home data via cable modem to an online backup service." Seems like those off-site incremental storage firms could dispatch a station wagon full of tapes, for enough money. Update: Here's another reason, for Sidekick users: reader 1ini was one of several to point out an alert from T-Mobile that "...personal information stored on your device — such as contacts, calendar entries, to-do lists or photos — that is no longer on your Sidekick almost certainly has been lost as a result of a server failure at Microsoft/Danger."

Comments

Amazon already addressed ths problem

[Unknown Relic]

For a while now they've had their AWS Import/Export service. It's still in beta and only available to people in the US, but it won't stay that way forever.

http://aws.amazon.com/importexport/

Need to transfer 1TB of data? Mail Amazon the data on a drive, they load it, send you the device back. Sure beats uploading for 3 month with a cable modem. Have more data than that? You can send them up to an 8U drive enclosure, and more than that if you make special arrangements.

Cloud computing providers

[jamesl]

Boeing and Airbus are the worlds largest suppliers of cloud computing and have proven to be very reliable. Crashes are infrequent and while they can be disasterous for those directly involved they are a very small fraction of all customers. Generally replacements are on line the next day.