Which cloud service? Pros and cons

[caerau]

Hi, I've been happily paying for dropbox pro service for some time now as it's got way more space than I actually need (my life's work on computer seems to amount to about 100 GB) and works beautifully for me.


However since Brexit and associated currency developments it's got quite a bit more expensive - OK, an extra £2 a month isn't exactly bankrupting but's it's a bit annoying.  I discovered since that iCloud has now become cheaper for the same space (1 TB) since I can pay in £££ and not $$$.
However I find iCloud pretty ... erm... crappy in comparison as it doesn't have the convenience of stuff like undeleting files that I've accidentally deleted or rolling back the version of the file if I screw up somehow...  plus it gives you no indication of how long synching has to go (or at least nowhere near as nice and interface for doing so).   But...  since I'm a Mac boy (forced so by work really, I'm not FanBoi) then it is seamless with my Macs and iPhone.


So currently I'm paying for both as I make my mind up...


Now over the weekend my university has suddenly given us full Office 365 use with our exchange accounts including 1 TB of Onedrive space.  For free!  Yes I'm still in shock at getting an actual perk out of my Uni job.


Just wanted opinions/experience of Onedrive  v dropbox v iCloud really as I'm now pretty seriously considering dropping the dropbox pro subscription.

[ian]

Dropbox just works and I like it. iCloud is a lot crappier, sometimes there's quite a delay in files getting synced, and it does seem a little slow. With Dropbox, I just have the my designated folders set up and off it goes.

Not tried OneDrive because I'm an Apple monkey. BT do give me 50 GB free as part of the Infinity Package which I'm not making much use off, but I ought to use as an additional backup.

[caerau]

Yes I've always liked Dropbox it does just work but I'm seeing many of the same features in OneDrive - it seems to just work too - plus you can open and save files directly from your online drive anywhere any time with MS office 265 which is drop dead handy.*


Really it looks like it's coming down to it being free versus £8.80ish a month for Dropbox.  If I do drop it I'll keep the free dropbox  - that should be around 10 GB as I've lots of added space from persuading people at work to subscribe to my public folder for files when email just won't do.
You may note that I've already dropped my subscription to iCloud to the 200 GB (£2.50 ppm) option - I've kind of made my own mind up that it's crap already  - but interested to hear if anyone wants to speak up for it.




*Of course iCloud does that but only with keynote, pages etc.  does anyone actually use these?

[ian]

*Of course iCloud does that but only with keynote, pages etc.  does anyone actually use these?

I use them but with Dropbox. It's easier to sync everything via Dropbox than rely on iCloud for specific files.

I think I might have some Amazon storage too as part of Prime. I'm not sure. Gigabytes coming out of everywhere.

[Chris S]

I've got loads too it would seem; 1Tb of OneDrive with Office365, and 500Gb with BT Infinity. But it's all useless, because it's all Sync folders. I don't want all my stuff spread over 10 devices, I just want an off-site bucket in which to rsync things.

OneDrive you can at least selectively sync, like Dropbox, so I wouldn't end up with 10 collections of all the photos I've taken with my phone, evah; but as soon as you elect to turn off sync, the folder disappears, so you can't get access to it at all.

They're all peddling a solution to a problem I don't have, whilst not offering a solution to the requirement I do have.

[ian]

BT lets me just drop stuff there through webdav without installing a client to synchronise anything.

[caerau]

I've got loads too it would seem; 1Tb of OneDrive with Office365, and 500Gb with BT Infinity. But it's all useless, because it's all Sync folders. I don't want all my stuff spread over 10 devices, I just want an off-site bucket in which to rsync things.

OneDrive you can at least selectively sync, like Dropbox, so I wouldn't end up with 10 collections of all the photos I've taken with my phone, evah; but as soon as you elect to turn off sync, the folder disappears, so you can't get access to it at all.

They're all peddling a solution to a problem I don't have, whilst not offering a solution to the requirement I do have.

I don't follow.  Both dropbox and onedrive (and iCloud really) synch directly to each computer where the same files are stored in each location. So when I leave work I can go home and keep working on the same document without all that tedious mucking about with physical media.  And it's backed up far more securely than using a portable hard drive that can be stolen, dropped or put through the washing machine (OK I've done that with several USB sticks, maybe not a full portable hard-drive).
Once the initial and week-long first synch is finished they're aways there and always the same on each device.  You are still free to buy a drive to store only once copy if that is your desire. 

[caerau]

Onedrive seems crashy is my current experience.

[Jaded]

DropBox. It does platform agnostic file stuff. Which is nice.

[frankly frankie]

And anyone with a Gmail account also has Google Drive which can do anything that Dropbox can, and someone tested Amazon vs Google vs Dropbox for speed (by streaming very big files) and found they ranked in that order, Amazon fastest and Dropbox slowest, though that was a long time ago.
For a simple non-syncing bucket to dump big files with varying settable levels of access and the option of media serving if I issue a link to a file, I use Mediafire, they charge in dollars and currently I'm paying a little over £2 a month for 1Tb, they have a free option as well.

