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Google Rolls Out Online Storage Services
Posted by
Zonk
on Fri Aug 10, 2007 03:18 PM
from the instant-access-warez-stash dept.
from the instant-access-warez-stash dept.
An anonymous reader writes "The associated press reports that Google is slated to provide online storage at a price. From the article: 'Web search and Internet services company Google Inc. on Friday began selling expanded online storage, targeted for users with large picture, music or video file collections. The prices range from $20 per year for 6 gigabytes of online storage; $75 per year for 25 gigabytes of storage; $250 per year for 100 gigabytes of storage; and $500 per year for 250 gigabytes of storage.' Is this too expensive for what there offering, or are you going to make use of it?"
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Submission: Google Rolls Out Storage Services by Anonymous Coward
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Google Plans Service to Store Users' Data Online 155 comments
achillean wrote this morning with a link to the Wall Street Journal, announcing plans we've all seen coming for a while: an online data storage service from Google. Though the article doesn't come out and call the project 'gDrive' or anything like that, it does indicate the service could be available within the next few months. "Google's push underlines a shift in how businesses and consumers approach computing. They are increasingly using the Web to access applications and files stored in massive computer data centers operated by tech companies such as Salesforce.com Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Google. Such arrangements, made possible by high-speed Internet connections between homes, offices and data centers, aim to ease users' technology headaches and, in some cases, cut their costs."
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Yes, it's too expensive (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Yes, it's too expensive (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
To provide actual data... (Score:5, Informative)
The problem with large amounts of storage isn't the amount of space, but the time taken to upload. It took a week to upload my movie files to Dreamhost on a medium-speed DSL connection, and it would take several solid days of downloading to get it back.
Parent
Re:To provide actual data... (Score:4, Interesting)
Personally I just buy a spare hard drive (you can 500GB for ~$100 now, it's insane), back up everything I need to, and drop off the spare drive at my sister's house (stored in her basement) the next time I go visit her, so I'm covered if my place gets robbed or burned down.
If we all had massive bandwidth available the online deals might be good, but for most of us, 500 GB would simply take way way too long to upload or download.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
No, not in my case it's not. I can drive to my sisters house 70 miles away and be back with the backup drive days and days before I could retrieve the backups over my DSL line.
I care how long it takes to retrieve the data as well as how long it takes to upload it. What works for you may not work for me.
who really cares?
I do.
Re:Yes, it's too expensive (Score:5, Informative)
Check it out [apple.com].
I use it every day and love it. I have found no better coupling than iLife and
Parent
Re:Yes, it's too expensive (Score:5, Insightful)
Check it out [apple.com].
I use it every day and love it. I have found no better coupling than iLife and
Last I checked Google just works, and I expect this will just work too, and it looks like it'll just work for less money.
Parent
Old new: It's called gmail (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Gmail users can purchase it by going to Settings (top right of the gmail interface), then Accounts, then check out the new "Add additional storage" row. Or, you can just straight to https://www.google.com/accounts/PurchaseStorage [google.com]
Not quite GDrive, or even S3... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Not quite GDrive, or even S3... (Score:4, Insightful)
Parent
So this was their plan all along (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:So this was their plan all along (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Is that all they're offering? (Score:5, Interesting)
I can get 500 GB of local storage for $100, and I don't have to worry about what some corporation is going to do with my data. If the only "advantage" to Google's storage is that I can use it with their products, what's the point? Surely Google must have something more to offer than the article states. As it stands, this looks like a great deal if it were 1998, but not so much today.
Re:Is that all they're offering? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, and I can get a pair of shoes or a blowjob for that too. What's that got to do with online storage, which presumably you put online for a reason?
Parent
Re:Is that all they're offering? (Score:5, Funny)
Which store does that combo? I'm heading there as soon as I find out!
Parent
Re:Is that all they're offering? (Score:4, Funny)
If you're looking for a combo then $100 will get you a pair of sandals and a reacharound.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Is that all they're offering? (Score:4, Insightful)
That's my point, the "advantage" the article talks about is that you can use the storage with Google's own products.
