Lots of storage news today from the big guys. Microsoft launched its Live.com online storage solution, called SkyDrive (predicted earlier this week after a Japanese press conference). And Google announced for-pay overflow storage on Gmail and Picasa. Both fell flat.
Microsoft Live SkyDrive
SkyDrive, which is demo’d in the video above, has a ho-hum interface and gives a measly 500 MB of storage. Files can be private, shared or public (although the public folders in my account crash every time I open them).
It will likely get a lot of non-early-adopters to try out online storage for the first time, but as Richard MacManus points out, there is a lot of competition in this space. Microsoft enters the market late with a product that is not as good as the competition. Still, kudos for launching before Google’s storage product. And not a peep from Yahoo, which is still offering a 90’s era product that weighs in at 25 MB of storage capacity.
Google Overflow Storage
Google’s news is purely about money. Users can purchase up to 250 GB of extra storage for email and photos. Prices start at $20/year for 6 GB, up to $500/year for 250 GB. Presumably Google will continue to increase the free storage offered at Gmail over time (currently 2.8 GB), and charge only for usage over that free baseline.
Now certainly Gmail users are better off today that yesterday - they can now choose to exceed the storage limits by simply paying a fee. But something about the news falls a little flat. Perhaps it is because Yahoo recently began offering free unlimited email storage to all users. We’re a fickle bunch in silicon valley, and like to see the big Internet companies continually one-up each other. Today Google said they were not going to play that game any more. They effectively took their toys and went home. I never thought I’d see that.
Disclosure: I am an investor in Omnidrive, a competitor to SkyDrive.
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Yahoo’s unlimited email is certainly a milestone. But the ability to make storage files public or private adds an extra dimension to any Web service.
While you want want to think twice about allowing someone to log in to your email account to gain access to a file - the option of filtering out those files that you want to make public will be helpful in many correspondences and collaborations.
Of course you could still upload those files to a public Web page (Geocities has been around since Web 1.0); it is nice to have one option where you can decide on a file by file basis.
What are the download bandwidth restraints? That will be the breaking point among these three. Unlimited public downloads might guarantee a winner.
Just like my friend predicted few days ago, she said they attract you with free services make you dependent on them and then they start to pay for it. I told her Google wouldn’t do such a thing. Couldn’t believe Google will do that, shame on them to try to charge us ridiculous rates.
Leaving vast amounts of data on third party servers always makes me feel a little bit uncomfortable. Just like the majority of Gmail users probably don’t have copies of their emails or attached files outside of the web-based service, how many people will start trusting Yahoo’s unlimited email storage with all their vitals?
Sure, we can say “you should’ve known better” when things go wrong, but relying on free services who we don’t have an explicit SLA with seems to me like playing with fire. You’re bound to get burnt at some point.
I Agree with Veron
What will you do the day you have 10GB of emails/files and the company lets you know that we have new management and we are going to charge $100/GB.- Take it or leave it. …
What will you do when they have no export function/no way of migration to a new solution without having to copy each file/mail manually.
Online storage has been around for a few years now and with the larger providers such as Google or even now Microsoft offering data storage there is a lot less to worry about in terms of the “safety” of storing data online.
I think we’ve just seen the tip of the iceberg, Google’s shared storage seems like it was rushed out to public and is no doubt only in the very early phases of it’s launch. I’m interested to see how/if the file hosting market reacts to these developments in file storage. There are already some great sites springing up out there with superior offerings (MediaFire for example offers free and unlimted hosting/storage) and I’m sure they’re not going to sit idle while the big boys fumble the ball.
I think people are looking at this the wrong way. My wife and I paid the extra $25 to increase the storage size of our picasaweb account. Now with the combined storage, we just got an extra gig worth of space from gmail to store our photos and videos.
If you’ve got gigs and gigs of storage on someone else’s hard drives, then you deserve to pay for it. And, hey, you finally have a reason now to use Google Checkout!
Both of these are outrageously expensive online storage options.
While I’m not surpised that Microsoft got it wrong, I’m surprised that google did too.
Is this first time we’re seeing Google adopt Microsoft’s strategy of “leveraging” (strong-arming?) its user base into above market price products?