[Valiant]

Google Drive is the work of stan, they seem to change the way permissions work every other week meaning that if you share files with others you'll constantly be seeing them randomly disappear. Dropbox just works. With everything I've needed to.

[Samuel D]

Backblaze seems highly regarded by people in the know, but I’m not speaking from personal experience. I like my files within arm’s reach, thanks very much.

[caerau]

DropBox. It does platform agnostic file stuff. Which is nice.

Yes migrating my stuff to Onedrive has made it go bananas about illegal filenames a few times     
This is not DOS or Win3.1 microsoft, get with the times

[fd3]

Jolicloud?

[Ham]

Wotchoo actually need is cyberduck and/or mountainduck

https://cyberduck.io/?l=en
https://mountainduck.io/

Add any service(s) and unify.

[caerau]

No that's not what I want, sorry.  I've tried using both dropbox and onedrive by just using them as a cloud server (i.e. just downloading the file instead of it just being on my computer).
That's slow and very irritating.  Besides, I like the fact that my files are backed up on multiple hard drives.  I appreciate that if you have a fetish for 6 bazillion photos and 12 tetrabazillion mp3 files cloudstorage may not be the optimal backup method on a budget.


Besides, the fact that the link I just clicked on from second link you provided (download from appstore) redirected me to my ibooks collection.  That doesn't inspire confidecne.

[psyclist]

Another alternative to throw in the mix would be 'Cloud' by Daplie ... https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/daplie-the-cloud-system-to-take-back-the-internet/x/9998539#/

It avoids the long term cost of subscription pricing.

You can buy the bare bones unit for $200 + postage, or a 2TB unit for $300 + postage. You can also add your own storage on top.

Maybe an option?

[Ham]

Don't knock teh duck, srsly.  It opens up the usefulness of all manner of services, but it doesn't do the collaboration stuff (versioning etc)

If you want a collaboration cloudy thing, it's hard to beat Box https://www.box.com (full declaration: %Megacorp employer is one half of Box). Unfortunately, cheapest plan is 3 users @ £3.5/month = £10.50. We use extensively at work and it is the gonads.

[David Martin]

We use Box and it is not bad. There are many issues with it that frustrate the purporses for which we would like to use it (tagging for example is somewhat underimplemented) but it seems to behave and we have a site contract with 'unlimited'[1] storage so make good use of it.

[1] 1Tb/user per month with no files larger than 5Gb

[Chris S]

Hmm... rclone looks interesting: http://rclone.org/

[Kim]

Hmm... rclone looks interesting: http://rclone.org/

Oooh, nice.

[caerau]

The freeness of onedrive is still winning for me tbh - because it's well, free as long as I still have my job.


Interesting to see the alternatives though - I had no idea many of these were out there.

[Chris S]

Hmm... rclone looks interesting: http://rclone.org/

Oooh, nice.

Initial testing looking good  .

Currently syncing from a Pi to a OneDrive folder that's hidden from all the other devices.

[woollypigs]

I have tried out owncloud, sync and others free self hosted syncy things. All of them have freaked out the CPUs on first sync, struggled with many files and some can't do *nix file names.

They all have done the syncs brilliantly with about 100 or so random files to and from one M$ and two Linux system and android phone.

Depending on what you want the GUI is OK and easy to set up, each to their own, so coming from x to y takes some getting used to, but hey that is life.

But when I did a full scale test, 65Gb music, 100Gb photos and 40Gb random files/document I have collected over the years. Between a full system, to a new empty backup drive and to a backup drive with a carbon copy(rsync).

They all failed. Nearly all of them spends a day or so scanning my files, starts, figures out that its a while since they checked for updated or new files, scans for many hours with CPU red hot, lappy reboots, program eats memory and gives the CPU another hot flush, while it scans my files and so on. Gave up using/trying the program as I would like to be able to use my lappy while this went on. Heck one even started to rename my files. Another fecked up the time stamp on the files too.

So now I use rsync, when I remember, need to set up a cron, as that don't freak out my CPU. Which I don't understand as one of these says they are just an easy web GUI for rsync, but I could have a BBQ on my lappy when it ran.

Dropbox never has any problem, though biggest test is about 7Gb photos, it just works.

Will test out decline too.

[Chris S]

Hmm... rclone looks interesting: http://rclone.org/

Oooh, nice.

Initial testing looking good  .

Currently syncing from a Pi to a OneDrive folder that's hidden from all the other devices.

* bump *

Time for an update. Sadly OneDrive stopped working, so I upgraded my Dropbox to 2Tb and got rclone working with that. It worked flawlessly for months. Until recently  .

Looks like the rclone app is now actively blocked by Dropbox. Gits  .

I CBA to dick about with a DIY solution again, so I've just ordered a NAS enclosure/4Tb drive combo which has built-in Dropbox sync. Dropbox still isn't the ideal platform for this - it's one of those spread-your-shit-everywhere-you-are apps, rather than a single point for backup/sync, so I have to be careful when setting up any new hardware with Dropbox, to selectively NOT sync the backup dir, lest I needlessly download a fuck-tonne of backups.

As usual - the world conspires to make things as difficult as possible.