Last week I gave in and signed up for my 5GB free Amazon Cloud Storage. While my company does not allow for personal storage devices (cloud or otherwise), I figured this would be a good way to test it out and see what I like or dislike about it.
Some key points that I like about Amazon Cloud Storage:
- MP3's purchased via Amazon do not count toward the storage used
- Amazon MP3's that are purchased are immediately available
- 5GB free
- Reasonably priced storage increases
- Anytime, anywhere (I have WiFi or 3G) access
Interesting, not sure if it's a pro or con:
- Free 15GB (total of 20GB) after initial Amazon MP3 purchase
- Specialized software to manage downloads
- Don't know how storage is reclaimed
I do like that the download manager is configurable. The items that I have personally configured is that I setup the Amazon Download Manager to download my music to my preexisting file location. In addition, it offers the ability to automatically add the music to a Media Player or iTunes library. I originally had this setup, but I disabled it preferring to perform this step manually (at least for now).
I have not attempted to upload any files yet as I'm still a little apprehensive on a couple of things such as:
- Privacy / Security
- Backups or ways of handling corruption
- Since I do not have an automatic renewal (yet) on my 20 GB storage, I'm afraid of what I may lose when my 20 GB limit exprires
Overall getting this setup and using it was extremely simple. So far, I have nothing but good things to say and this certainly raises the promise for future Cloud based offerings.
Let me know if you end up paying. I'm hoping the price of these goes way down as storage costs decrease. I could use maybe 150GB to hold videos and pictures. I'm not so concerned about the privacy in this case, but the once in a long while backups would be a consideration, depending on cost.
ReplyDeleteI can see myself using one of the services for on-line backups like http://www.carbonite.com/lp/media/leo-laporte.aspx
If you end up trying it, please let me know what you think. The above link will give you a 15 day free trial. I wonder if it can work with the Amazon stuff...?
I recently upgraded my WIFI router with one that has a USB enabled storage device. Once connected it looks like a UNC based device from the router/switch. I then enable Windows offline synchronization, so I have a copy on the network and local to my laptop. This plays 2 purposes. First, I have 2 copies of synch'd data to make sure that I have a copy even if one of the devices goes bad. Second, I'm able to access all of my NAS-based files even when I'm remote. Finally, I use Symantec to perform regular backups as a 3rd recovery option in the event I get a point in time data corruption.
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