Suppose I have 2TB of data. How much does it cost to store this in the cloud? I did some simple calculations for different providers and this is the result:
The 'NAS' option is when you buy yourself a NAS device (actually 2 NAS devices since you need a backup) and add electricity costs.
With the exception of Flickr for storing your photos, the NAS option is by far the cheapest option. I used two years as a timeframe since that is a realistic timeframe to buy a new NAS device (actually most people keep NAS devices longer so the NAS option becomes even cheaper).
Other advantages of using NAS devices for storing your data:
- privacy friendly/piracy safe
- content is close to where it is consumed most frequently (at home)
When you look at different types of content from a cost perspective, you can distinguish the following categories:
- music/video's: not cost-effective to store at a cloud provider. You also need a lot of bandwidth.
- photo's: cost-effective since there exists fixed-fee services like Flickr.
- all other types of content: you can find free (or very cheap) services. For example for mail, tasks, contacts, documents, notes, ...
Regarding the pricing of cloud storage, I am wondering which of the two following options is true:
- Flickr is too cheap for storing unlimited number of photo's/HD home video's.
- General purpose storage services like Amazon S3 make huge profits.
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