Good alternatives to Dropbox?

J

JJ Johnson

Gawd
Joined
Jun 26, 2008
Messages
802
I use Dropbox for storing frequently used (but not sensitive) files. I think I have something like 3GB now through their free service and that's more than enough for the types of files I store there. Spreadsheets, Word documents, some images, text files containing recipes, notes, lists, etc.

But I'd like to take it up a notch and use a cloud service for storing all of my photo files, possibly also for backing up my music library, which is about 1.5TB.

Dropbox is just too pricey at $10/month for only 1TB of storage. Are there any good alternatives that work the same (with an option to keep local copies on each computer) with more storage for a better price?
 
Onedrive is $7 a month for 1TB, so a bit cheaper. Amazon seems to offer unlimited storage for $60 a year. If you have Amazon prime, unlimited photo storage is a perk.
 
the_servicer said:
As far as I can tell no one around here seems to care about Tarsnap. What am I missing?
Click to expand...

Just looking at it form my point of view. It isn't natively supported on Windows which isn't an an instant no, but just makes for more work on my primarily Windows-using self. (no clue if this applies to OP.) It looks good for compressible and versioned backups, but at $0.25/GB/month it's too expensive for files that can't be compressed without quality loss (pictures/songs). 1TB/month would be $250 a month unless I'm doing some math wrong.
 
davewolfs said:
If you are confident storing things yourself you can do OwnCloud.
Click to expand...

Unless I'm missing something, that wouldn't address one of the basic goals of using a cloud backup solution - having offsite storage in case of some type of catastrophic data loss.
 
If you do offsite backup than no issues. Eg. Local ZFS Storage, ZFS Send to Offsite storage. You can roll your own on EC2 or get ZFS send with someone like rsync.net. Not a straight forward out of the box setup but definitely robust. Your cost would be your storage on an EBS volume for your backups and every time you fire up your server to receive data.

Some other alternatives are owncloud with backup via crash plan or Amazon cloud drive. I think drop box is cheap.
 
Last edited:
The price of Onedrive is hard to beat, even more so if you have any use for their Office Suite. The family plan gives you up to 5x 1TB at a very reasonable price.
 
Google Drive is also 1TB for $10/month jsut for comparison...
Box is 100GB for 5$/month but box requries a separate sync program that requires you to be logged in all the time...

While Onedrive is cheaper, sometimes files get stuck waiting to sync... or you have conflicting sync issues that sit and dont get fixed/cleaned out...

I prefer dropbox and google's shared drive across everything... it works nicely and you can drag and drop stuff as needed anywhere...

have you considered an unlimited backup service like backblaze for $5/month/computer and unlimited backup storage...
 
Bookmage said:
have you considered an unlimited backup service like backblaze for $5/month/computer and unlimited backup storage...
Click to expand...

I'm looking for suggestions... No, i haven't considered it. Can you summarize what Backblaze offers?
 
For cloud backup I use Crashplan, https://www.code42.com/store/
Its not ideal if you plan to access these files often, but for recovery from data loss it works well.

Amazons cloud storage that was mentioned above sucks, the interface is this stupid webpage. Getting files to it is a pain. Most cloud storage options are still rather expensive, this is why I chose Crashplan for disaster recovery and a local unraid box for files I access often.
 
JJ Johnson said:
Unless I'm missing something, that wouldn't address one of the basic goals of using a cloud backup solution - having offsite storage in case of some type of catastrophic data loss.
Click to expand...

You're missing something. As far as i'm aware Owncloud operates like a self-hosted dropbox by default. You'll need a web host somewhere with the appropriate amount of storage. You'll also need one that doesn't mind being a dumb file host, not all providers like that.
 
FnordMan said:
You're missing something. As far as i'm aware Owncloud operates like a self-hosted dropbox by default. You'll need a web host somewhere with the appropriate amount of storage. You'll also need one that doesn't mind being a dumb file host, not all providers like that.
Click to expand...

I see. I haven't looked into it, but I'm guessing that would be quite expensive.
 
davewolfs said:
If you read what I wrote you would notice that I said less than 1TB.
Click to expand...

Which most people would take to mean that up to 1TB, you were under the impression that it was less expensive. No worries. I appreciate the ideas.

Actually, what prompted the question in the first place was that I was reading about Amazon's Snowball Server, which is a service where they ship customers a 50TB device for quickly getting data into their cloud service instead of having to upload it. Something like $200 per instance, probably not feasible for home users with only a couple TB of data.

I was going to ask if any of the Dropbox-type services offered anything similar for consumers. There's no way I'd consider uploading 1.5TB of music over my 10Mbps upstream connection. But it's a moot question at this point.
 
-Dragon- said:
$65/year or $5.42/mo for Office 365 Home including outlook, word, excel, both online and offline versions, and unlimited OneDrive that can be shared with up to 5 total people.
Click to expand...

It is not unlimited, you get 1 TB per user, the unlimited things is marketing. You can sign up to be notified when they choose to invite you to be part of the unlimited program if you are already a O365 user.
 
As an Amazon Associate, HardForum may earn from qualifying purchases.
zaniix said:
It is not unlimited, you get 1 TB per user, the unlimited things is marketing. You can sign up to be notified when they choose to invite you to be part of the unlimited program if you are already a O365 user.
Click to expand...

They're still rolling out unlimited I guess, can request an increase from 1TB to at least 10TB though, even at 1TB (or technically 5), it's about the cheapest per month out there and comes with full office.
 
+1 for OwnCloud. My ISP doesn't block Port 443 and I use Dynamic DNS at home with offsite backups configured on my storage box.
 
spankit said:
+1 for OwnCloud. My ISP doesn't block Port 443 and I use Dynamic DNS at home with offsite backups configured on my storage box.
Click to expand...

Which cloud provider are you using, how much cloud storage do you use, and what is it costing you per month?
 
For frequent file access

Windows: OneCloud (especially if W8 or W10) because of integration.
Apple: iCloud because of integration and cost is reasonable.

I use both platforms extensively and they are both good services and are integrated well into the OS.

For straight backup

Crashplan due to unlimited space. Time is the only limiting factor (mean how long to upload terabytes of data).
 
Own cloud looks cool, If i build my game server I might consider it.

I just got amazon coud for free for 6 months so I'll report bad if i ever get a chance to use it. Just got Dropbox because my CC offered 25 dollars off a year subscription so 75 bucks for a year was stomach-able.
 
Drop box allows you to "share" your content with other people right?

I'm not going to say like Mega, but like Mega.
 
westrock2000 said:
Drop box allows you to "share" your content with other people right?

I'm not going to say like Mega, but like Mega.
Click to expand...

depends. You can share files and folders with random people and you can have colloborative files and folders with other dropbox people.
 
JJ Johnson said:
Which cloud provider are you using, how much cloud storage do you use, and what is it costing you per month?
Click to expand...

Not using a a cloud provider. It's running on my home server. The backups are being replicated over to my parents house. So my cost is almost nothing.

Edit: Typo
 
Last edited:
spankit said:
Not using a could a cloud provider. It's running on my home server. The backups are being replicated over to my parents house. So my cost is almost nothing.
Click to expand...

Yea I have a 25 Mbps upload so that cloud storage is interesting.
 
zaniix said:
"5 GB Max File Size"

that will cause issues for some people.
Click to expand...

Something tells me they'll complain if someone uploads multiple Terabytes of data.
Last I looked box was one of the few services to offer access through WebDAV though if you've got a *nix box or something else that won't take a proprietary client.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top