Thoughts on consolidated Smugmug billing and web storage

LateSky

Hello,

Some suggestions on what I would like to see with regards to billing and SmugVault...

1. Consolidated billing for all Smugmug and related domain fees plus associated web-storage fees. It would be oh-so-nice if Smugmug, SmugmugDomains.com, their partners GoDaddy.com, Amazon Web Services (SmugVault), if all associated fees for a user be combined into one, easy, regular payment (annual, monthly, whatever). This would/could include, but not necessarily limited to, the annual Smugmug renewal fee, domain-renewal fees, domain hosting fees, SmugVault fees, etc.

2. A fixed-cost billing model be employed by SmugVault (a.k.a. Amazon Web Services). Currently SmugVault fees appear to be based on storage amount and bandwidth ("transfer") usage, kinda like your land-line phone bill (sans the tax and fee b.s.), which we all love, right? :wxwax A fixed-cost model, alternatively, would be similar to your cell-phone bill (sans the tax and fee b.s.). The best deal(s) for web storage that I've come across is (are) either web hosting though GoDaddy.com or Smugmugdomains.com. If you've got upwards of 150GB of e-stuff to store on the web I think you'll find it hard to beat the $0.047 (that's 4.7-cents) per gigbyte per month vis-a-vis the Smugmugdomains/GoDaddy "Deluxe" plan. SmugVault/Amazon currently charge 22-cents per gigabyte per month plus unrestricted data "transfer" fees, which could add up to a pretty penny or two (can you say "long distance charges"?) Plus you get some useful extras with GoDaddy or Smugmugdomains such as email, SQL databases, etc., that I don't see with SmugVault. GoDaddy even offers free 10GB of storage + email + database with a basic domain-name account. Hard to beat, I think.

What do you think?

jfriend

Have you checked the fine print on the GoDaddy storage? Sometimes, the fine print says that this storage is for the purposes of building and maintaining a web-site only (e.g. html files, images for the web site, database for the web-site, etc...) and is not for the raw storage of data that really has nothing to do with the operation of a web-site. The reason they offer such a good deal on storage space is they know that with terms like that, the avg usage will be only a fraction of what is allowed, thus they can offer an apparently good deal.

FYI, after seeing that SmugVault was just too expensive for my 600GB of RAW files, I'm now using BackBlaze with unlimited backup for $5/mo.

photokandy

I second using Backblaze. $5/mo and it couldn't be more simpler. For what I'm storing (355gb) that works out to $0.014/gb per month. And, I'm adding more and more to it all the time.

Now if only SM and Backblaze were integrated... (Based on the way BackBlaze works, it probably isn't possible, but hey - a girl can dream, right?)

jfriend

And, an interesting article on how BackBlaze achieves such inexpensive storage (specifically compared to Amazon S3).

LateSky

jfriend wrote:

Have you checked the fine print on the GoDaddy storage? Sometimes, the fine print says that this storage is for the purposes of building and maintaining a web-site only (e.g. html files, images for the web site, database for the web-site, etc...) and is not for the raw storage of data that really has nothing to do with the operation of a web-site. The reason they offer such a good deal on storage space is they know that with terms like that, the avg usage will be only a fraction of what is allowed, thus they can offer an apparently good deal.

Yeah, in trying to resolve a domain issue with their support folks (questionable efficacy, I might add :bash ), I was informed that GoDaddy won't support extraneous file storage.

I'll have to check deeper with...

The files I want to store, a few <1MB .pdf files and a couple of 50MB to 100MB video-slideshow files, are to be accessible from links from my Smugmug sites. Since GoDaddy and Smugmug have now formed a business partnership (no comment) I wonder if storing such related files on GoDaddy would qualify, as you say, "...for the purposes of building and maintaining a (GoDaddy-hosted) web-site."

-- sc

By the way, is anyone besides me offended by this concept of a "GoDaddy Girl". Yeah, that first Superbowl commercial was kinda funny, but what's the point? I think women would be offended (hence making it a questionable business practice), and rather promotes the stereotype of the socially-challenged computer geek (present company not included, right?) ogling some unobtainable "babe" over the Internet.
:rutt
.

LateSky

jfriend wrote:

...FYI, after seeing that SmugVault was just too expensive for my 600GB of RAW files, I'm now using BackBlaze with unlimited backup for $5/mo.

Holy bandwidth, Batman! :eek1

BlackBlaze does looks interesting, I wasn't aware. Thanks. Gotta love the open-source mentality regarding their custom hardware configuration.

Do you know if BlackBlaze allows links to files stored there (eg, .pdf, .swf, etc.) from external sources like a person's Smugmug site?

-- sc

jfriend

LateSky wrote:

Do you know if BlackBlaze allows links to files stored there (eg, .pdf, .swf, etc.) from external sources like a person's Smugmug site?

-- sc

Not that I know of. It's purely a backup/restore service, not a hosting service. Access to the data only happens with authorization through their web interface.

wellman

jfriend wrote:

And, an interesting article on how BackBlaze achieves such inexpensive storage (specifically compared to Amazon S3).

John,

Out of curiosity, why BackBlaze over Mozy? I've been a satisfied Mozy user for a long long time, but I still have one lingering fear - bit rot. If a file changes (becomes corrupt) without my knowing it, Mozy will see that change and replace the backup copy on their end. If I discover the issue within 30 days, I can recover the file. Otherwise, I'm toast.

Unintentional file deletions (i.e. children) are also an issue.

I've been suggesting that Mozy offer some sort of daily/weekly/monthly change log, so I can keep an eye out for unintended file changes or deletions, but my comments have fallen on deaf ears. Does BackBlaze offer any such feature?

Thanks for your time...

jfriend

wellman wrote:

John,

Out of curiosity, why BackBlaze over Mozy? I've been a satisfied Mozy user for a long long time, but I still have one lingering fear - bit rot. If a file changes (becomes corrupt) without my knowing it, Mozy will see that change and replace the backup copy on their end. If I discover the issue within 30 days, I can recover the file. Otherwise, I'm toast.

Unintentional file deletions (i.e. children) are also an issue.

I've been suggesting that Mozy offer some sort of daily/weekly/monthly change log, so I can keep an eye out for unintended file changes or deletions, but my comments have fallen on deaf ears. Does BackBlaze offer any such feature?

Thanks for your time...

Because when I last looked at Mozy, the fine print in the terms of service did not really allow unlimited backup and it was unclear if they would actually allow me to back up all my photos (~600GB). Since it was going to take months to upload that much, I didn't want to mess with or rely on anything that had questionable terms.

Backblaze has similar features around retaining prior versions for some period of time so you can recover from accidental deletions. I don't know what they have for seeing what has changed recently - I haven't looked.