Storing stuff on someone else's computer

[freakdiablo]

I'm wondering if this is the right sub forum for this, but here it goes.

I'm looking for opinions on third party cloud storage. Mainly I want something that allows me to reliably keep files off site and reasonably accessible. So no keeping a hard drive in a safe deposit box.

In the past, I used Dropbox and am ok with switching back. I found it very user friendly, and liked how it allowed for automatic picture uploads from my phone.

Switched to Amazon's service since between prime and having several Fire devices over the years it gave me more storage for cheaper. Found it clunky, and every time I uploaded something it had this bad habit of nesting directories, which made finding the latest version of a file a pain.

My requirements are -

Seemless syncing between devices is a must (Windows and Android)
100GB is probably all I need, so reasonably priced for that
A little privacy is always nice, but it's not like any of the major services are publicly sharing stuff.

Any recommendations?

 

[Flamethrower1972]

What about a M.2 2280 outside the PC? Here is a example.

Samsung T5 EVO (8TB)

Portable SSD with USB 3.2

www.crutchfield.com

 

[freakdiablo]

What about a M.2 2280 outside the PC? Here is a example.

Samsung T5 EVO (8TB)

Portable SSD with USB 3.2

www.crutchfield.com

I actually do have a cheap 500gb drive in a USB enclosure already. The big issue is I want that combination of off site storage while maintaining the ease of just powering up a machine, have everything sync, and pick up where I left off.

 

[Flamethrower1972]

I actually do have a cheap 500gb drive in a USB enclosure already. The big issue is I want that combination of off site storage while maintaining the ease of just powering up a machine, have everything sync, and pick up where I left off.

Oh ok. I am not very smart about using the cloud I wish that helped.

 

[mackerel]

I use Google's cloud storage, although mainly for Android to PC and not usually the other way around. If you use their free tier already you could test it out. I think you get something like 2GB to start with. I'm on their 100GB plan now, doesn't cost that much annually. All my Android devices sync to it. I don't have PCs set up to sync with it though, so I don't have experience with their Windows software. Most commonly I manually pull Android content off the cloud to my PC as needed.

 

[Flamethrower1972]

I use Google's cloud storage, although mainly for Android to PC and not usually the other way around. If you use their free tier already you could test it out. I think you get something like 2GB to start with. I'm on their 100GB plan now, doesn't cost that much annually. All my Android devices sync to it. I don't have PCs set up to sync with it though, so I don't have experience with their Windows software. Most commonly I manually pull Android content off the cloud to my PC as needed.

Ya trying it out first would give you a general idea if there cloud is good or not.

 

[mackerel]

Ya trying it out first would give you a general idea if there cloud is good or not.

Their cloud side is fine. The unknown to me, since I don't use it, is if their PC client software is any good. I mainly use it for mobile device photo/video backup. Haven't used it for PC backup since I'd need way more than 100GB for that!

 

[Flamethrower1972]

Their cloud side is fine. The unknown to me, since I don't use it, is if their PC client software is any good. I mainly use it for mobile device photo/video backup. Haven't used it for PC backup since I'd need way more than 100GB for that!

I have the one from Micrsoft and it works good.

 

[Janus67]

I use crashplan, works well for my needs. I map my NAS to an Ubuntu box and sync the folder up (several TB)

 

[freakdiablo]

Figured I'd update this thread. Did renew my Dropbox account, just cuz I get a month free. (And my DAS hiccuped yesterday, had to rebuild the array overnight even though all the drives came up fine.)

I'll check out a few of the suggestions while it's ticking - just like how Dropbox can be treated as purely "behind the scenes" across both Android and Windows, as compared to Amazon's which was "which version of the file is this?"

 

[Slayer2003]

I used Dropbox and Google's solution, and stuck with Dropbox for the most part. The ease of use across multiple platforms (Windows, Android, iPhone, Mac) was seamless and at the time their rates weren't bad. For the past few years however I haven't used them quite as much, as I primarily used them as a photo backup and hosting site since they allowed direct or hot linking to photos and videos making it VERY easy to share with family, friends and other media outlets. Now however, they force you to load into their site when sending or embedding a link, which for some of my older family members is a pain. And losing the ability to embed pics into forums and social media was a huge loss IMO.

I would have paid for a higher tier to be able continue using them as I was, because it still would have been cheaper than setting up and managing my own off site hosted server. Lately I've just been using Google's 100GB plan and it's been ok i guess? Sometimes I have an issue with trying to access say my photos albums on certain Windows machines, it will just straight up crash Chrome. I've been needing the push to move away from Chrome into FireFox anyway, I guess this is the start of it.