Year ago I signed in a Amazon Cloud Drive: unlimited for 80 €/year
Then the price had been increased a lot and I moved to
Google Suite (do not remember the version) and with 120 €/year I had again the virtual unlimited space
One year ago I was forced by Google to move to Google Workspace Enterprise: being a Google Suite old user, the fee was more or less 170 €/year and this was the only way to get the unlimited, according to Google support.
Today I received an email from Google saying that my unlimited account is stopping within 60 days and I have to delete files since the maximum allowed is 5 TB.
I called the Google support and they are confirming that the unlimited was some kind of promo just for 12 months.
Since I have 12 TB, support is suggesting me to delete files or:
to buy 10 additional TB for 3126 €/year or
to move to Enterprise Plus with 3 users with a total annual fee of more or less 1250 €/year
On my admin page I still read that the account is unlimited:
"Produttività e collaborazione a tutto tondo e spazio di archiviazione illimitato con sicurezza e gestione di livello aziendale"
It is in Italian and it says "unlimited".
Now... what can I do?
What's up with Google?
With more than 1000 €/year I can buy an enterprise class Dell-EMC PowerProtect Data Domain to backup my files...
You can move again to Dropbox this time - but it wont last forever neither. You have 12TB but people put 2PT+ on unlimited accounts. It is called tragedy of commons in English language.
There is no unlimited storage long term like there is no free lunch.
Depending on your goals and usage patterns I would suggest to look at companies like Wasabi, B2 or Storj (all supported by rclone).
Or continue running from promotion to promotion:)
Or buy NAS and put it in family/friend house to have your own off site cloud place. For about 12TB space it can be cheaper than you think.
In the past I was using what you suggested... a NAS @ my home and another one somewhere else. the cost to keep this solution was more expensive than replace the secondary NAS with Amazon Drive and, later, Google Drive
Then IMHO Google should go after these people with 2PT+, not after me and @sonus.faber with one or a couple dozen TBs.
The fact that they don't and instead treat everybody the same, users and abusers alike, is grounds for me to never again trust anything they say nor depend on any of their products.
100% agree - but I think it is about unlimited marketing bait - later accountants come and calculate 5TB for $ X is what we can sustain - everybody else out. It is at the end about numbers and cost - and you as a provider can calculate where to draw red line - or your business suffers. It will be the same with Dropbox - as it is simple logic:) They try now to lure as many people as possible and later will mow the lawn.
I'm right there with you. I also think it goes further than merely "being sustainable": Google as of late seems in a mad dash to save every possible cent of costs and make every possible penny in profit. Of course this is not sustainable either.
Anyway, Google can and will do as they please. But I'm pretty sure we "Google Drive Refugees" are not alone in being pissed off about that, and they will find it very hard to regain the trust and goodwill they're trashing away with this kind of attitude -- so good luck trying to get users to try their hot new products when their Search+Ad dries up in the wake of AI/ChatGPT/etc.
I myself will make sure to use any of their products in a last-resort-only basis. And of course I've already set up Chromium (and Brave, and DuckDuckGo) browsers in place of Chrome in all my machines with the corresponding search engines in place of Google's, so they're not going to farm my data nor serve me ads any longer.
haha. Personally I stay away from Google, Facebook etc. as far as possible. But it is my personal choice. And I can see I am tiny minority. Most people prefer convenience. I saw it trying to convince people to ditch Whatsapp and move to Signal. And I am still on Whatsapp too - this is how things are.
I've never (and won't ever) have a Faceburger account. Ditto Twitter and other "social networks": the exception was Google+ and we know how that turned out. Ditto WhatsApp, and I also use Signal.
Re: convenience vs privacy/security/etc for most people, I also agree. But I fear that when the time comes for the bean-counters to go after them, they will find these "conveniences" will turn out being very inconvenient as we Google Drive Refugees are just finding out.
also hahaha. There is no one fit all solution. I used FB but ditched it. I enjoy Twitter more now than before. As long as there are choices all is good.
the message in my inbox arrived today since I moved from Google Suite to Google- Workspace Enterprise 365 days ago. It says I am using 12 TB while my limit starting from TO DAY is 5 TB, while it was unlimited until yesterday.
Google support says that the first year was some kind of promo.
60 days from now and the account will be limited: no way to add new files or to send email, I will just be able to read data or delete them.
One year ago, when Google forced me to move away from GSuite, the tool said that according to my storage usage, the suggested plan was WorkSpace Enterprise... I, even if the cost was higher than GSuite, I subscribed this new plan.
being just backup, I can spend 1 $/month for S3 deep glacier. it is OK
what will happen if my local NAS will fail and I need to retrieve 12 TB ?
I just finished with a DropBox sale manager.
He said that, according to my storage usage, the correct plan is Advanced Plan:
22 €/month/user x 12 month x 3 users = almost 800 €/year !!!!!!!
fwiw, in all my years using deep glacier, i have never downloaded a single file.
and to download, that would be a major failure on my backup policy.
basically, a very common usage:
copy/move file to deep glacier and enable immutability.
it is complicated, the quicker you need the date restored and ready for download, the more you will pay.
internet is full of guides and pricing calculators.
If you're wanting to stay in the cloud there's really only a few options and they all have some caveats:
Add a couple users to your Google account raising the pooled storage limit to 15TB but costing ~$60/month.
Add users to your Google account, ask Google support for more storage, then remove the users. You should retain the additional storage after you remove them but it's not guaranteed that support will give you space.
Setup your own Dropbox business account for 'unlimited' storage but it's costly at $90/mo as you need 3 users (might as well stay with Google and add 2 more users).
Join someone's Dropbox business account for a lower monthly but depend on them to not erase your files or close the account. Additionally, you'd need to make sure all your files were encrypted.
IMO, if you're only using cloud for storage (you're not utilizing live document features or streaming content to many people) I'd advise looking into local storage again. Most desktop computers have a few extra SATA ports and you can get 4TB drives for only $20 on Ebay. If you needed a dedicated device there are plenty of Synology's for only a few hundred.
I suggest using a bunch of hetzner's storageboxes
For ~50 euro/month you can get 20TB
With ~25 euro/month 10 TB
Of course you will need a rsync-based backup software (advertising: just like mine )
I highly suggest TWO of them, for the backup... of the backup (just in case)
PS I am just joking, my software is opensource, therefore 100% gratis
)