In my experience, Backblaze provides a pretty good upload speed. It didn't maximize my gigabit connection, but it got up to ~25mbps regularly if I am remembering correctly.
CrashPlan, on the other hand, has a horrendous upload speed (a megabit per second or less at all times). The only reason I am using them at this point is because they don't delete your external drive data if you don't plug it back in. Backblaze removes your files after 30 days if the external drive isn't reconnected.
However, they are both backup services-- while you can access files from a web interface whenever you want, it's not the same as Dropbox or Google Drive. Plus, obviously, there's no syncing between computers.
We have been discussing this price reduction in the office for the past 15/20min and it seems that we are going to ditch Box (paid business accounts) for Google, not because Google's price reduction is significantly cheaper, but because we have been encountering considerably sync issues with Box. Now both services are, price-wise, the same, Google has won our trust on the sync/availability side of things.
compared to
Dropbox: 9.99 per month for 100GB
Box: 5 per month for 100GB (15 per month for 1TB)
and now Google Drive: 1.99 per month for 100GB (9.99 for 1TB)
I just downloaded it a little while ago (since first release) and I still find the Windows client pretty useless.
I'll have to stick with Dropbox so I can sync across Windows/OSX/Linux, my phone, etc. Besides I get faster upload speed on Dropbox, so I can sync all my holiday photos.
Because the race has already started a while ago. In this space, network effect is quite important as popularity increases usefulness. Also, Drive does not work as well -- no delta sync, no Linux client (that I find incredible, really -- it's OK that there's no Skydrive client for Linux, but Google Drive?).
Also, mobile sync is worse with Drive as it tries to direct you to Google+.
What network effects? Its just as easy to share files with someone who has Google Drive as it is Dropbox. In fact probably easier with Google Drive because more people have a Google account (800M ACTIVE gmail users was the last number I read).
As for switching costs, its pretty easy right? Drag from one folder to another?
Delta sync is a real issue, but what do you mean their mobile app pushes you to Google+, havent seen that....
If you want to work on files with people (other than supported by google docs) you both need the desktop app installed. Far more people have the Dropbox desktop app installed than Google drive.
I find Dropbox websharing far easier, right-click share and it puts the link on the clipboard. Google drive makes you go through a dialog.
Google Drive doesn't have history for non google doc files. We use it as a simple version control for all our documents.
Just about every time I start a new project with an outside client, one of the first things they do is ask to set up a Dropbox share for the project. I've once had a person want to use Box, and never had anybody even mention Google Drive.
Google Drive doesn't work, at least for me. It won't reliably stay connected. There is no reconnect option either, so every time it disconnects you have to exit/restart and then it has to re-index all the files.
Sharing is clunkier, when you share a folder with somebody it doesn't appear in their drive. After they accept they still need to go into their options to get it to start syncing.
There are a lot of Apps that have Dropbox built in. They use Dropbox as their storage.
I feel Google isn't putting the effort into their Desktop client that Dropbox is. Google wants people to use the web. They are both cheap enough price isn't an option.
Diversification: Google may suspend/delete the account you use for many of its services, for a reason relating to only one of them.
Support: If Google suspends/deletes your account, you're pretty much done. Their interactive support is below the level that other companies commonly provide.
Risk: Google raised prices 3X+ for Google App Engine on short notice. They could do the same for Google Drive.
Dropbox works flawlessly for me (including w/ Linux) and doesn't have the issues above. In this case, you do get what you pay for.
I still find that Dropbox apps both in Windows and Android to be better.
Primarily I don't like how google drive won't automatically upload your photos from a mobile device the way Dropbox does rather than insisting on uploading google plus.
Is anybody else bothered by the "The Google Drive folder selected is not empty. Please select an empty folder" thing of Google Drive? Or just me?
If you have 100G / 1T of stuff in Google Drive, you cannot copy them from one computer to another computer's google drive folder. You have to wait Google Drive for downloading all of them from the cloud... Insane...
Yes, and AFAIK (after discovering this issue just now myself and trying to resolve it) there is no 'solution' other than to re-download everything if you move your Google Drive folder.Fortunately I have 'only' 6Gb to re-download but for other's this would be nightmare.
