Slashdot Mirror
Amazon Announces Unlimited Cloud Storage Plans
An anonymous reader sends word that Amazon is now offering unlimited cloud storage plans to compete with Google Drive, and Microsoft OneDrive. "Last year, Amazon gave a boost to its Prime members when it launched a free, unlimited photo storage for them on Cloud Drive. Today, the company is expanding that service as a paid offering to cover other kinds of content, and to users outside of its loyalty program. Unlimited Cloud Storage will let users get either unlimited photo storage or "unlimited everything" — covering all kinds of media from videos and music through to PDF documents — respectively for $11.99 or $59.99 per year."
Never. Never ever. I run a couple of servers here at home, and have my own 30 TB cloud. Pricing model: simple. I buy used servers, at about e 300 apiece, and stick in new hdds. For 30 TB and a three-year write-off, that is € 625 / year. Expensive ? Yes. But what I get is priceless: total control
Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
Can we get that data encrypted client side with a third party Dropbox-like app?
I wonder if this product is being funded by the NSA through covert means?
Does it have API for uploading/downloading data? (EDIT, I see there is - https://developer.amazon.com/public/apis/experience/cloud-drive/)
Are there any bandwidth limits or other kind of limits?
Say 210 watts system power at the wall. 5000 watts a day. Say $0.20/kWh. That is $1/day. No biggie? That's almost $400 a year. Per server. You claim how many? Funny how one under states power/CPU use but over states the rest. Who you lying for?
Amazon gives you infinite store for $60 a year.
That is why America rulez! and the Greeks druelz!
I wonder if Kim Dotcom has an account yet?
Now I have somewhere to put my advertised "unlimited retension" Usenet servers!
Why do people link to blog posts that neglect to link to the original source?
A little digging, and it seems on the surface to have similar restrictions as BackBlaze, as it's only for "for personal, non-commercial purposes".
So I can't store my ~3PB of telescope data on there, or even just the jpeg browse images.
The terms of use mention that you can share files .. but do they charge you for downloads, as with their other cloud service offerings, or is that included in the 'unlimited'?
(I might be an old fogey, but I remember when you used to link to a blog post to set context *and* link to the original source in the summary, rather than just some shallow 'I've cherry picked the info'. At least Roland and Coondoggie linked back to their original sources, even if Coondoggies were almost exclusively regurgitation of press releases + a links back to Network World))
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
Will they have a linux client?
Google seems to be dragging their feet with their expensive and annoying "per month" only plans.
Come on google get the lead out.
I had heard rumors that Amazon had updated their cloud to a Cumulonimbus.
"We may change, suspend or discontinue the Service, or any part of it, at any time without notice."
To do something right, you often have to roll up your sleeves and get busy.
"We may change, suspend or discontinue the Service, or any part of it, at any time without notice."
Google has that problem too. And they have a long track record of abruptly killing services.
Guess I better move to Europe.
SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
Since Cellular is the only way I can get Internet at home thanks to lax regulation and the complete absence of a requirement that the billions of dollars in tax gifts given to the big ISPs be used to actually build out infrastructure, this is useless to me.
From the email I received from Amazon this morning:
TL;DR: If you had the free 5GB Cloud Drive tier, you'll need to pay up or find another storage provider.
The aggravating part is that the free 5GB you used to have is gone now (source: email). All I wanted it for is Kindle document storage, which is unavailable at the $12/year level. It looks like I have to pay $60/year to store a few books.
SYS 64738 NO CARRIER
People need to test this and see how unlimited it is... just to see when they cut you off. upload all the data at CERN.
You may not share files (a) that contain defamatory, threatening, abusive, pornographic, or otherwise objectionable material, (b) that advocate bigotry, hatred, or illegal discrimination. "Otherwise objectionable"? "Advocate bigotry"?
May your blade chip and shatter.
