Cloud storage has its advantages and its disadvantages. The advantages are obvious: The ability to back up your data regularly, large amounts of storage space for a fraction of the cost you'd pay to buy it yourself, and the ability to access your content from anywhere. Of course, you have to take the bad along with the good, and using cloud storage means you have to trust a third party with your data, and also trust that the service is reliable. If they weren't already aware of this side of cloud storage, users of Seagate's Cloud Storage are learning all about it this week.
Seagate last night emailed users to inform them that its Seagate Dashboard cloud storage service is going through some updates that will render the upload capability of the service unavailable for "a few days" (over a fortnight). The company says that while the updates are processing and testing, scheduled backups will be suspended (or may result in errors) from today, October 3, through to October 18. Seagate told customers they should copy any files stored on the cloud to local storage. The company also says it is putting together 'a special offer' for customers to thank them for their patience but that won't come until next week. Full email below:
Hello Seagate Cloud Storage user,Seagate Dashboard cloud storage service is going through some updates. As a result, the upload capability of the cloud service will be unavailable for a few days (October 3rd - October 18th) while the updates are processing and testing. This means any backups scheduled during that time will be suspended or may result in errors.Data already stored on the cloud service is still available via https://cloudstorage.seagate.com/ and should be available throughout the update.To prepare for this update, it is recommended that any files stored on the cloud storage be copied to a local drive before October 3rd. Upload and backup capability are expected to resume on October 18th.For your patience we are preparing a special offer and will provide details of this offer in a separate email next week.Sincerely,Seagate Cloud Storage Team
The news comes hot on the heels of Nirvanix's surprise exit from the cloud storage market. The company emailed users earlier this week and told them it was shutting down on October 15. That doesn't give users much time to seek alternative solutions. It's been said that you should never trust a small company for cloud storage, but Seagate aint exactly small potatoes. We reached out to Seagate for some clarification on the current situation, and asked if the company felt customers' data was at risk (after all, the company said that upload capability and scheduled back ups would be affected, but also advised users download their data to local storage). Seagate hasn't been able to answer our questions so far, but we'll keep you posted once we find out more.
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