In case other people try the various solutions proposed on blogs etc (including hex-hacking the Drive SQLLite files) I couldn't get anything to work. Might save you some wasted time.
Skydrive is amazing with 8.1 where you do not have to download the file until you open it but it still shows up in windows explorer like a regular file. I cant use anything else until it has this feature. Unfortunately no Linux client.
Shameless plug for my product, ExpanDrive - does this thing you describe and is avail on Mac & Windows [soon Linux] for Google Drive, Box, Dropbox and a host of other storage providers.
That sounds like a bad feature to me. If I'm trying to read a document or watch a video file, I need instant access to it. I don't want to activate a download and then wait for the download to finish.
You can selectively choose what you want available. For most files (images, word docs, etc), you really don't notice the download. It is a killer feature. With that said, Onedrive is far from perfect. I think the apps need a lot of work.
This is actually a problem. If your youtube account gets suspended so does ALL your google accounts associated with the same G+ and their isn't a way to ban 1 account while keeping your other's active.
So if you do a lot of google code, or google drive, or even gmail. Your screwed.
I wonder if I can legaly use the drive as an online backup storage (containing "buckets" with client-side encrypted content - mostly photos; encryption will obviously prevent from smart de-duping in the cloud). I was trying to find "fineprint" (like S3 and Amazon Glacier), no luck. It's just too good to be true, I still can't believe the 1Tb has such low price.
Another interesting thing: SLA (do they have disaster recovery setup, etc.)
35 comments
[ 2.2 ms ] story [ 47.7 ms ] threadCan you upload it at usefully-high bandwidth?
Can you get that data back out when you want it?
CrashPlan, on the other hand, has a horrendous upload speed (a megabit per second or less at all times). The only reason I am using them at this point is because they don't delete your external drive data if you don't plug it back in. Backblaze removes your files after 30 days if the external drive isn't reconnected.
However, they are both backup services-- while you can access files from a web interface whenever you want, it's not the same as Dropbox or Google Drive. Plus, obviously, there's no syncing between computers.
I'll have to stick with Dropbox so I can sync across Windows/OSX/Linux, my phone, etc. Besides I get faster upload speed on Dropbox, so I can sync all my holiday photos.
As for switching costs, its pretty easy right? Drag from one folder to another?
Delta sync is a real issue, but what do you mean their mobile app pushes you to Google+, havent seen that....
I find Dropbox websharing far easier, right-click share and it puts the link on the clipboard. Google drive makes you go through a dialog.
Google Drive doesn't have history for non google doc files. We use it as a simple version control for all our documents.
Just about every time I start a new project with an outside client, one of the first things they do is ask to set up a Dropbox share for the project. I've once had a person want to use Box, and never had anybody even mention Google Drive.
Sharing is clunkier, when you share a folder with somebody it doesn't appear in their drive. After they accept they still need to go into their options to get it to start syncing.
There are a lot of Apps that have Dropbox built in. They use Dropbox as their storage.
I feel Google isn't putting the effort into their Desktop client that Dropbox is. Google wants people to use the web. They are both cheap enough price isn't an option.
Support: If Google suspends/deletes your account, you're pretty much done. Their interactive support is below the level that other companies commonly provide.
Risk: Google raised prices 3X+ for Google App Engine on short notice. They could do the same for Google Drive.
Dropbox works flawlessly for me (including w/ Linux) and doesn't have the issues above. In this case, you do get what you pay for.
Primarily I don't like how google drive won't automatically upload your photos from a mobile device the way Dropbox does rather than insisting on uploading google plus.
Though the Google Docs API is awesome; apps like IFTT's "add row to Google Spreadsheet" might just eat the cloud DB space from below.
If you have 100G / 1T of stuff in Google Drive, you cannot copy them from one computer to another computer's google drive folder. You have to wait Google Drive for downloading all of them from the cloud... Insane...
In case other people try the various solutions proposed on blogs etc (including hex-hacking the Drive SQLLite files) I couldn't get anything to work. Might save you some wasted time.
So if you do a lot of google code, or google drive, or even gmail. Your screwed.