I don’t understand what’s up with the plans offered by the online storage gang. Here’s a sample of their pricing:
box.net: 15GB storage, 50GB/mo transfer, 9.99/mo
omnidrive: “approximately $70 per year for 10GB (or more)”
xdrive: 5GB, unlimited transfer?, $8.29/mo
strongspace: 4GB, unlimited transfer, $8/mo
For comparison purposes, here’s the storage you can get with a web hosting package from 3 popular hosting providers:
dreamhost: 20GB storage, 1TB/mo transfer, $7.99/mo
godaddy: 50GB storage, 500GB/mo transfer, $6.99/mo
1and1: 100GB storage, 1000GB/mo transfer, $9.99/mo
Finally, amazon.com’s S3 storage service is .15/GB/mo for storage and .20/GB/mo for bandwidth, so you could get:
amazon S3
I understand that the online storage providers are giving customers easier and more convenient ways to get at this storage than they get with a web host. But I think at this point it’s mostly tech savvy people who can understand even these simplified interfaces. My feeling is that since many of their potential users are also savvy enough to understand how to use [s]ftp/rsync/scp/webdav to access the storage that web hosts or amazon provides, they really need to compete more aggressively on GB per dollar to get more business.
Exactly! Rather get a no domain hosting plan then to get these online storage. I too understand that online storage make it easier. But with FTP, I dun quite like their ways of accessing. Geeks will have better ways.
I totally agree with you. There seems to be a huge difference in price between ftp storage providers and web hosts, and almost every web host states in their TOS that you cannot use the service to backup files from your PC.
There are some notable exceptions but they all suffer from a fatal flaw. For example, Onlinestoragesolution offers unlimited ftp storage for $19 a year, but it is extremely unreliable- google it and you’ll see numerous people who’ve had accounts deleted at random. There’s also ‘Livedrive’ which now offers unlimited ftp access, but it is SSLLOOWWW….download speeds are about 1/4 of what you would expect from a regular web host.
Basically there is a niche in the market which no company seems to be recognizing!! There are plenty of ‘power users’ who need more than the 15gb offered by Boxnet.