Category Archives: Cloud Storage
Get an extra 25GB of storage in the Dropbox Great Space Race
Among the many cloud storage services available today, Dropbox has continued to stand out from the pack by providing lots of ways to earn extra free storage. They offer an additional 500MB for referrals, and 125MB for connecting a Facebook account, following Dropbox on Twitter, or just providing feedback. Today the company announced a new way to get an even bigger boost to your storage limit: The Great Dropbox Space Race.
By registering a college email address and installing the Dropbox client, youll earn points for your school. As the schools point total climbs, everyone who participates can earn extra free storage for the next two years. Each person gets an extra 3GB just for signing up for the Space Race, but if the school reaches the top tier, the total bonus space will hit 25GB.
If youve already got a Dropbox account thats registered with a non-school email account, you can still participate by verifying your school address on the Space Race page. By registering youll earn 1 point for your school, and you can then tack on an additional 2 points by going through the Dropbox Get Started guide. If you refer one of your classmates to the promotion, youll also earn 1 point when he or she registers, and 2 when he or she completes the guide. And all of those referrals will still earn you the usual 500MB bonus.
There are four reward levels of 3GB, 8GB, 15GB, and 25GB. The number of points needed to reach them are different for each school, and are normalized according to the schools total enrollment. So even if youre at a smaller school, youve still got a shot at hitting that 25GB mark.
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Get an extra 25GB of storage in the Dropbox Great Space Race
Symform Hires Senior Sales Executive to Build Global Partnerships as Distributed Cloud Storage Network Surpasses 5.5 …
SEATTLE, WA--(Marketwire - Oct 15, 2012) - Symform, the world's first distributed, crowdsourced cloud backup and storage service, is experiencing record growth fueled by users of Network Attached Storage (NAS) devices. NAS customers from more than 80 countries now account for 20 percent of all devices on the Symform Global Storage Network, storing more than 1.1 billion data fragments. Symform recently announced integrated solutions with Synology and NETGEAR NAS devices, adding to an already successful partnership with QNAP. To further accelerate its partnership strategy and network growth, Symform has brought on a seasoned executive, Bob DeSantis, as senior vice president of global sales and business development.
With more than 25 years of technology industry leadership, DeSantis is an ideal candidate to drive Symform's sales and partnership initiatives. Prior to Symform, he served as vice president of sales at DocuSign, building the sales organization from an early-stage startup to the global brand leader. As the managing director of DocuSign EMEA, he established and built the company's European presence. DeSantis also previously served as the regional VP of sales for Procuri, and held numerous leadership roles at ImageX, the on-demand commercial document solutions division of FedEx Kinko's.
"Symform has created the most disruptive and innovative cloud storage business model I've ever seen," said DeSantis. "Accelerating the Symform Cloud Storage Network will be critical for long-term success, and I'm looking forward to playing a key role in a business that is changing the industry as we know it."
As of Q3 2012, the Symform Cloud Storage Network stored over 5.5 billion data fragments and 150 million files, with users backing up data and contributing local drive space to the network from 156 countries. This represents a growth rate of over 300 percent in the third quarter compared to the same period last year. In addition to its NAS strategy, the accelerated network growth is due to the company's recently announced "Bytes or Bucks" pricing model, where customers can pay for unlimited cloud backup by contributing local drive space to the crowdsourced network.
NAS users have especially embraced the Bytes model, extending local storage devices to the Symform Cloud for secure online data backup and disaster recovery.In partnering with the leading NAS vendors, Symform is tapping into a fast-growing market and millions of prospective customers worldwide. According to Gartner, the worldwide vendor revenue for network-attached storage grew 21.5 percent to $4.5 billion last year,* and the market is expected to continue growing by 22 percent through 2016.**
"A NAS device coupled with Symform's cloud storage offering is an all-in-one solution for data backup," said Denton Meier, founder, partner and CTO at Firefly Technologies. "The NAS gets to serve its purpose for local backup and can be seamlessly integrated with Symform to obtain the power and protection of cloud storage." Firefly uses QNAP devices for local backup and pays for Symform cloud backup with 'Bytes' by contributing unused drive space in its NAS devices.
Customers leveraging Symform with NAS appliances receive cost-effective, high performing and secure two-tier storage, with benefits including free cloud backup, fast appliance to cloud backup and restore, no file size limit, data synchronization, and data redundancy for disaster recovery. For more information on Symform's NAS partnerships, visit http://www.symform.com/our-solutions/storage-backup/nas-cloud-backup/.
*Gartner, Inc., Market Share: Network-Attached Storage/Unified Storage, Worldwide, 2011, Pushan Rinnen, March 14, 2012.