The article was written by a journalist for Forbes. It also says nowhere that this is the only way to use the storage.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Nice:
1) remote availability: files online to transfer or get access when out and about
2) remote backup
Sucks:
1) expensive: I can get a 500GB drive from frys for $100
2) privacy: do I really want google to know even more about me; yes send me more ads; yes turn over my files when the feds come for it [you better encrypt it]
3) reliability:
A) GMail goes down so I assume I will not always have access to these files [I cannot put important files there and expect to access them as needed]
Re:Is that all they're offering? (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Finally! (Score:2)
Privacy? (Score:2, Insightful)
Then send me more targeted advertisements when I use their services? You know that they can link all that up.
Just how "do no evil" will google be with all this information on you available at their fingertips?
I suppose you could just always encrypt all your uploads... hmm.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Well, (Score:5, Insightful)
Amazon S3 (Score:5, Interesting)
Amazon has it right in this instance. The cost is less and is dynamic.
I'm looking at starting a small app hosting company and S3 will definitely work better than Google, my costs grow with my business, no upfront expenses etc.
Re:Amazon S3 (Score:5, Informative)
At $0.15/gb/month, S3 is already priced better than Google - especially considering you only pay for what you use with no need to pre-pay for a bunch of storage in advance.
S3 is really a different service - you can store anything on it, whereas the Google storage can apparently only be used from Google apps (for now). The other advantage of using software like Jungle Disk with S3 is that your data is encrypted before even leaving your machine, and neither Amazon nor anyone else can access it.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Seems like most people should be able to get their important documents into the 6GB drive.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I try to be diligent about rotating disks offsite, but
Re:Amazon S3 (Score:5, Informative)
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/32
Integrates an upload/download interface for Amazon S3 into Firefox. Very slick and very free.
Parent
What does google offer... (Score:3, Interesting)
Given the occasional inaccessibility of GMail, if this data is not ALWAYS AVAILABLE, I don't see the point of the exercise. The only other advantage I can see are download speeds, but upload speeds are getting better day by day. If I pool with 3-4 other people for a solid internet connection (or if I am in college), I am all set...
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Expensive and unreliable? (Score:5, Interesting)
Also, even assuming that Google's new service is:
On the "trustworthy" issue, I trust Google as much as just about any company -- but I don't trust anyone 100%, so why risk it?
Bottom line -- call me a dinosaur (OK, it fits; I enjoy BASIC and Assembler), but I'd rather do it myself.
Yeah, yeah, you say -- but what about portable storage? OK, I admit, this would be convenient -- but I still think the drawbacks (even money being no object) far outweigh bringing the data you need with you. Heck, for that money, you could seriously think about one of those new solid-state drives! How's that for reliability?
there (Score:5, Funny)
Sigh.
Here we go again, wielding the language of Shakespeare with all the delicate sensitivity and purpose of a surgeon wielding a cosh.
Re:there (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Here we go again, wielding the language of Shakespeare with all the delicate sensitivity and purpose of a surgeon wielding a cosh.
Sigh.
Here we go again. Another Brit using British slang and just expecting the rest of the world to understand. I had to go to dictionary.com, but for those of us who aren't Brits
cosh = bludgeon
Official post and links (Score:5, Informative)
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/08/simple-way
Also, here's the link for actually purchasing the additional space:
https://www.google.com/accounts/PurchaseStorage [google.com]
At the time being, this doesn't seem to be a standalone storage service (the summary was kind of ambiguous about this), but rather a way to upgrade the space you have on additional Google services (gmail, Picasa, etc.). In any case, I'd really love it if they eventually came out with a storage service that you could use as a CVS/SVN repository.
Forbes blew it -- Not an online storage service (Score:5, Informative)
Dreamhost (Score:4, Interesting)
I think $500/year for 250GB which works out to $2.00/year/GB isn't too bad, but it's annual. Dreamhost is ONCE.
MegaUpload gives you 250GB of storage for $70 for TWO years which is a mere $3/month or $35/year or a bit over one cent a month per GB.
One consideration would be risk, however - we expect Google to be around in two years. Do we know for sure that other companies would be? Of course, that is only relevant if your storage company is being used as the only store for those files - if merely used for backup, it's not relevant.
