Has anyone here used Amazon S3 before?

[lsquare]

I'm kind of confused by S3's cost structure. How do I calculate how much it'll cost to store roughly 3 TB of data? I don't anticipate accessing the data unless my back up drives at home are destroyed. Can any one computer log into the account and download the files or it's like Mozy or Carbonite where it's restricted to one computer per account?

 

[elconejito]

it depends on how you get to S3. There are programs out there like S3Fox where you have an explorer window where you can do the standard copy, move, delete, etc. You have to enter in your amazon keys before you can access it, so there is no limit to how many computers you can access it from. Just to whoever you give the access keys to.

I use jungledisk for my backups, which encrypts the files before uploading (not sure if S3 fox does that). You can install the program on as many comps as you want, but if you encrypt the files you kinda have to use jungledisk to retreive it. It offers automated backups, versions of modified files, and some other handy features. If you need to access it from multiple comps, unencrypted is probably better.

Check Amazon's pricing page but I think it's $0.15 per GB of storage PLUS some amount per GB of transfer in/out. But they are offering free transfer IN until June. So multiply $0.15 times 3000GB = $450/month.

 

[lsquare]

Does Jungle Disk have the same 1 computer per account limitation as Carbonite and Mozy?

Wow, I didn't know S3 was that expensive. Are there any other S3 like competitors out there without a monthly fee that big?

 

[elconejito]

Does Jungle Disk have the same 1 computer per account limitation as Carbonite and Mozy?

Wow, I didn't know S3 was that expensive. Are there any other S3 like competitors out there without a monthly fee that big?

jungledisk can be placed on multiple computers. I have it installed on two.

S3 is pretty much the cheapest "pay as you go" plan there is. Rackspacecloud has, i think, identical prices.

For the "unlimited" plans carbonite is probably your best bet at, i think, $50 per year? Mozy is similar, but then you have to deal with the single computer limitation. And I think you have to use their software to connect?

Otherwise, the cheapest solution might be building a little server with enough storage and put it somewhere else (parent's house, siblings, cousins, friend, etc in another state) so that if something catastrophic happens you've got the other copy safe & sound.