**Gartner, Inc., Forecast Analysis: Network-Attached Storage, Worldwide, 2012-2016, Pushan Rinnen, April 9, 2012.
About Symform The Symform Cloud Storage Network is a better way to store and backup all of your data. As the world's first distributed and crowdsourced data backup solution, Symform enables users to pay with bytes instead of bucks. Every business on the network contributes excess local drive space to the grid in exchange for secure, fast and reliable cloud data backup. Before data leaves the source device, it is encrypted and shredded, redundancy added, and then geo-distributed across the global network. With its proprietary and patented technology, Symform is building the world's largest virtual datacenter using existing Internet infrastructure. Go to http://www.symform.com or email info@symform.com for more information.
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Symform Hires Senior Sales Executive to Build Global Partnerships as Distributed Cloud Storage Network Surpasses 5.5 ...
Akitio Cloud Hybrid Review: Convenient NAS and USB Storage in One
Jon L. JacobiJon Jacobi, PCWorld
Jon L. Jacobi has worked with computers since you flipped switches and punched cards to program them, studied music at Julliard, and power mods his car for kicks. More by Jon L. Jacobi
It's nice to be versatile, and the $105 Akitio Cloud Hybrid is just that. You can use this single-bay drive box either for network-attached storage (NAS) via the unit's ethernet jack, or for direct-attached storage (DAS) on a PC or Mac via the box's USB 3.0 port.
You can also access the Cloud Hybrid across the Web by using FTP, WebDav, or Akitio's Web portal using either the device's ID or the MAC address listed on the bottom of the drive. Alternatively, you can use the iOS app.
The Cloud Hybrid is a basic black box. You remove three screws from the bottom of the unit to access the drive bay and install your hard drive. On the front you'll find power, status, and connection status lights, as well as four lights that tell you the approximate percentage of the unit's total storage space that's filled. There are no ports for connecting external devices, so you can't dedicate an attached drive for backup, expanding capacity, hosting printers, or the like.
The Cloud Hybrid offers a decent array of software features. In addition to the aforementioned access protocols, you get local iTunes serving and BitTorrent downloads, plus the usual admin functions for defining users and creating shared folders. The interface is a tad clunky, but it's easy enough to figure out after a few minutes at the Akitio Cloud Hybrid Wiki; the included setup sheet is a tad terse, however. Though network access could be a bit easier to configure, Akitio provides software utilities for finding the box for both Windows and OS X.
A few usage notes: You'll need to power down the Cloud Hybrid before switching interfaces. And you may need to plug the unit in twice the first time you attach it via USBonce for the driver to install, and a second time for the drive to show up. Also, be aware that all of the data on the drive will be visible when you attach the unit to a PC via USB, no matter what access rules you define for the unit as a NAS box. That's a security issue common to all dual-purpose NAS/DAS devices.
If you're looking for flexible single-bay storage that's equally at home attached to a PC or via ethernet, the Akitio Cloud Hybrid is an affordable, competent choice.
Competent NAS and DAS, both in the same affordable box.
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Akitio Cloud Hybrid Review: Convenient NAS and USB Storage in One
Ubuntu's cloud storage service hits Mac in beta, with 5GB free
Canonical's Ubuntu One cloud storage service hit Mac OS X in a beta on Thursday, bringing Ubuntu's Dropbox competitor to all widely used platforms. The service already had applications for Windows, iOS, Android, and of course, Ubuntu.
"As this is a beta we are still working hard fixing bugs to make the Mac client even slicker," Canonical said in an announcement. "Please be patient whilst we iron out the kinks over the coming weeks." Users can report bugs at the Ubuntu One help site.
Just like Dropbox, SkyDrive, or Google Drive, Ubuntu One adds a folder to your file system for sharing files across devices. It also provides a management console from which you can add folders to sync, manage connected devices, share links, and configure settings on syncing, notifications, and limits on upload and download speed:
Beyond the desktop and mobile clients, there's a browser-based tool to access files from any device. I tested out syncing a file from a Mac to an Ubuntu PC this morning, and it worksquickly. In addition to 5GB storage, the free tier of the service provides file sync across all platforms, sharing folders and files, and mobile access. Canonical is in the money-making business, though, so there are subscription options and integration with the Ubuntu One Music Store in a manner similar to that used by Amazon's Cloud Drive.
For $2.99 a month or $29.99 a year, Ubuntu One users can add 20GB for a total of 25GB storage, and can continue to add 20GB blocks for the same price. For $3.99 a month or $39.99 a year, users get the additional 20GB plus music streaming on mobile, with a cache for offline listening. You can start off with six months of free music streaming and 20GB of storage by buying one track from Ubuntu One.
Ubuntu One hit the 1 million user mark last year, and offers adeveloperprogram for building applications on top of the service.
Jon Brodkin / Jon is Ars Technica's senior IT reporter, covering the latest in business technology and the intersection of consumer technology and IT. He also writes about technology policy, patent litigation, supercomputing, and wireless technology.
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Ubuntu's cloud storage service hits Mac in beta, with 5GB free
OwnCloud: Build your own or manage your public cloud storage services
Summary: If you want a cloud of your own, ownCloud makes it easier than ever to build a private cloud of your own and you can also use it to manage your use of public cloud storage services, such as Amazon S3, Box, and DropBox.
