Google drive price drop

BionicRasher

Fungus wrote: »

It is worth pointing out that Google previously charged per year, then they hiked the prices and storage limits when they changed to charging per month, now they have reduced the prices per month. However, the new prices annualised are more expensive for certain data ranges than the original prices they are just easier on the eye when quoted as monthly prices. Anyway, the new prices are good value.

Not true in all cases.

I have a Legacy plan for 20GB @ $5.00 per year = .25c per GB per year
I can now get 100GB @ $1.99 per month = $23.88 per year = .2388c per GB per year

keithclancy

Part funded by the NSA .... of course it will be cheaper

keithclancy

Alanstrainor wrote: »

True. Most ISPs do not provide static IP addresses as standard, there is usually a fee for this.

Dyndns would solve this issue, if you had some sort of box to constantly update your external IP. I have a raspberry pi that does it.

But to be honest, if you just want to backup photos and the likes, just pay for the google drive, all this tinfoil hat stuff doesn't apply to most. Your holiday pics are of no use to anyone but you.

And if you do have a problem with storing them on googles servers, just put them in an encrypted volume. Done.

Most NAS units will update a Dynamic DNS service itself anyway.

Quite a few routers also.

Anything really important I just keep on DVD and stick it somewhere.

loyatemu

if you pay for 100GB is that in addition to your free 15GB? They could use a 500GB option - big gap between 100GB and 1TB.

As others have mentioned anyone who has data they really want to keep should ensure they have an off-site backup, even if this is just an extra portable drive kept in your desk at work.

_Kaiser_

I keep everything on a DELL Workstation that I've setup as a server running multiple Hyper-V VMs for different tasks. The machine itself is using RAID 5 and rock-solid, but external/offsite storage would appeal except no-one has 500GB+ of Word docs or photos....

zl1whqvjs75cdy

What happens if you decide to stop paying Google for whatever reason. Do they give you time to get your data off or just delete/NSA storage it all.

dubmick

Funniest bargain alert thread in a while…imagine trying to explain an NAS server and a pogoplug to elder relations

Jet Black

I had 50gb for $2.49. Changed to this and its 125gb for $1.99. I used an address in Alaska so there is no tax iirc. Handy to upload and share pictures with people as I don't have Facebook.

jester77

Jet Black wrote: »

I had 50gb for $2.49. Changed to this and its 125gb for $1.99. I used an address in Alaska so there is no tax iirc. Handy to upload and share pictures with people as I don't have Facebook.

Facebook is free

How are you getting away with an Alaskan address, do they not cross check against your billing address?

DesperateDan

It's a real shame that Google Drive is so sh!t compared to DropBox. Slow, resource hungry, and often crashes for me.

jester77

DesperateDan wrote: »

It's a real shame that Google Drive is so sh!t compared to DropBox. Slow, resource hungry, and often crashes for me.

I've never experienced a single crash. Maybe the issue is elsewhere?

Drive is using 56Mb of mem and dropbox 36Mb. Not that much more to say it's resource hungry.

Kenny Logins

jester77 wrote: »

Facebook is free

How are you getting away with an Alaskan address, do they not cross check against your billing address?

I foolishly changed my Wallet address to US just to apply a $25 Play gift voucher I was given, and can't switch back now because I still have a balance ($0.00) (BTW it wasn't easy to spend $25 on the nose).

Have US play store now on my desktop, tablet and phone.

Dman001

Google can scan my stuff all they want, all they'll discover is I'm the most boring sod on the planet!

Seriously though, I can see people's reservations about putting some content on Drive. But it's good to see people being aware of what they are signing up to, and the potential of this content seen by unwanted eyes!

The biggest benefit for me with Drive, over a NAS drive/server is the accessibility of Google Drive. They've an App for almost all devices and a tight ecosystem with GMail/Chrome. It's just not as User Friendly going down the Server/NAS route.

DesperateDan

jester77 wrote: »

I've never experienced a single crash. Maybe the issue is elsewhere?

Drive is using 56Mb of mem and dropbox 36Mb. Not that much more to say it's resource hungry.

I have an i7-3930k processor and 150mb broadband.

Google Drive takes between 45 seconds - 1 minute just to sign in. It takes me roughly four times as long to sync docs - I have watched files take more than 5 mins to sync on someone's computer where DB instantaneously syncs. In-fact it's usually faster for me to upload and email a file rather than use Drive to share it.

And on many occasions the syncing fails for no reason. DB for me has never once failed to sync anything and launches in a fraction of the time. I'm only forced to use Drive because someone on my team doesn't have a large DB account

Also for me idle DB is using 57mb and Drive is using over 175 :pac:

keith_d99

There was a Box.com bargain alert a while back ... 50gb for free.
App and site are nice.
For anybody backing up video ... you can upload as much as you like to YouTube and mark videos private

cruhoortwunk

Anyone worried about NSA or privacy, take a look at this software that encrypts your data before uploading it. Free for personal use.
https://www.boxcryptor.com/en/google-drive

bk

Kaiser2000 wrote: »

I keep everything on a DELL Workstation that I've setup as a server running multiple Hyper-V VMs for different tasks. The machine itself is using RAID 5 and rock-solid, but external/offsite storage would appeal except no-one has 500GB+ of Word docs or photos....

