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2TB of 'synced cloud storage' for just $9.95. Steal or no deal?
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2TB of 'synced cloud storage' for just $9.95. Steal or no deal?

FreekFreek Member
edited September 2012 in General

I've stumbled on Livedrive before in the past. Back then, they were offering 'only' 512GB of 'synced cloud storage'. Now, they've bumped it up to a whopping 2TB for only $9.95.
This sounds like a good deal, but opinions of users and reviewers on the interwebs are quite horrifying. Files getting lost or not being backupped for no reason. Non-existing support and no response to cancellation.. Although recent comments show that livedrive is in the process of improving their service.

Have you guys ever used Livedrive in the past? What are your views on this deal?
http://www.livedrive.com/ForHome/Briefcase

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Comments

  • InfinityInfinity Member, Host Rep
    edited September 2012

    @Freek said: $9.95

    $9.95 != £9.95 | And it's per month.

  • joepie91joepie91 Member, Patron Provider

    @Infinity said: $9.95 != £9.95 | And it's per month.

    9,95 euro for me. Seems they just change the currency.

  • Order with a Zimbabwean proxy then :P

  • InfinityInfinity Member, Host Rep

    @joepie91 said: 9,95 euro for me. Seems they just change the currency.

    Oh, how stupid. I presumed since I thought they were UK based. I'm confused now, the whois has the same guy for technical and administrative but different addresses, one in the US and UK. Maybe I just need sleep.

    @AsadHaider said: Order with a Zimbabwean proxy then :P

    Ahahaha.

  • Am with live drive I purchased the yearly pro package. Big mistake its really slow I've noticed they use pure cogent for uploads and downloads. Also video and music streaming sucks. And FTP.is only with pro package

  • And they are based in UK . Owned by the guy who brought us fast hosts and sold it. Its also got Simon cowels brother on the directors board. Its by no means a small op though

  • Shows 15.95 here, once again, nobody likes us Asians :(

  • Anyone tried Backblaze?

  • @Wintereise said: Shows 15.95 here

    tried with both US and Canadian IP, all shown 15.95, so it is not just you :)

  • Crashplan gave out free accounts a few weeks ago. I've got it, so far it's good even though I'm not too keen on the sync program being built on Java. So what unlimited space :)

  • @Night said: Anyone tried Backblaze?

    It is not bad, I use it on my mothers computer. But I don't use it on my own computer.

    Too limited. For example you can't select anything in program files (some games still store a lot of files there that I want backed up) I would have to write scripts to move them elsewhere and then backblaze client would back them up.

    It is also windows and Mac only.

    I am using CrashPlan Pro now with my own private encryption Key and loving it except the Java thing as @Maurice pointed out. It is a big pig on resources.

  • @Maurice said: Crashplan gave out free accounts a few weeks ago. I've got it, so far it's good even though I'm not too keen on the sync program being built on Java. So what unlimited space :)

    Only for Carbonite users and only in US correct? Sigh...

  • @zhuanyi said: Only for Carbonite users and only in US correct? Sigh...

    Nope, that was the claim but all you had to do was enter your email address and anyone can get it. I think they closed that loophole though.

  • gsrdgrdghdgsrdgrdghd Member
    edited September 2012

    I'm really confused. I signed up for a test account and put some TV series files into it. For some reason they didn't even need to be uploaded (maybe it just matches the hash with files that are already on their server for de-duplication?) However there is something wrong with their streaming service:

    Streamed from the LiveDrive webinterface

    From the original file, in VLC

    If i get that streaming issue resolved it could be a very nice solution (also for sharing stuff with friends)

  • @gsrdgrdghd It's probably a lower quality flv or mp4 for streaming, that's why it looks shit.

  • @AsadHaider said: @gsrdgrdghd It's probably a lower quality flv or mp4 for streaming, that's why it looks shit.

    Wouldn't that require reencoding the entire video on their servers?

  • jarjar Patron Provider, Top Host, Veteran
    edited September 2012

    Why would a backup service be re-encoding your videos? I'd be mad if I trusted one only to find out later that it happened. Probably because I'd be backing up events where I usually have 200-300GB of video.

    That is certainly odd.

  • AsadAsad Member
    edited September 2012

    Maybe they're transcoding it for streaming then, or still keep a copy of the original.

