16 TB Cloud Drive from Google Costs $4.1K/Year
Google is offering cloud drives with capacities up to 16 TB.
Did you know that Google actually sells online storage? Apparently, the company has sold virtual space in the cloud for over two years, allowing consumers to pay a yearly fee to store data. The idea does seem enticing, removing valuable pictures off the hard drive and into a space backed by Google's guarantee.
"People today have more personal data online than ever before," the company wrote in an announcement yesterday. "More and more people are starting to move the bulk of their data off the desktop and into servers "in the cloud," where it's accessible from any computer or mobile device and easily shareable with friends and family."
According to Google, the company is lowering the price of its cloud drives, allowing consumers to purchase 20 GB for $5 USD a year. Google is also providing larger capacities, ranging from 80 GB to a freakish 16 TB. That's right: 16 terabytes of virtual storage for a whopping mind-blowing $4,096 USD a year. That's no joke. Google's 8 TB cloud drive only costs a mere $2,048 per year. that's not chump change.
Currently Gmail (7 GB) and Picasa Web Album (1 GB) users already get free storage, however the purchased drives acts like an overflow; the free space essentially gives customers a few GB more storage for the same price. The cloud drives also seem locked to either Gmail or Picasa Web Album, keeping the content focused on images rather than whatever consumers want to upload.
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Um... I've moved in the opposite direction.
Um... I've moved in the opposite direction.
I'll care if your habits cost me money (e.g. the carrier or storage provider ups rates because of overall/average usage).
Actually, it costs $4.0K/Year, since $4.00 * 1024 = $4096.00.
Savings through 5 years (assuming one hard drive failure per year): about $16,000. Can I be paid my savings in SmartCars please?
Why would I do this? At all?
I agree, especially after the mass deletion of gmail emails a couple years ago. I'll backup my own files, thanks. Just gotta make sure that you keep a backup offsite in case of fire or whatever... But yeah I'm a control freak sometimes.
My question is, did I read that right, the cloud storage is locked to either gmail or picasa? Who could possibly want 16TB of emails and pictures? For 16TB I'd expect database hosting or web/ftp hosting or maybe network drive mapping with file/directory level security restrictions... Dunno, maybe I'm missing something.
Yes cause money and data are measured the same way
Space to setup and store it, the electricity needed to run them at home, the cost of the case and controllers needed to actually connect all of those. It takes a lot more then just 4k worth of drives to make them usable.
1) Upload my data to Google. Google will sell my data and internet usage stats for profit. Google may or may not protect my data from intruders, but will certainly have a line in the contract absolving them of any liability for theft of my data. Google will charge me upwards of $4000 a year for 16TB of data, which will no doubt increase as time passes. Google will lock me out of my own data if I am late on payments. OR
2) Purchase forty 1TB hard drives for about $4000. Put those 40 drives in RAID1, yielding 20TB worth of data with a failsafe against data loss. These drives will last 5+ years with a statistically insignificant increase to my electricity bill. The data on these drives will be in my possession and no one can lock me out of it.
WHY WOULD ANYONE BUY THIS CRAP???