I think Google’s strategy is great. Organic, intelligent, easy to understand. I had previously upgraded Picasaweb and am real happy that extra storage will be usable on other Google services.
google’s 500 bucks a year… go buy a friggin hard drive for less and have it for ever…. and it wont eat out of your monthly up and download limits being eaten up….ef u google
The Microsoft offering was certainly no surprise, other than the UI improvements. They now at least have a horse in the race, albeit 1/10th the free space of other “drive in the sky” players. What surprised me was the Google moves. First, the 9GB mail offering is all about marketing positioning - the actual utilization (and cost) is WAY lower than that to them. I was amazed that they would let themselves be outgunned by Yahoo and AOL. On the hosted for-fee offering, again, seems like a rate card from 18+ months ago. I think they missed a chance to one-up the S3 offering.
This is very expensive and I don’t think any one will pay for this.
I do not believe that Google has been outgunned by Yahoo and AOL. My opinion is that gmail is a much better product than Yahoo or AOL mail. They don’t have to offer unlimited storage to compete. As of now, I do not need to purchase additional space but it is nice to know that I can exercise that option should I need to in the future.
Google’s offering is still much lower than the .mac costs. I’m a huge Apple fan but feel that .mac is still overpriced considering the free services out today.
What you people are forgetting is that storage may be cheap but what about piece of mind? Yes, google might charge you $25 for an extra 6gb of storage to hold your pics in picasa, but they are also making sure the disks are redundant and there are backups daily that are probably sent off site to a remote d/r location. Do you know how much the cost to backup your data and make sure that data like prized pictures is always protected? It’s expensive and time consuming. If you were to buy a set of hard drives, raid controller and some backup software and then know how to schedule backup jobs and find a place away from your home to store all of your backed up data in case there is a fire in your house…are your pics worth the money. I’m sure they are..do you want to do everything to ensure that you have good backups every night in case of a disaster…Nor do I…
That’s why $25 a year for 6gb of protected storage is cheap. It’s redundant hardware, backup software, off site storage and probably some highly talented individuals that watch the disks and make sure they are running properly..
Stop complaining about price until you see the big picture.
I think Google has the right idea, considering a couple of factors:
1. Your data (well, any data you would trust on a free service) is relatively safe on Google’s servers. Unless you have a RAID setup at home (which most don’t), this is certainly better than not making backups (which is becoming increasingly difficult to do on the cheap)
2. While $500 a year may seem unreasonable for 250 GB. But $20 bucks a year for 6GB is pretty reasonable, especially if you use it mostly for pictures.
3. There is no legitimate reason to need more than 2 GB of email. None at all. If for some reason your storage fills up, and you have to retain emails for some reason, back it up on a couple of CD’s or DVD’s. I seriously doubt you need to have 24/7 access to every email from 6 months ago. Email is not a good storage medium.
4. This IS Google we’re talking about here. I don’t know about you, but I’ve never had good experience with anything from Microsoft or Yahoo. If you really need huge online storage… look at the smaller businesses. They thrive off of the low to mid-range users.
5. Almost anybody who could fill that capacity is on broadband. Learn to set up your own web server, and you can provide this service (accessing files online) to yourself for free*
6. Free accounts. Make more than one. Duh.
*ISP might have some issues if you use too much bandwidth :-/
Can anyone connect this to the reports about a Gmail boost to 9 GB? If that’s true, why would an additional 6 GB cost $20?
It sounds like enough people had received the 9GB, so the story wasn’t a hoax. Either that was actually a bug and not Gmail’s response to Yahoo unlimited storage, or the team who setup this pricing plan didn’t keep in touch with Gmail…
Upfront disclaimer — I work for AOL and lead the Mail Product Management & Business teams.
To complete the full storage story, as some have mentioned, AOL offers free unlimited email storage and 5GB of free secure online storage through Xdrive.com (for photos, music, videos and files).
If you’re looking to store your online stuff, Unlimited + 5GB for free is pretty great offering.
Yahoo is being disingenuous. Unlimited really means “unknown”, as they most certainly will come down on anyone who is over a certain, unknown, threshold.
It is a shame that they feel the need to stoop to tactics more commonly used in the mobile phone industry.
Google isn’t positioning its offering as an online drive. It’s telling its users, “We take good care of your stuff in our web apps, and now we’re offering to take equally good care of more of it.”