Well you would be surprised how much photo and video data a half decent camera will generate.

I have 500GB+ of photos and video from my RX100 and older Canon S95, top quality pocket sized cameras, but not DSLR's and using JPEG and not RAW.

Two problems with your Dell workstation:

1) Cool, but far too geeky for the majority of people to set up and maintain.

2) It is probably a power hug.

BTW I'm running a QNAP NAS with 4 x 2TB HDD in Raid 5 giving me 6TB of usable space which I'm starting to run out of!! Interestingly one of the drives failed this week, so it has already paid for itself.

The ultimate geeky NAS setup would be a PC with lots of disks running Solaris ZFS. I'd love to do it, but the power draw of such a beast would be painful!!

Shiny

I upgraded to the 1TB option. I'm partially aware of the privacy issues and could set up a server if I really wanted but I simply couldn't be bothered to be honest.

My main priority is to use it as another backup destination for my photos which are hovering at around 190GB at the moment. I couldn't care less if they are indexed, looked at, mined etc... they are already on Flickr but I would find that harder to access than google drive if I needed to download everything at once.

My documents on the other hand I'm slightly concerned about those being indexed so I make encrypted backups of my dropbox and will put those up on google drive in addition to the photos. Whether that encryption is pointless given that they aren't encrypted in dropbox is another story...:(

StaticNoise

Kenny Logins wrote: »

I foolishly changed my Wallet address to US just to apply a $25 Play gift voucher I was given, and can't switch back now because I still have a balance ($0.00) (BTW it wasn't easy to spend $25 on the nose).

Have US play store now on my desktop, tablet and phone.

I have the same problem. However, as far as I know, it is being rectified in the next few months. It's a silly issue. I've have had five calls to Google about it.

However, if you change your country in the general Google settings, you are good to go.

johnmcdnl

Panda_Turtle wrote: »

I`d hazard a guess that 99% of the people in the world would not have a clue what you are talking about in the four options above!

I consider myself an absolute computer geek and I've never heard of pogoplug.
Also none of those options really suit if you need your files on the go which drive does offer.

AlanS181824

So if you wanted to you could use a VAT free address and avoid the increased price?

ecomac

johnmcdnl wrote: »

I consider myself an absolute computer geek

You are wrong.

johnmcdnl wrote: »

Also none of those options really suit if you need your files on the go which drive does offer.

You are wrong.

Alanstrainor

ecomac wrote: »

You are wrong.




You are wrong.

What an informative post.

This is ultimately a good deal. If you are worried about the NSA, you wont use it without encrypting you data. Or you wont use it at all. Fair enough. But this constant thread spoiling just because you don't like it is tiresome.

Also, all this talk of NAS boxes etc are great, but it wont help if you're burgled or the house burns down. Cloud storage does have benefits, especially at $2 a month.

ecomac

Alanstrainor wrote: »

What an informative post.

I don't consider myself as a computer geek, yet I'm able to access my all NAS files "on the go" from any internet enabled place on the Earth. Most NAS units can do that, here is an example:
http://www.buffalo-technology.com/en/technology/our-technology/web-access/

You don't need to have any particular computer knowledge, to use it, but if you do, then you can set up an VPN connection to your home/work network and have full access to all of your networked devices.

I'm not going to stop anybody from using cloud service. I'm just showing other options.

AlanS181824

Doesn't the NSA thing only effect those in America? I thought it doesn't effect Europe.

DERICKOO

ecomac wrote: »

I don't consider myself as a computer geek, yet I'm able to access my all NAS files "on the go" from any internet enabled place on the Earth. Most NAS units can do that, here is an example:
http://www.buffalo-technology.com/en/technology/our-technology/web-access/

You don't need to have any particular computer knowledge, to use it, but if you do, then you can set up an VPN connection to your home/work network and have full access to all of your networked devices.

I'm not going to stop anybody from using cloud service. I'm just showing other options.

Ya but NO HTTPS secure access. which is a nail in the head for security.

DERICKOO

AlanS181824 wrote: »

Doesn't the NSA thing only effect those in America? I thought it doesn't effect Europe.

No we are all under surveillance.

schadenfreude8

can you use a backup agent with google drive ? One that scans your selected folder for changes and uploaded newer files, and gives backup report etc?

ecomac

DERICKOO wrote: »

Ya but NO HTTPS secure access. which is a nail in the head for security.

Just read it before commenting:
"HTTPS is available too in case you need a secure connection"

Dymo

Oat23 wrote: »

I'm no genius and I have a NAS set up with a 2TB drive in it. I just put the hard drive in and turned it on. Not rocket science. It is easy to set up remote access too.

Don't understand why anyone would pay a fee per month for a company to host their stuff to be honest. Especially not with google anyway.

What if someone breaks into your house picks up the server and walks out with it?

Where is your stuff then, not being smart but just wondering why is this a better solution.