Horriblely Written Article (Score:3, Informative)
my 2 cents (Score:4, Insightful)
Most people here think they can whip together some one-task server with a software raid to back their data up. In fact, many of us do this. But out of the set of us that can manage this, what portion of us are storing that data locally? And how many are checking that the backups are working properly? How many of us have actually restored to verify we know exactly what we're doing? I've been a linux admin for 8 years, and I could still see myself making an error that would cost me all my data. All the people who haven't ever done a backup server and think they're just going to whip together a solution some weekend are people playing a very risky game. Yeah yeah, I hear you saying, "this guy thinks I'm a moron, or thinks he's so smart"- listen, I'm just saying, until you've tested something new from scratch a couple times, you're risking your files to fate.
Now, take the google thing. Yeah, they're gonna mine it. Just for advertising eyeballs, but they're gonna do it. Do you care? Should you? That's not relevant to this. What IS relevant is that they're going to back your data up better than your home-rig will. Yeah, yours is faster and bigger. But what happens when you forget to cron the backup? Or assume a symlink got tarred? Or fat-finger the restore and lose your set? Or, heaven forbid, you have a fire? What if you lost your backups with your source in the same physical accident? Or theft?
And then you'd kick yourself for not having at least that 50 megabytes of stuff you actually can't re-download. A photo of your first girlfriend from high school. An email from an old friend that died. Stuff that had only those two copies, and you watched them both unlink from the disk before you could stop the delete command. Whoops.
Now, if you dont want them mining it, get a host like rsync.net. Nah, I dont work for them. They're awesome only in that they delivered what I paid for. They're not one of those "unlimited until we say so" shops, and the data always gets through. They're a small shop and the guys there love support. Anyways, I'm not saying they're the ones for sure- there are plenty of other places. I just wanted the rsync support. I sleep just a little easier knowing that, however stupid I end up being, some of my stuff exists somewhere smarter than I can accidentally destroy.
So there you have it. I'm no guru, just an average, run of the mill professional linux admin, who trusts a service provider that does backups for a living better than I can do myself at my own home. The end.
If it's just the space, you can get more, cheaper. (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.megaupload.com/ [megaupload.com] has one offering, 250gbyte. Prepaid for one year it's 50 Euros (or whatever their site says for the US locale). That's 70 bucks. You
The regular webhosting market has things like this to offer as well. http://www.dreamhost.com/ [dreamhost.com] : The cheapest plan, at one year prepayment, would be around 120 bucks and offer 145gb of space. I say would since you can use their promo codes (check the forums) to almost triple the space or drop the price to a lot less. So that's 400 gb of storage, a couple terabytes of transfer a month, and some processing power to boot (WebDAV/FTP/SFTP/SCP/rsync/etc. are all possible). I imagine competitors to DH will have similar offerings space-wise. We're looking at around a fourth the price for almost double the storage space. Don't you dare yell "overselling" -- Google does, too.
If you can be bothered with some cumbersome setup (to laypeople, anyway), Amazon S3 will get you storage space for $0.15/gb/month, plus traffic ($0.18/gb). If you actually use 250gb, the price will be comparable to Google for storage alone (i.e. no transfers other than the initial incoming transfer); the difference is that you get charged by the byte, not in large pre-paid packages. If you use 1gb and transfer it twice, you pay $0.51 that month. Also consider that if you use less than the 250gb Google offering, you're probably get away cheaper (since the smaller Google plans are comparatively more expensive while Amazon's offering exhibits a linear price curve over the amount of storage used).
The value Google's space has is probably the integration with its applications -- Picasa, for instance, lacks decent online functionality using standard protocols -- and Google will probably deliver GREAT online functionality with their own service.
If all you really need is a foolproof backup, open up an FTP and let the world mirror it. I wonder who would do such a thing
Use encryption (Score:3, Informative)
Re:I won't be making use of it (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Doomed (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Save your money... (Score:4, Interesting)
You answered your own question. None of these plans are for techies. They're for people who can't figure out how to do all that stuff a techie would do.
A lot of small businesses and home users aren't going to be storing their stuff on their own machines (by definition, a risk) using SSH and rsync. Maybe they should be using something like Storegrid (an rdiff-backup-like client/server solution) and a Web site, but they'd need a consultant to come up with that idea. They'd never figure it out.
But they know Amazon and Google - so these services, that have economies of scale in purchasing hard drives, can easily offer a useful service to these people, even if it costs two or three times more than what a techie would spend on an equivalent solution.
Parent
Re:Comparing Google Purchased Storage with Amazon (Score:3, Interesting)