Hi Ozbaragins,
Want to ask here about anyone's experience with any good lifetime or unlimited cloud storage with a one time payment? My NAS drives I use for Plex are filling up with video files and I do want to back some of it up where if I at least want to redownload them or the drives die I have a cloud backup of the files. I looked at pcloud, icedrive considering degoo or other available platforms, I'm hoping for at least a minimum of 2TB prefer unlimited but I know all the companies can close, cloud becomes cheaper etc. But just hoping to hear some experiences or recommendations from the community here.
Thanks
Unlimited or Lifetime Cloud Storage with One Time Payment?
Tekuza on 12/07/2021 - 02:02
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Yep yep same model, I have files in my NAS as backup but only recently thought of ensuring I have a backup and maybe an extra backup cloud as well.
Likewise I got burnt from the megaupload account and remembered it was $199-299 for the lifetime which got pulled down. I haven't looked into Amazon S3 or Glacier storage so might have to research on that. ThanksI too had a lifetime Megaupload account. Kim Dotcom was going to honour these and grant lifetime access to the new Mega website but the FBI reportedly wiped the servers clean. Theft in my view.
Internet tells me;
pCloud offer lifetime deals of 500GB and 2TB, which cost $175 or $300, respectively. (Probably USD too).
Why not just use additional external drives?
Why pay someone to keep your data safe and burning electricity 24-7?
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There's pros and cons to both options and you should really have both for data you value. You pay someone to ensure reduced reliance on hard backups yourself. If those additional external drives all fail or get stolen or short circuited in a surge or lost in a fire or whatever it may be, you can download a copy again from the 'cloud' which is itself backed up to several datacenters. Having said that, I don't believe or trust in anything that offers 'lifetime unlimited'. It's just not sustainable.
My NAS drives I use for Plex are filling up with video
Are they home grown Linux iso's or the one you download off the net? If its off the net, why you need to pay someone else to backup things that already on the net?
Sometimes its good to understand the reason behind the madness.
Most are home videos, i.e. Family, friends and holidays, there are a few which are either really old Japanese, Korean and Spanish series or movies that aren't on the net.
Buy a Samsung Portable SSD, copy to them, leave it at work. Update the files in every six months.
yea done that here.. it works as a good free spare offsite backup
Quick question. How a company can offer a one-time payment for a service that requires a constant ongoing cost?
From my understanding, most model technically offer the one time payment due limited user's, not enough users therefore requiring investments for better infrastructure etc. Once this is established and they have enough to start it will then go to monthly modelling etc, which pays for the upkeep etc. Think of the one-time payment for most things as kickstarter projects, I've bought heaps of lifetime accounts with one-off payment and they are all growing strong or even became renowned in their industries. But as the first comment, the one-off can backfire where companies may shut down or in that case forced to legally shut down. Hope that helps.
I looked into these pcloud etc. but never went ahead. Most comments and reviews are about how slow they are. So even though it's unlimited, practically speaking it will be an exercise in frustration unless you don't use or access them often.
It sounds like its just for long term storage, so speed shouldnt be an issue.
That's true but to actually upload 2TB+ worth of data it might take months, lots of failures and retries, etc. Especially large video files…
This is the reality of it.
I was just looking into PCloud to store work docs and constantly upload photos through the iOS app on multiple devices.
I think I could also do the same with iCloud or Google One? Having a drive on the PC and access the files on a remote device, at approx $44 a year (100GB would be enough for a maybe 3 years) both companies aren’t going anywhere.
pcloud has everything I need (from what I am reading) but a $350USD investment is a lot vs $44 per year (I think in a few years online storage will only get cheaper).
Another concern is the upload rates, if pcloud is slow then it would be pointless for my purpose, has anyone got real world experience, especially on idevices uploading pictures?
If you were to upload your files to a lifetime account, do you have back ups for these?
I have two "lifetime" accounts on pCloud and Koofr. Take a look at their business model and determine their sustainability. pCloud has offered lifetime accounts for at least two years whereas Koofr offered it a limited time. I tend to trust the latter more. But both have been in the industry for over 5 years and pCloud reportedly has more users.
Once upon a time I had a "lifetime" Megaupload account. Their service was taken down by the US government. I lost my investment.
Another option is do-it-yourself by using Amazon S3 or Amazon Glacier storage. These are low-cost pay-as-you-go. You can upload directly on S3. But Glacier requires an interface (I think), such as FastGlacier. (Glacier is long-term archival storage.)
Always assume the worst with any lifetime accounts, look at the risks and have a backup plan.