Cloud storage vs Disk Storage practicalities..

[sigint]

Everything seems to be moving to the cloud these days.. but are cloud backups/storage really practical? There are many sites that offer "free" storage like AOL Xdrive, 4shared, Microsoft Hotmail Live Bing SkyDrive, Google Docs , etc...And then there are paid storage sites like Google Storage for Developers and the most powerful AWS Amazon S3, etc..


Like a lot of things you get what you pay for.. in terms of "free" there really is no tech support if you needs it, and as far as redundancy and SLAs go its wiser to go with a paid service (such as Google Storage or Amazon S3) if you are going to backup "in the cloud" for geographical diversity/redundancy in the first place (otherwise why not just store everything on the harddrive or burn to bluray disk? its a lot more economical in the long run, especially for bulk storage purposes)

Take Amazon's S3 for example... Google's recently contender (Google Storage for Dev) charges $0.17 per GB of storage and the same PUT/GET/IN/OUT rates as Amazon currently does. S3 charges $0.14 per GB and is tiered with rates decreasing as usage increases..

So lets say I have 2TB (~2000 GB) of data/stuff that I need backed up, storaged and/or archived for the long run... On one hand I could purchase (3X) 2TG external USB harddrives for ~$100 each for a grand total of $300.00 upfront cost.. Lets say conservatively we estimate on average the odds are those devices will last approximately a period of 2 years before wearing out... (that's how long most warranties for these devices are anyway/ therefore calculating replacement cost)

I could replicate the same data/backup info on all three 2TB drives and put one next to my desk PC, one in a fireproof safe at home, and store one locked up in a bank safety deposit box.. And of course I'd use encryption to keep the data safe.. The odds of me losing ALL three copies at the same time are practically zero.. So for the two year period total cost is $600 and therefore triple redundant DYI self-ownership storage of 2TBwould cost me $300 per year to safely and securely storage 2TB of data and files...


But even if I use the cheaper Amazon S3 option I pay $0.14 per GB up to 1TB and then $0.12 thereafter to 2TB.. So lets just say it is $0.12 flat rate and give s3 a break... Even then.. that comes down to 1 (year) * 12 (months) * 2000 (GB) * $0.12 (rate per GB per month) = $2,880
That would cost me $2880 per year with Amazon s3, for two year period that is $5,760
I could buy a brand new Kia for that money...

And the thing is Amazon still "OWNS" your data like wikileaks found out the hard way yesterday.. So am I missing something? Does it make since only to backup a small portion of most critical data? S3's 99.999999999% durability sounds nice in theory until you realize the odds are much higher that 1) you would accidental die first 2) amazon would go bankrupt 3) WWIII 4) grid goes out 5)solar flare destroys all electronic stuff 6) politics comes into play and your junk gets taken down cause government demands it...7)you get accused for rape

Therefore from a practical standpoint s3 offers not more redudancy than something that I could do on my own, at a fraction of the cost

$300/$2,880 = 10%..... I could do it safer and better myself at a mere fraction of the cost!

Am I missing something here? Does cloud storage make sense in an era when we have COICA bans blocks and blacklist censorship, ICE seizures, FTC Google Verizon Tiered InternetS takeovers, government DNS takeovers, book publishers like Amazon self censoring books and storage commodities like Amazon S3 bowing to political pressure and crap like Google Storage for Dev/Code that arbitrarily pulled your stuff down because they don't agree with you or don't like you...

Whats all this hype about cloud storage?Where is the economics of scale? Where is ownership of content? Where is freedom of speech? Where is my cost savings? Where is pursuit of happiness?

 

[wiredspider]

When people put stuff on the interwebs, it's for sharing with others. You could do the same yourself for cheaper, but it would not be as fast nor as reliable.

If you are just looking for backup solutions, there are cheaper plans out there. Again you could do it yourself for cheaper, but sometimes offsite backups are required.

 

[LokutusofBorg]

"Cloud" is nothing but hype. It is the same-old-same-old just with a new covering. Grid computing, thin clients, shared hosting, yadda yadda. It has all been done before. If you work in the technology field you'll see trends like this that head-in-the-clouds CxOs follow based on magazines they read, buzzwords they hear at luncheons, or whatever. You learn to just keep on doing what you're doing and let your clueless managers ride any given wave till it dies.

If something doesn't seem practical for your usage scenario, then it isn't practical. It's as simple as that.

 

[RebateMonger]

I consider online backups to be best for secondary backups.

I recommend disk-based backups for primary backups, since they are cheap and fast. I recommend online backups in addition to disk-based backups for data that "I can't afford to lose under ANY circumstances". For most people and organizations, the "can't afford to lose under any circumstances" data store is a lot less data, making it cheaper and faster to upload, store online, and recover if things really go bad.

 

[Emulex]

SaaS - Time Sharing. sigh i've lived through it all.

 

[FishAk]

Online data is available from any point that has a connection- both on the surface, and beyond the planet. Therefor, online backups have their place- albeit a very expensive one. It's not yet, and may never be, a replacement for personally owned storage.

 

[Emulex]

people have been doing sync/async replication for eons over metro-e and long distance fiber. how is this different? other than hippa/sox/pci compliance laws that say no!

 

[corkyg]

Sweep the hype aside. Do you really trust your data being in the hands of strangers? Could end up on Wikileaks! The cloud is where Microsoft, Google, et al, would love everyone to be - part of their domain.