Space Monkey Changing Cloud Storage To Crowd Storage

KickStarter Friday - Space Monkey moves Cloud to many locations

The current idea of Cloud storage is to have huge warehouses of computers where information is stored, along with web sites which are critical to business. The loss of a Could storage location can be huge until it is back up. Take the Amazon outages and you know the impact. But, what if you you could do something like the SETI Project and take advantage of a whole lot of computing power to distribute information so that there is no one point of failure. That would be the dream for all.

This week's KickStarter Project is Space Monkey which is providing a big twist on how Cloud storage is going to work. Instead of having rows of computers centrally located in warehouses, they have flipped things around and are crowd-sourcing so to speak. By having individuals all over the country act as Cloud Servers, they have spread things out so that there is no single point of failure. They do this by providing you with a small device which has a 1 TB drive inside and we assume that some will be larger.

For $10 per month, you will have the ability to store up to 1 TB of storage on that drive. And it will be replicated on selected drives in other people's homes or businesses. And you do not have to worry as all your data on other people's Space Monkey drives will be encrypted. Your files will be distributed and broken up so that you can get to them from anywhere, even if your Space Monkey drive is not on or connected to the Internet. This is distributing the Cloud to potentially as many people who have a Space Monkey device.

If you remember the SETI project, which is still going on, they are processing computations on over 3 million individual computers. This distributed model uses volunteers to crunch numbers and data for them and return the results. The Space Monkey replacement for Cloud computing is distributed much in the same way. By providing the Space Monkey as a subscription service starting at $10 per month, they are quickly going to have thousands of them through out the US. With the distributed devices and stored data, you will be able to access your information from any location and with very fast speed.

They are approaching $300,000 pledged for their $100,000 goal and you still have the opportunity to join in as they are going to extend the participation. If you pledge at least $119 dollars, you will get a Space Monkey device and a paid subscription for at least 12 months. If you are storing things in the Cloud, the Space Monkey looks to be a far better alternative. Look for deliveries to begin some time in July.

Cloud Storage Competition Between Dropbox and Google Drive

Dropbox doubling storage for Pro accounts at no addition charge.

Who ever said that competition is a good thing had it exactly right. And for consumers of Dropbox and their cloud storage, you are getting a benefit. Specifically, those who pay for the Pro service are getting an increase in storage with no additional charge. That increase is double the space. So, if you are paying for Pro 50 which gives you 50 GB of storage, you will get bumped up to 100 GB of cloud storage. If you are paying for Pro 100 which gives you 100 GB of storage, you will get bumped up to 200 GB of cloud storage. And the best news of all is that the prices will not increase for you. All of this is increasing today.

Dropbox is a very popular service which many people use. It is the first one that people think of for cloud storage. That is because they work across more devices than anyone else and that gives them an edge. But recently, Google has released their Google Drive product which is cloud storage as well. In comparison, with Dropbox you get 2 GB of free cloud storage which you can increase by referrals up to 18 GB. Not bad. By contrast, you get 5 GB of free storage with Google Drive and you do not need to do any referrals. The beginning space gives the advantage to Google Drive.

We know that Dropbox is facing some stiff competition from Google Drive. That may explain the latest changes they have made to their paid cloud storage versus the free cloud storage. Google Drive offers 25 GB at $2.49 per month and 100 GB at $4.99 per month. In comparison to this, the prices for Dropbox yesterday were 50 GB at $9.99 and 100 GB at $19.99. It would seem that Google Drive is a better deal.

With the increases in space, it is now 100 GB for $9.99 and 200 GB for $19.99. While Google Drive may seem like a better deal, they do not cover all the devices that Dropbox currently does. And Dropbox has made their process on a computer extremely simple to use. That is the reason that it is so popular. What should you consider? It is personal choice and for some, that means using both. If you are a small business owner, you are going to have to use both products to meet the needs of your clients.

We are probably going to see more competition, but with Dropbox offering free storage for a limited time on some new smart phones and tablets from Samsung and others, they have the advantage over Google right now. And that may not change anytime soon. Sure the coming Google Nexus tablet may offer some free storage for a limited time, but they do not have all the business relationships which Dropbox does. And it is specifically what gives Dropbox a huge advantage in the cloud storage market.

Looks for continuing competition where you, the consumer, come out the winner.