People who read TC might think of this as GDrive. I think that Goo-Know-Who is hoping that most of its users just think of it as conveinient and affordable extra space, without making some of the comparisons that Mike makes in the post.
Paul…. but flickr offers unlimited space for $25/yr. I have far more than 6GB’s uploaded. And I’m sure their backend is up to snuff.
But if it’s not, there’s always smugmug. The owner is very open on how their back end works, and it’s done pretty well. and that’s $40/mo for unlimited storage.
Yes, I understand “unlimited” can be changed.. but at this point in the game, google’s pricing is ridiculous.
The news was certainly underwhelming. However one must remember that this is typical of Google. They start slow but do end up taking the lead over time.
Also unlike all the other storage services, Google offers this as an extension to its existing services. We know that Google will horizontally apply that strategy across the board.
Read more at
http://abhishek.tiwari.com/200.....e-is-live/
Pay for 6 Gig….or just have two Gmail accounts. How long do you think it will take the average 15 year old to do that math.
Blog about this news on your site. Google will payback that $25 in a DAY through Adsense! Now talk about S3 and M$.
http://www.gigasize.com is such a great way for me to send my files without having to worry about storage. The important stuff is backed up and what I want to share is hosted there with no fees.
Linh-
I agree there are other companies offering cheaper storage that probably have a similar backup strategy, I am only using Google as an example, but I would definitely stick with a company you think is going to be around in 20 years when you are trying to show your grandchildren your pictures. Many of these start up storage providers with unlimited storage now may not be around in 10 years at all.
Amazon s3 using jungle drive is the best online storage service that I have seen
Who the hell needs more than 3 gb of email storage (let alone 250)? Seriously - I can’t imagine it. I’ve been using Gmail for three years and so far I’ve accumulated 135 mb.
And it amazes me that none of these guys have tried to compete with s3 yet - a more consumer facing version of that would be most welcome.
William: JungleDrive may be convenient. But the format of storage is still proprietary. I would suggest going for Jets3t as the S3 Client.
I’m so sick of hearing that Google is the be-all-end-all on the web. Google simply has dropped the ball on this one. I’ll keep my unlimited Yahoo! Mail account, thank you very much.
All you Google fanboys are so pathetic. Google is just as evil as Micro$oft and any other company out there.
Paul,
Yes, true, even a yahoo backed flickr could die off.. but the same can be said for any company. Smugmug is by far from a startup company IMO tho.
I guess it’s just different expectations. w/ flickr, even $40/yr from smugmug is “expensive” to me. But I don’t exactly consider them the end all backup solution. I actually anticipate that where ever I host my pictures, they will die one way or another. I have several copies of what I consider near and dear (all photos, important docs) across multiple locations.
I actually find it pretty obnoxious that Google would charge for additional storage for two main reasons:
a) They ALWAYS claimed during the launch of the service and its initial year that you would never have to delete emails — u will never run out of storage space here…. And there were users like me who did exactly that and are not hitting 99% limit every other day and can’t send messages very annonying
b) the other silly part is that Big G would not allow u to search emails using size as a factor. So if i have 10MB emails from 1+ years ago its impossible for me to go find them.
I guess, some smart wiz MBA at Google thought this way we can trap the users to buy that additional space… I doubt users will go for that… Me looking at the sponsored listings that sniff my email and clicking them and generating revenues for google should keep them content enough to add more space to my email account
Go Y! Go !!!
NO - I do NOT work for Yahoo
All of you cheapos, quit bitching about Google charging for exceeding your storage. You’re spoiled with free email, free storage, free web services. And you know what, they are STILL FREE. If you’re using up more space than they’re giving you, then either purge those mp3s you’re never going to listen to ever or pony up some money. Quit being so cheap.
I personally like Flickr’s paid service. $2 / month for unlimited storage and a pretty sweet app.
Maybe I am an old-fashioned digirati …but I just bought a Western Digital Mybook ….it is 500GB and it cost me $179CDN …. That is more then enough storage space and I have it with me. I just don’t really know why i would want to store info somewhere else when i can have all this storage at USB2 or Firewire speed.
Will be interesting to see how these fare.
cheers
scott
scott, localized storage is completely different than online storage… two different purposes.
