[UPDATE] Free Cloud Storage Services - Comments Page 1

Degoo offers 100GB of free cloud storage and performs automatic backups with end-to-end encryption. Use this link and get an additional 3GB free.

https://cloud.degoo.com/drive-deqrjziequyf

If you signup, you'll get your own link that will let you earn up to another 500GB of free space.

It's not perfect, but it is free.

You can pay for up to 2 TB of storage space.

what about amazon drive?

what about amazon drive?

NextCloud one is interesting. When my original 500GB HD was fast approaching full, I purchased an internally mounted 1TB HD, moved all my pictures etc to it, the used windows 10 to just share the drive on my hone network and can access the HS from other PCs in my house so long as they are on my network! Why would I need this software!!

I have 1.4T of space on the One Drive account. Having been a Beta tester for all devices Microsoft, I was given certain amounts of space for as long as I keep my account. I still have and use my Zune to this day.

My complaint with One Drive is how slowww it is. I have a 100 MB file that I access and update frequently. Dropbox updates very quickly, usually in a minute or less. One Drive often requires more than 3 minutes. When I'm shutting down for the day and the cable uploads slow down, the wait is pretty annoying. Yes, I store the same file in more than one place.

I trust free cloud storage as far as I can spit upwind in a hurricane. Free cloud storage services are notorious for disappearing with little or no warning.

MEGA's developers are so lazy and/or incompetent, they are unable to program their website to properly work with IE11 without one having to download additional software (when they first came back from the dead, MEGA was completely incompatible with IE). Their tech help was pretty much helpless. Mega was shut down once several years ago for allowing illegal activity. A lot of people lost all their data. MEGA is absolutely untrustworthy!

Both Microsoft and Google are notorious for snooping and for discontinuing free services with little or no warning.

Amazon used to have free cloud storage. Now, you have to pay ransom (aka Prime) to get any storage.

Mozy discontinued their free backup service several years ago and now are offering limited free service again. I wouldn't trust a company that is wishy washy like that.

Your little sidebar about the security of free cloud storage is mostly hogwash. Sure, their servers have 24/7 guards, backup generators, fire suppression, etc. but that doesn't protect your data from hacking (commercial servers have been getting hacked frequently) and data corruption, and you can be sure the free cloud storage providers aren't going to be spending a lot on free cloud storage security or measures such as georedundancy.

Even the paid cloud backup services are necessarily all that reliable. Carbonite's basic backup service doesn't have georedundancy. While it's highly unlikely Carbonite will ever lose one of their servers do to backup generators, etc., it's not impossible for it to happen and only georedundancy can protect from that. You can get georedundancy through their more expensive business plans. Carbonite did lose all my data once to corruption and I had to reupload all my data (which my ISP did not appreciate).

CrashPlan recently discontinued their home cloud backup plan. One had to upgrade to their new small business plan, which costs twice as much, to save their backed up data. so far, I have not been impressed with their new small business plan and their tech help has been a joke.

I do not under any circumstance recommend using free cloud storage. Paid cloud backup services are fine as long as one realizes they are also subject to failure and are only one part of an overall backup scheme. Never put all your eggs (data) in one basket!

To understand "GDPR Data Processing Addendum" read at: https://gdpr.report/news/2018/02/19/first-kind-data-processing-addendum/

I am getting 40 gigabytes of OneDrive storage for free. Signed up for it in late 2008 and got 25 gigabytes for free. Later got 15 gigabytes for free when I said they cold store photos I took. Now I have been grandfathered in! This is more than enough storage for a retired person like me. OneDrive works just fine and I can access it easily on two computers and my phone and tablet.

Has anyone had any experience with Amazon Drive? At $60 per year for 1TB, I would be interested in hearing in relation to the points raised by Bob above.

Is there anything wrong with creating your own Cloud storage dedicating a second computer to serve as the Cloud with its own batterypower backup? Since it would be your personal Cloud storage,you can turn it on or off as needed. It can, for the most part remain disconnected from the Internet. I know that there a few other factors to consider.

Online backup: I've been a customer of Mozy, Carbonite, and others. My unreserved recommendation is for Backblaze, which offers fast unlimited backup for $50 annually per machine. I have not found any catches for "unlimited". The restore process is faster and better than the others. To get a measure of this company's ethics, read through their blogs and also what other people say about them. I have no connection to Backblaze other than being a satisfied customer.

I second the Backblaze recommendation.

Dear Bob,
Thanks for the interesting info. I have been using One Drive for free for a couple of years and have been pleased with it.

Even though I haven't used Backblaze, I also recommend it for backups (not storage!). My only complaint about Backblaze is they are not compatible with Linux. CrashPlan is compatible with Linux but they have gone downhill in quality and price.

What is the catch with flickr?

1 TB seems enough for pictures for 10 years.

But - does it decrease the quality of the pictures or keep them as they are taken?

And does it accept videos or only pictures?

I use Degoo at the 100GB free level. You can earn extra space or buy the full 2TB package. It runs a backup every night checking for any changes. You set what you want backed up ie. pictures, music, mom's poetry, etc. It's pretty simple to set up, while extracting a file from it is a little tough when you want one picture out of 30GB worth. My own fault for never having categorized them.

In response to Frank: using a "Cloud" computer of
your own on your own network will work. I have a
home network with several computers and back up any
data I do not wish to lose (notable cost or trouble
acquiring, e.g.) on their various drives, including
a 2 TB RAID array on one machine. The downside is
that if the house burns down everything is likely
lost. An off-site backup of critical data could
prevent such loss.

Bob, please don't take offense but nothing is 'free' you pay for everything one way or another. Payment maybe cash or ads. The other problem is if it's online it is hackable. The only question is how hard is it to hack. The only real protection is as you have said is backups and off site storage.

I do the free 2 GB on Dropbox. They don't like that. I am always getting messages telling me I should download all my photos to Dropbox. In short, they want me to rack up more than 2 GBs so they can charge me. I let them do it once and deleted all the photos except one, and they seem angry I won't do it again.