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low cpu usage, generally speaking a well behaved client. VERY GOOD.
A.
As always there will be some who think they 'need' this.
I hope this whole cloud bs just goes away.
Logistically speaking it will never be anything but a waste of money.
John, the privacy policy that we work here at MIR prohibits me from revealing your identity. I'm not going to do that -- in fact I don't know who you are. But what I would like to point out is that you left a gmail address when you posted your comment above.
And Gmail is the cloud. So I find it strange that -- logistically speaking, if you consider it to be a total waste of money, 'bs' and, I presume, a total waste of effort -- what are you doing with a Gmail account?
I *trust* that all the email from your Gmail is downloaded immediately to your desktop computer and stored ONLY there. I further trust that you never, ever login to Gmail online -- in the cloud -- because that would be 'bs', wouldn't it? It'd be 'stupid'. If you want to access your email, you'll do it on YOUR computer, right? Download it and keep it there.
Now, if you're using a mobile device for your email, I further trust that you don't ever use a Blackberry with Exchange -- as that's dangerously like the cloud. You want to keep your email on YOUR machine. For security. I hope that you manually sync the email from your desktop machine to your mobile handset -- and that you never actually use an email client to check your mail online. As that'd be in the cloud too.
It's not right for every person and for every application -- but we're already there John.
Anyway, unless there is something I'm missing here, isn't this just WebDAV? We've had that for over 10 years. Even Windows98 had support for that back in the previous century. iDisk anyone? What's the sudden excitement all about? Is it because of the words "cloud" and "Arrington"?
There must be something I'm missing here.
Let's say I'm 'worth' 500gb, right? Admittedly I'm slightly different from your average chap on the street -- I've gigs upon gigs of high-res photos, videos (from MIR Shows) and so on. Plus I've got my iTunes library and the usual array of personal documents and whatnot.
I want to be able to access these from my iPhone. I want, for example, to be able to find the presentation file of the talk I gave a few months ago -- whilst I'm sat in front of you -- and mail it over to you. Or share a link.
I want to be able to access my 60gb iTunes library. All of it. Now. From my 8GB iPhone.
Clearly -- and this is the science bit that that you have completely missed Oriste -- you can't store 60gb on an 8gb iPhone. Sure, you can go browsing for it with your shitty iDisk or a WebDAV component. Indeed you could even FTP in to your own 1TB disk store back at home, find the file, download it to your iPhone and see if you can try and add it into the device memory's playlist.
Stupid.
I want it there for me to browse. BROWSE. I want it to APPEAR there. All my data, all my iTunes, everything. When I actually NEED a file, I want it sucked down. Because I understand that my iPhone 8gb can't 500gb of data.
And I'm not waiting until Steve Jobs brings out that version. I want this ubiquity now. And ZumoDrive is the first company to begin to deliver it.
Here's another issue. I want to see my 500gb store on my Vodafone Netbook. It's only got 2-3gb of usable space. But I want to be sat on the train browsing my files. When I want one of the older ones that hasn't been accessed in a while, I want it sucked down to my machine.
It ain't webdav, it ain't iDisk. It is the cloud -- ZumoDrive is one of the innovators in the space and there's going to be a lot more. Bring it on.
You admit yourself you're slightly different from you average chap on the street. So who is this for? After you, Scoble. Arrington, O'Reilly and Calcanis have signed up, who else is going to use this service? This is going to change EVERYTHING? Because it allows me to browse my 60GB iTunes library on my cell phone?
I'm sorry, I'm still totally missing the point indeed. But if it works for you, more power to you. I just hope you keep a local copy of your data, just in case, you know. But that would defeat the whole point, wouldn't it?
Big mistake?
Do you also DON'T keep a local copy of your 60 GB iMusic library? That is, after you've uploaded it to Zumodrive for 20 days in a row?
I rest my case.
You're right, I do keep a local copy of my 60gb iTunes library -- that's most efficient way to access stuff.