Actually if you want to store securely your data you should look at the competitors. Microsoft came too late and Google does’nt really offer a space where you can store ALL your documents or enable you to do incremental backups.
Among the wide variety of competitors, we have 3 main web applications with a good business model : Box.Net (no scheduled backup, only sharing, 1Gb Space and 10Mb max file size for free), Omnidrive (no scheduled backup, OS integration, 1Gb space and 5Gb max bandwidth for free) and SteekR (scheduled and incremental backups, OS integration, 1Gb max space for free). Instead of paying 25$ to Google just for 6Gigs of photos and mails, you can have (with 25$) 2Gigs of storage at Box.Net, 5Gigs at SteekR and about the same at Omnidrive (first paid plan starts at 40$/y with 10Gigs of space).
If you’re hesitating about which one to choose, I wrote an article about it here http://samikhandali.wordpress......solutions/
Ugh, Google apologists everywhere..
@scott
I also have that drive. its great. This is more about offsite backups, accessing server resources, making things available to others across the web in an instant etc etc. I think of it more as hosting.
I’ll be curious to see what Yahoo comes up with. Google and Microsoft both have a suite of office apps that could integrate nicely with this model so it’s going to be more critical for them going forward.
Still, Yahoo will have to create a more viable offering sooner or later just to be competitive. I’m personally paying for Flickr Pro and also opted to go ahead and pay for Yahoo Mail Plus to remove the ads since I actually prefer the beta Yahoo Mail to Gmail. In addition to their a la carte offerings, I’d personally love to see Yahoo offer some discounted, all-inclusive pricing plans to cover premium access to their full suite of services: Flickr Pro, Yahoo Mail Plus, Yahoo Music/Launchcast, ad-free access to all Yahoo/MyYahoo properties, expanded online storage, etc. Bundle that all together for a low price and I’d likely jump on board.
It’s good to see the larger players in the market start to take this problem seriously. Though there may be concerns with pricing and business models, secure and convenient storage/backup is continuing to become more important as we generate and store more data (pictures, documents, music, videos) that is valuable to us. I think that this market has a fair amount of maturation left in the process and it will be interesting to see how it plays out. Will people pay for storage? Pay for recovery? Expect it all bundled as part of a larger service like document or photo archiving?
Disclosure: I am with a small startup doing backup and storage (Allmydata) which was started because we all had personal experience with data loss and wanted to address this need.
Is it April 1? $500/year for 250 GB makes me think its the April Fools issue of TechCrunch.
A lot of non-techie types will eat this up and pay for it. TC readers forget that it takes a bit of computer savvy to search around for, put trust in, and set up smaller/less heralded but more cost effective storage options.
I think this will be a big win for MS and G in the segment of folks that don’t do a lot online but need somewhere to store things.
JungleDrive running on top of Amazon’s S3 is the way to go. Cheap, redundant, easy-to-use UI. Sorry Google - you missed the boat on this one.
If you wonder how you can fill 3GB of email space, then you aren’t the editor of a popular web site. It is really quite easy. And Gmail is great to be able to search through your old emails and find the email you’re looking for.
The part that annoys me is like someone else said, they encouraged you not to delete your emails. And in fact I remember there wasn’t a delete button, only archive. So I archived all my spams and such for a long time. Now there is no easy way to find them and free that space back up so my inbox is nearing capacity every week or so until I clear my spam folder and get a little more breathing room.
It’s not a lot of money, I just feel a little tricked. But Gmail is a great service and Yahoo doesn’t offer the ability to change your from address of outgoing mail like Gmail does. I’ll have to decide soon, I guess I’ll probably have to pay it.
I am making the switch to Yahoo Mail.
“They effectively took their toys and went home. I never thought I’d see that.”
It’s the old — give it away for free and then charge for it when you think they want more — motto.
Plus, any company that goes IPO does things you’d never thought they would. Greed is good.
Hey I was wondering when Zoho Drive will be released?
MediaMax offers the largest quantity of free storage (25 GB) but is questionably reliable. Mozy offers one of the slickest interfaces - but is for backup only, and unlimited clocks in at $4.95/mo. Jungle Disk and other S3 GUI’s are good but still require refinement.
Well I just paid for the extra 6GB, only $2 or so a month - not even pocket change! How long does it take to be activated though?