  • jarjar Patron Provider, Top Host, Veteran

    Suppose it's possible they're doing a live encode if it has an actual streaming interface and isn't just acting like a file download that plays via browser as it downloads (like I do with h264 streams to my iPad).

  • Best way to test it, upload a new video (which they won't have) and see if you can stream it immediately.

    If you can, then they transcode it to a lower quality for streaming.

    If not, then it's probably being converted.

  • @AsadHaider said: Best way to test it, upload a new video (which they won't have) and see if you can stream it immediately.

    Well it doesn't really matter how they do it as long as i can't turn it off. I just tried downloading the file again from their webinterface and it has a horrible speed (~100 kb/s). Not really feasible for backing up 2 tb.

  • LiveDrive is shit. Their support is shit, speed is shit and the service breaks way too often.

  • @Gary said: LiveDrive is shit. Their support is shit, speed is shit and the service breaks way too often.

    I have the same impression. Their routing is ridicolous (my connection actually goes from the EU to NYC and from there to London). Speed is around 100 kb/s.

    Does anyone know if there is a similar service offering 1-2 TB storage (or unlimited) for max. 10€/month with decent streaming/sharing features?

  • Routing is fine for me, but they hard limit FTP uploads at ~1mbit, which is bloody useless. Downloads are fast. They denied the speed problems for a year+, and a few weeks ago they admitted it. They say they're in the process of fixing it, but I'm not sure they ever will.

  • @gsrdgrdghd said: I have the same impression. Their routing is ridicolous (my connection actually goes from the EU to NYC and from there to London). Speed is around 100 kb/s.

    Finally something we agree on :D my connection get's routed via amsterdam for some reason. they have some really fkd up routing.

  • @Gary said: Routing is fine for me, but they hard limit FTP uploads at ~1mbit, which is bloody useless. Downloads are fast. They denied the speed problems for a year+, and a few weeks ago they admitted it. They say they're in the process of fixing it, but I'm not sure they ever will.

    Ive tried to tell them this in the past. they blamed it on a connecton my end. but when i said i was using a server they changed there tone.. there support is useless if they reply (which could take weeks)its most likely going to be a copy and paste answer.

  • Yeah, when I get the same upload speed from home, from OVH, from Hetzner, from C4L, from a dozen different datacentres around Europe, the problems is definitely not at my end.

    And yeah, when they realise they've been caught limiting the speeds (something they promise they don't do, but demonstrably do), they just stop answering the tickets.

  • DanielMDanielM Member
    edited September 2012

    One other thing i noticed was. when you download large files from the web interface they are corrupt most of the time. For example i downloaded a HD movie earlier which was 2.7GB full but livedrive completed the download at 1GB and wouldnt play.. and download are slow..

    image

  • @DanielM said: and download are slow

    wow that's a really crappy speed.

    The only alternative i could find that offers similar amounts of storage (and seems like a proper company) is Bitcasa. However for some retarded reason they also decide to re-encode anything i upload to 120x80 100 kbit/s or so.

    http://i.imgur.com/RmJaR.jpg

    http://i.imgur.com/gBIeG.png?1

  • @gsrdgrdghd said: (maybe it just matches the hash with files that are already on their server for de-duplication

    If they were actually doing this, that would be a neat solution to make sure their servers don't get full with duplicate files. I know Dropbox does this.
    The re-encoding/transcoding(?) of your uploaded video when streamed in a webbrowser is not a bad idea, since not all people have fast enough connections to stream 1080p. However, there should be an option to turn this off ofcourse.

    @gsrdgrdghd said: Their routing is ridicolous (my connection actually goes from the EU to NYC and from there to London). Speed is around 100 kb/s.

    Now this is a real show stopper... like WTF? How can you even accomplish this. They must have tried really hard to fail that bad.

    @DanielM said: One other thing i noticed was. when you download large files from the web interface they are corrupt most of the time. For example i downloaded a HD movie earlier which was 2.7GB full but livedrive completed the download at 1GB and wouldnt play.. and download are slow..

    I am getting the bad feeling that they aren't actually keeping copies of your file. I get the feeling they say they keep a copy but in fact delete some parts of it. So that when you download it, a part is correct but the rest is currupt making the file unusable. Also, that download speed sucks balls.

    @gsrdgrdghd said: is Bitcasa

    I tried Bitcasa 5 months ago and it was very buggy and slow... Their website is redesigned, so is their software? By the looks of it, is it's still free? How do these guys make money...

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