Why Cloud Storage Is Lousy For Enterprises (and Individuals) 183
storagedude points to this article at Enterprise Storage Forum which argues that cloud-based storage options have fatal limitations for both businesses and individuals: "The article makes the argument that high volumes of data and bandwidth limitations make external cloud storage all but useless for enterprises because it could take months to restore the data in a disaster. It also appears to be a consumer problem — the author spent three months replicating 1TB of home data via cable modem to an online backup service." Seems like those off-site incremental storage firms could dispatch a station wagon full of tapes, for enough money. Update: Here's another reason, for Sidekick users: reader 1ini was one of several to point out an alert from T-Mobile that "...personal information stored on your device — such as contacts, calendar entries, to-do lists or photos — that is no longer on your Sidekick almost certainly has been lost as a result of a server failure at Microsoft/Danger."
Some of them do (Score:4, Informative)
Seems like those off-site incremental storage firms could dispatch a station wagon full of tapes, for enough money.
Some of them do, for exactly that reason. MozyPro, for one.
Re:The idea is sound. The implimentation is f---ed (Score:1, Informative)
As a Comcast subscriber I really don't see that as their reasoning. A 720P tv show with ac3 audio and h264 video is around 1.1gb for a 45minute show. Thats around 430kB/s, or 3.3megabits per second.
In my area, Comcast has 3 tiers:
Economy: 1/0.3 for $24/mo
Performance: 15/3 for $42/mo
Blast: 20/4 for $52/mo
Ultra: 30/7 for $62/mo
Extreme: 50/10 for $100/mo
You can say they're overpriced. You can say they should offer more. But you really cant make the argument that they're preventing HDTV streaming. Anything above the Economy package has WAY more than enough bandwidth.
Amazon already addressed ths problem (Score:5, Informative)
For a while now they've had their AWS Import/Export service. It's still in beta and only available to people in the US, but it won't stay that way forever.
http://aws.amazon.com/importexport/ [amazon.com]
Need to transfer 1TB of data? Mail Amazon the data on a drive, they load it, send you the device back. Sure beats uploading for 3 month with a cable modem. Have more data than that? You can send them up to an 8U drive enclosure, and more than that if you make special arrangements.
DRBD - the author did it wrong (Score:4, Informative)
"the author spent three months replicating 1TB of home data via cable modem to an online backup service."
What a waste of time and effort. There's a simpler way, but it depends on your provider.
All the author had to do was to set up DRBD on his VM. DRBD supports "truck mode" (as in never underestimate the bandwidth of a truck full of tapes - or USB keys, for you young ones).
Just have the cloud provider set up a USB key, and sync it up with DRBD. Then have the cloud provider Fed-Ex the USB key. Amazon will do this; I don't know about other providers. Once you have the USB key, just sync it back up with DRBD.
I absolutely amazes me of all the bright people who are using cloud services (including PhD's doing research) overlook this simple method.
Save your bandwidth for the updates. Do the heavy lifting with the tools that are out there.