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Ask Engadget: best heavy-duty cloud-storage solution?
We know you've got questions, and if you're brave enough to ask the world for answers, here's the outlet to do so. This week's Ask Engadget inquiry is from is from is from Joe, who needs to backup half a terabyte of data to the cloud, as you do. If you're looking to send in an inquiry of your own, drop us a line at ask [at] engadget [dawt] com. "I'm looking for an online backup solution for between 100GB, up to 500GB of data. New options are popping up everywhere recently, but what's the best cloud storage backup solution that'd allow for easy drag-and-drop backup, syncing across multiple computers both Mac and Windows, access from Android devices and at a reasonable price? Thanks!" Well, he doesn't want much, does he? Just world-class storage, universal device access and all for a rock-bottom price. There's plenty of contenders in this particular competition, from Dropbox all the way through to, erm, Box. It's kinda clear that Joe's not just backing up his holiday photos, so even enterprise-level offerings are worth suggesting. Still, the floor's now open to you, so fire away.
Insync: Wave 'Bye, Bye, Bye' to Dropbox
There's another cloud based storage service planning to knock DropBox from its perch, only this one's also got the benefit of an amusing name. Insync offers all the same online-file management and sharing facilities that you'll be familiar with, but the company's tooled up for a price war. It's using Google storage as a backbone, charging only $0.25 per GB/year rather than DropBox's $2.00 -- with the hope that people follow their wallets and the promise of deep integration into Mountain View's online services including being able to edit your documents online. (Although we're not sure what would happen if Google's long rumored GDrive suddenly appears.) After the break we've got a video by Marques Brownlee that tours the service which we assure you, is free of Joey Fatone.
Dropbox-for-Google Insync leaves beta, goes free and opens doors for business
Advertising itself as a cheaper Dropbox alternative with a better feature set, Insync has been in closed beta for the last 15 months. Now, they're finally ready to launch with a service that tightly integrates into Google Docs. It's "8x cheaper" than Dropbox, according to their marketing; in fact, the core service is now free, and customers who paid for the service during the beta period will be offered a refund or premium service credit. The only cost for basic membership is the cost of Google storage. Insync brings a number of novel features to the table, differentiating it from Dropbox's current service. For example, you can share individual files with more granularity -- not just as public links, but specifying read-write or read-only permissions. You can also revoke a sharing link, which isn't possible on Dropbox unless you move or delete the shared file. All your files live inside your Google Docs account, but that doesn't mean you're limited to the supported Google file types; any file can be synced over, as long as it's less than 10GB in size (assuming you have that much room in your storage allocation). You can nest sharing privileges so people have access to just part of a folder structure. You can also set re-sharing permissions, specifying whether those you share with can re-share that material or not. Share recipients are not charged against their storage quota. Insync supports multiple Google accounts and uses Google's storage system. Google starts with 1GB free storage, and then moves to 20GB for $5/year up to 16 TB for $4096/year. Dropbox's pricing rates includes 2GB free storage, and then jump to 50 GB paid storage at $10/month. Dropbox's 50 GB will cost you $120/year compared to Google's $20/year for 80 GB. That's $0.25 per GB per year for Google Docs versus $2 per GB per year for Dropbox. To use Insync, you sign in with your Google credentials and permit it to gain access to Google Docs. You then download and install the client software on your computer. From there, you launch, link the Google account to your machine, and you're ready to go. On OS X, all your Google Docs appear in a Finder window. In its current incarnation, Insync feels a lot like Dropbox, including its menu bar widget and small status indicators next to files (both Egnyte and Box.com use similar UI conventions for their respective cloud sync tools). If you're used to Dropbox, then you already know how to use Insync.
The InSync twisting, turning hard drive
Is every external hard drive starting to look the same to you? Well, chances are you've never seen a one-touch, er, one-twist, storage device like this. The InSync external HD blends style with functionality by displaying the synchronization status via ambient visual cues. The drive initiates a sync with just a twist from the user, and the progress is represented by the degree of (mis)alignment of the cube's face with its base -- the less overlap between the two file structures, the more the hard drive morphs until the cube form is restored. So if watching numbers on a screen slowly tick by just doesn't provide the motivation you need to back-up your rig, the Insync HD might just provide the motivation necessary to get the job done. Too bad it's currently only Oren Horev's final project at the Interaction Design Institute Ivrea -- any drive companies out there want to buy this design and put out a run? [Via Infosthetics]