But when I'm out and about, and *especially* on my Netbook (which only has 2-3gb usable) I am thoroughly enjoying the prospect of being able to browse and play my iTunes library content easily and without having to manually upload and download stuff I want to listen to.
ZumoDrive is the first service that spoofs your data on the device. iPhone, netbook, whatever. You don't have to have it stored locally but it appears local. This is the way ahead.
Whether it's ZumoDrive that'll be underpinning everything in 10 years -- well, we'll need to wait and see. The onus is on them now to establish their reputation.
But the concept of efficiently storing and accessing cloud-held data from whatever device I want -- bring it on.
"I've been doing this using a sftp server and sftpdrive/expandrive" or "You just install your own server and connect it as Volume via SSHFS (MacFusion). It's really easy"
to most people they wouldnt have a clue what you were on about. Online storage solutions like this are for the masses, it makes it quick and simple. Even those with the technical knowledge to do it themselves might prefere a solution like zumodrive, sugarsync box.net etc becasuse it's hassle free. You go away on a business trip, try to access the server back home and find out it's gone down, you're screwed until you get back. With most online solutions when they do go down it's usually only for a few hours at the most.
For me a drive must be timeless, so even if I will upload my data to a third party service I need a local backup.
But I admit that this service can be useful for customers which have no technical knowledge.
And talking about "most online solutions" (ha) is nonsensical -- simply being online doesn't make them equal in terms of downtime. I've seen online services go down for 2 seconds, and I've seen online services go down for days. Zumodrive may have great uptime, but we simply don't know yet.
You could flip your argument around and it would make as much sense. I've seen startups go out of business with greater frequency than I've seen Mac OS X / Vista / Linux boxes go down.
1) Ownership - once you give something of value to someone else to hold, your ability to exercise ownership declines. Most people have already lost webpages, photos, etc to services unexpectedly (I lost my entire email courtship archive to my wife this way).
2) Privacy - the sciences of indexing, data-mining, and piecing together whole stories from tiny fragments (as is done in anthropology, for example) are getting better very, very fast. Also improving is the ability to store and sift through colossal amounts of data. Even though these services offer encryption and password protection, your stuff is still out there. It's only a matter of time before someone (or several someones) figures out how to take advantage of this. Of course, we may be already fucked this way (through gmail). And yes, I use gmail anyway.
3) Access -This only works if you can connect to Zumodrive and the files are delivered to your device quickly enough. As you've pointed out, mobile access is pretty sad. I'm not convinced that this is possible outside dedicated home and office lines, and even those go down occasionally. If this is the wave of the future, it's still pretty far in the future. After all, it took us a decade to get to the point where file compression was good enough and broadband was common enough to make watching TV online tenable.
2009/1/17 Disqus <>
I am thrilled about how far the tech has come and even the prices, but let's not fool ourselves: we have a LONG way to go before this is affordable.
Where's my invite at?
i got my nice invite, but wtf can i not download it in my country (Romania)?
When did file storage become DRM'd?????
1. TOO expensive. And this whole invite-only thing should have gotten very old by now. Apparently not.
2. This might not be everyone's idea of how the cloud needs to work. I for one would like a service that does this AND what dropbox does AND what the others do....all in one. And, please, someone make an app that is capable of syncing ONE file. Really. I only need ONE file in sync, yet all of the other nice sync apps only know folders. Frustrating.
Wish they would combine and merge the features.
It's more efficient, it costs less and it's technically way above ZumoDrive.
As easy to use, as reliable as ZD, but better for every other comparison point. Except for the icon...
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I’m interested in knowing what feature exactly prohibits the usage for some countries? I was nicely welcomed to the site saying it’s not available for India.
Secondly, nice way to advertise about “unlimited” storage in the video, but charge $60/m for 200gb of storage. I’m not saying it should be free. But how exactly is that unlimited?
