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New Dropbox Pro plans

blog.dropbox.com

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Re: New Dropbox Pro plans

#71

Post by donw »

FrojoS wrote: post #48
cletus wrote: post #8

I really wish there was a plan between free and 50G (now 100G). Kudos foe the increased storage though. Not having the pricing page live yet is kinda weird.

So do I, and I think 99% of all Dropbox users at some point. Why then, don't they do it? I think, its because this makes getting "free additional space" so very attractive. You envite lots of friends and colleges in order to grow to a few GB [1]. I would guess this is one of the biggest reasons for Dropbox's success. [1] For instance, I have 8.4 GB by now, without cheating. This more or less meets my needs.

It's a brilliant strategy, isn't it?

User acquisition costs for a product like Dropbox can be fairly significant, especially if you're going toe-to-toe with everybody else in Google.

On the other hand, a gig of storage borders on free for Dropbox, but the marginal utility of that storage is pretty significant for the user, providing a strong motivation to actively recommend (an admittedly excellent) service to their friends.

You get more storage for 'free', Dropbox saves a bucket of money on advertising. It's genius.

Re: New Dropbox Pro plans

#72

Post by avjinder »

statictype wrote: post #32

If I'm calculating this correctly, S3 costs about $12.50 per 100GB per month (and that's not including any http requests you make). How is Dropbox (I assume they store data in S3) offering a lower price than that? I know they de-dupe data but is there enough common data being stored for them to be able to charge so little?

Dropbox is paying $0.055/GB(http://marcgayle.com/how-dropbox-is-printing-money). So paid users pay $10/mo for 50GB storage. That means, Dropbox's cost for that account is 50GB X $0.15/GB = $2.75

Re: New Dropbox Pro plans

#73

Post by euroclydon »

brlewis wrote: post #53
euroclydon wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please don't trust Dropbox as a journaled backup solution. I powered up a virtual machine that had been down for a while and had dropbox installed. I tried to SSH in. My password kept being rejected. I verified my key through the console, and then it dawned on me that the VM's clock was off, and that's why SSL didn't work. So I set the clock. I think I set it a couple seconds into the future. Fast forward a couple of…

IIRC you can get deleted files from dropbox.com for 30 days for free accounts. With a paid account you can go back in history indefinitely.

Right, but in my case, it would have been one file at a time.

Re: New Dropbox Pro plans

#74

Post by nickbarnwell »

sigkill wrote: post #70
jabits wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Although Microsoft is not as cool these days, I am liking the new SkyDrive ( http://windows.microsoft.com/en-GB/skydrive/compare ). (I also use a paid SpiderOak account for backup and sharing.)

Iirc skydrive offers 25 gigs. I wonder why they're saying just 7 though. EDIT - Yep my account says 25. I'm thoroughly confused.

If my memory is correct, when they merged it back into the Live brand they also downgraded the standard storage space to 7GB. If you logged in sometime during the transition period or clicked on a special link that they sent out in an email you got to preserve your 25GB of storage.

Re: New Dropbox Pro plans

#75

Post by nickbarnwell »

brlewis wrote: post #53
euroclydon wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please don't trust Dropbox as a journaled backup solution. I powered up a virtual machine that had been down for a while and had dropbox installed. I tried to SSH in. My password kept being rejected. I verified my key through the console, and then it dawned on me that the VM's clock was off, and that's why SSL didn't work. So I set the clock. I think I set it a couple seconds into the future. Fast forward a couple of…

IIRC you can get deleted files from dropbox.com for 30 days for free accounts. With a paid account you can go back in history indefinitely.

The problem is that it requires 2,311 clicks to restore those. There's no ability to batch restores, to my knowledge.

Re: New Dropbox Pro plans

#76

Post by microtonal »

radicalbyte wrote: post #29
mirkules wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are many reasons not to use Dropbox: 1. Sensitive/Confidential info - I would never feel comfortable storing any kind of documentation on a 3rd party server that is sensitive to me like mortgage docs, tax docs or receipts. 2. Many companies have a strict policy disallowing use of Dropbox because it would leak information. On a personal level, any kind of work that I don't want to share with others (this include…

If you're a Windows user, then I'd recommend using TrueCrypt ( http://www.truecrypt.org/ ) to encrypt all of your files. Then put the TrueCrypt file in your Dropbox folder.

Yes, and then be left with N copies of your Truecrypt image, because it turns out that its was mounted on two machines a couple of times. Been there, done that.

Re: New Dropbox Pro plans

#78

Post by lelandbatey »

cletus wrote: post #8

I really wish there was a plan between free and 50G (now 100G). Kudos foe the increased storage though. Not having the pricing page live yet is kinda weird.

If I may just say: I have Google Drive, and am loving it. It's much cheaper than dropbox, as I pay only $5 and get 100GB of space. That's WAY more than I need, but it syncs to all my devices.

However, I will be the first to say that DropBox has some really great features that Google Drive lacks. For example, there is no public folder for Google Drive, like there is for Dropbox, and I cannot throttle the speed at which Google Drive syncs. With a new laptop transferring 20+GB of data, I unwittingly maxed out a 100mbit connection.

For Dropbox users my question is: is Google Drive not worth it? Do the features offered by Dropbox make it more worthwhile than Google Drive, even if the raw storage costs more?

Re: New Dropbox Pro plans

#79

Post by jamesbritt »

brlewis wrote: post #53
euroclydon wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please don't trust Dropbox as a journaled backup solution. I powered up a virtual machine that had been down for a while and had dropbox installed. I tried to SSH in. My password kept being rejected. I verified my key through the console, and then it dawned on me that the VM's clock was off, and that's why SSL didn't work. So I set the clock. I think I set it a couple seconds into the future. Fast forward a couple of…

IIRC you can get deleted files from dropbox.com for 30 days for free accounts. With a paid account you can go back in history indefinitely.

True but (unless I've missed something) it's insanely tedious for more a few lost files.) There seems to be no way to first select all the files to restore and them have them restored in one action.

I've had similar lost files situations, such a setting up a new machine, where dropbox mistook an empty folder as the most current state and proceeded to delete things from other machines.

Whether or not this is what one should expect given the circumstances, or if these mishaps could be avoided with some care, it's still a little too easy to lose things. My fear is something will vanish and I won't realize it until it's too late to restore it.

The Dropbox Web site offers an RSS feed for your account activity. I've taken to watching this to see if there's any unexpected deletion going on. I've half a mind to write some cron thing that filters the feed for deletions and alerts me somehow.

Downside to this is that Dropbox has a way of updating files by deleting what's there and then adding back a newer version. Perhaps I just need an RSS feed of deletions that I scan periodically or check when I've done something potentially dangerous (like restore a drive or VM or something).

Makes me wonder if there's a business in here, helping people safeguard (select) Dropbox content.

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