For those wondering I emailed them and this is what I got as a reply:
Hello,
I understand your concern about accessing new Cloud Drive Plans in Amazon.ca.
I've checked with our technical team and see that currently these plans aren't available in Amazon.ca.
I'm extremely sorry as I can realize this must be a disappointing news for you, but I hope you understand my limitations in this case. We've already raised the request to our technical team who are working hard to implement this feature in our international sites.
I understand that we are unable to fulfill your request as of now, but I'll definitely do my best to forward your concern to our Cloud Drive team to raise the severity.
Can't find their definition of a photo. Its that .jpg, .png, .gif, .raw ?
they have at least given quite a bit of notice (of the shutdown date, not the intention) and allowed bulk export of your data. But yes, how hard would it be to at least give a minimum warning garantee?
I find the price difference for storing more than just images to be pretty steep. Wouldn't it save money to use stenography to store your files inside of some images so you could get around their stupid rule? You could even up the amount of data storage inside the image since you don't really care if the image looks good afterwords. Just have the file name and structure of an image would work even though it looks like static or something. Then you run them through a program that extracts all the files and if needed puts them back together like a multi-part rar file or something.
-- ssoorrrryy,, dduupplleexx sswwiittcchh oonn.. -Quote found on actual fortune cookie.
Anonymous Coward wrote:
Since Cellular is the only way I can get Internet at home
That can be changed. Consensus from the last story is that you need to set up Internet service as a condition of the purchase of a house.
because someone is going to send an endless stream of huge files to this "unlimited" storage just to find out. Why not just put the cards on the table and be frank with your customers from start?
If by "abruptly" you mean "with plenty of notice and a straightforward way to download all of your old data".
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
I was all set to pull the trigger with Amazon and sign up for the $60/ unlimited. Lots of family pictures and videos that would now be accessable to my family all over the world.. But then I thought..... won't Google adjust it's pricing?
For DIY offsite backup I use crashplan. Their system lets you use their servers if you choose (for payment) but it also lets you use a remote disk you have over at a freinds house too, or one attached to your computer. I bought their software after using the free version for years. Besides being a nice automated backup system, the killer thing was the ability to backup offsite to a friends house. I do it mutually with them, each keeping the other's USB disk at our respective homes.
What's great about this is that if I do ever need to do a full backup, I don't have to try streaming it back through a soda straw over the web. I just drive the station wagon over, pick up the disk, and bring it home. Station wagons have very high bandwidth.
The disk is encrypted so no worries about peepers or what happens if my freinds computer gets broken into.
The payware version is a one time payment not a monthly fee. What you get for the payware version is more parsimonious differential backups and some other features about controlling backup times.
The software has gotten much better over the years too. Early on my complaint was the java bloated itself out to huge memory sizes over time. But now I don't even notice it is running.
Anytime I need to do a bigger than normal backup, I go get the disk and attach it locally, then take it back. That only happens when there's an unusual event. For example, if I make a major change in the structure of my file system, copy everything to a new disk or do something that touches all the files, then this could, in most backup systems, trigger a level 0 backup. So when that happens it's much easier to get things up to date then with any on-the-net storage system.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
That is why Amazon should be treated as a backup, not primary storage.
Google is already free. Just resize your pictures to be under 2048x2048...
maybe you can split the rent with this guy?
Obviously they want to analyze unlimited amount of photos for faces, places, aliens... without raising any suspicion.
I tried to sign up for the trial but only got the 5gb free plan. When I sent them an enquiry about this I got this slightly odd reply: "I regret to inform you that this feature is not yet available in Amazon.com.au. Amazon.com.au does not comment about rumours or speculative news reports. I can't provide any additional information on this issue. I hope this helps." Well, no, Amazon, not really...
Flickr is 1TB free, with no resizing necessary, AFAIK.
SYS 64738 NO CARRIER
The uploader is 37.2 MB just for the installer. What on earth is in this thing? Too suspicious for me.