On a similar note, I’d actually be willing to pay for a service that incorporates the features of the major services, but lets me use and pay for my own storage off Amazon S3 or Mosso Cloudfiles. JungleDisk and similar apps are great for mapping your storage as your drive. So I’d gladly pay if there’s a service that adds more feature to these and is sold without storage charges.
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Yes, I'm paranoid about my data and it's security. I have four different backup services running on my Mac (mostly because I review them).
Invite code worked fine.
Running on my system now.
Gonna try and set up an encrypted layer with TrueCrypt.
Dropbox pisses me off with multiples....
Local storage will shortly (within 2 years, max) get so cheap that cloud solutions relying on massive RF bandwidth / coverage / battery life will never be more than niche. And as others have pointed out, this has been around for ages with a slightly less attractive UI in multiple forms, but has not set the world on fire.
Gmail, yes, but that's a different kettle of emails. Consumers have been raised on Hotmail forever, so they just get it. Also email by its nature relies on web connectivity for its value. Documents, Movies and music do not. Apples and oranges there.
How quickly we forget what's just around the corner.
At 300MB/sec, with 2TB on board, you'll be able to store every presentation & doc you could ever create in a lifetime of working, and be able to show it to someone on the Tube or in a plane just fine.
And again at 300MB/sec, creating a copy of everything will be a simple process of hitting go then waking up 8hrs later to a complete backup of everything digital you own.
/m
I haven't EVEN BEGUN to talk about my movie files. I'm not talking the
lovely, compressed 2.7gb Dark Knight Batman download. I'm talking about
the 6TB of MIR movies that I've got. HD video is about 40gb an hour.
Put that in your 2TB solid state joy drive and smoke it Mike!
I don't want to carry about my data. I just want the immediate regular
stuff right there -- and everything -- absolutely everything else -- stored
remotely and ready for me to 'demand' at a moment's notice.
Admittedly we're years. Decades. Eons away.
I am currently uploading a 120mb MIR Show video at the whopping WHOPPING
average speed of 18.5k per second. Fuck all use that 'cloud' is when I'm
whizzing away at 18.5k/sec.
In fact thinking back about 15 years ago, if I was lucky, I got similar
speeds on my 56k modem.
2009/1/19 Disqus <>
Saying ZumoDrive "will change everything" is like me saying cold fusion will change everything. Of course it will (free, unlimited power from very small sources), but I bet you anything ZumoDrive will have folded an awful long time before the air interface speeds required becomes pervasive to allow anywhere, anytime access to anything.
Maybe in the Netherlands, with GB fibre going into council housing projects, the idea of living with a pure cloud-based solution could be a go-er.
I wish I had £1 for every cloud-based music/file/photo solution i've tried over the last 3 years. I'd probably have enough for a decent meal by now. Most don't exist anymore. Maybe a tipping point of consumer connecitivty is coming, but with the aforementioned cheapness of hard storage already here, I'm not holding my breath....
n.b. my old N800 had 2 SD card slots. so that's 4TB in short order, assuming the OS could handle it. A bit rough, but you get the idea. Streamed/downloaded music was supposed to save the industry, but those pesky kids still sideloaded 80% of content. Admittedly for cost reasons predominantly, but the battery/coverage issues were and are not insignificant, and aren't going away any time soon.
Let's see how you get on on a year's time, with ZumoDrive redux. Pencil that baby into the MIR office calendar.
/m
Of course there is value in the online storage / backup, but ZumoDrive puts everything at the end of a really slow connection. Event at home with ~15Mbit down and ~6Mbit up that's not enough for anything frequently updated or large media.
For my money JungleDisk (all in the cloud with a configurable local cache) or DropBox is preferable (all synchronised) are more viable solutions. Jungledisk does my backups right now and Dropbox keeps my working files in sync - I'd like a cross-breed of the 2 so DropBox handled syncing boxes with different local storage capacities, but all the down-sides are preferable to waiting for my files to download all the time.
I'm pro-cloud, but not all cloud is good cloud.