Want a do-it-youself private, infrastructure as a service (IaaS) cloud? Want a way to unify all your corporate cloud storage services? Then ownCloud has new open-source software for both your business and personal use.
In the newly released version, ownCloud 4.50, the company claims that this release comes with "significantly faster upload, download and sync of files even very large files -- a re-factored sharing engine, greater and more granular administrative control, and greater integration with popular business tools, ownCloud 2012 Business and ownCloud 2012 Enterprise give companies the security and control they need while providing end users the flexibility and ease of use they demand."
The key difference between ownCloud and such popular cloud storage serves as Dropbox, Google Drive, and Box, which store your data at remote third-party data centers is that you get to pick where ownCloud stores your data. You can deploy it by itself on your own servers or you can seamlessly integrate it with other cloud-storage services such as the aforementioned services or others such as Amazon. S3 Thus, you can use ownCloud with its security, storage, monitoring and reporting tools to manage not only your own private cloud storage, but those from multiple other cloud storage services as well.
Specifically, "Administrators can now mount external cloud storage (Dropbox, Google, Swift, S3, etc.) and decide whether it is to be accessible by the entire user population, a group, or a specific user. Users can now do the same, providing the first ever file sync and share capability across multiple cloud services, using ownCloud as the single point of access." I don't know about you, but that alone sounds like a really handy feature to me.
The program also comes with new additional new features, The start with sub-admins for groups. This gives administrators "the ability to assign a sub-administrator to a group to handle account management." The program also now boasts fast desktop syncing, which is said to "reduce server load and enhances the sync algorithm for a faster, quicker, better sync with far less load on the server." It also now includes more granular permissions so end users can determine who can do what with shared data. The new user-management back ends also enable you to authenticate against remote WebDAV, IMAP, Samba and FTP servers. You can also use ownCloud with LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol) and AD (Active Directory). Finally, the program now comes with enhanced logging. This gives you a complete and auditable history for each file on the server. On the purely fun side, ownCloud also provides HTML5 compatible video streaming.
As before, ownCloud is offered under an AGPL (Affero General Public License) open-source program. AGPL is a version of the GPL designed for network server software.
OwnCloud is a LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) program. Besides MySQL, you can also use SQLite or PostgreSQ for the database management system. The commercial versions of ownCloud, the Business, Enterprise and Education Editions, can also use Oracle as the back-end database. These versions also includes a logging module for logging of file-related actions, logs, who accessed what, when and from where and dynamic user storage: With this, your users get the storage they need without any "one-size-fits-all storage."
Companies world-wide are beginning to realize that in order to better control the data that employees are sending in and out of their enterprise, they need more than an iPad app and third-party storage, said Markus Rex, ownCloud's CEO in a statement. ownCloud provides companies the software they need to retain control while giving end users a user-friendly, device-independent way to get their job done.
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OwnCloud: Build your own or manage your public cloud storage services
C2C Maximizes eMail Archiving Flexibility and Control With Support for the Hybrid Cloud
WESTBOROUGH, MA--(Marketwire - Oct 11, 2012) - C2C, a leading provider of email, file and messaging management solutions, today announced that its ArchiveOne Enterprise email archiving and management platform now provides centralized support for private and hybrid cloud storage services. As a result, companies focused on optimized eDiscovery, data preservation, and disposition can benefit from a comprehensive email archiving solution that features dynamic and consistent policy enforcement for data that's live, residing in Exchange or archived on premise as well as archived data stored in the cloud.
"Archiving is an ideal application to benefit from the advantages of the hybrid cloud, especially if policies can be uniformly enforced across all data sources, including live data, locally retained data and data that has been deployed to the cloud for lower cost management," said Sheila Childs, managing vice president, Gartner. "When consistent policies and eDiscovery processes can be run across all data sources, then you achieve optimum benefits in flexibility, cost savings and control."
ArchiveOne Enterprise uniquely centralizes the management and control of all email data, regardless of whether it is retained on premise or in the cloud. This enables IT to continue to manage data at the source to enforce retention and compliance without having to move it all to the cloud to perform policy enforcement. The ArchiveOne Enterprise model minimizes cloud security concerns by giving IT control over the software implementation and access.Most importantly, ArchiveOne Enterprise enables comprehensive searches across all data sources and provides rapid response to discovery requests on live and archived data.This eliminates the need to discover across disparate environments, reducing both time and cost.
When Chris D'Orazi of Central Garden and Pet needed to alleviate a storage burden on Exchange without sacrificing historical data, ArchiveOne Enterprise was able to solve his problem.Lacking the physical space to implement an on-premise email archiving solution, he considered a cloud solution but did not want to be locked in.
"ArchiveOne Enterprise Cloud provides us with the best of both worlds -- the elasticity of the cloud with the freedom and flexibility of an on-premise solution," said D'Orazi. "The on-premise server provides policy control of live and archive data, while the cloud storage options provide unlimited archive storage." D'Orazi also notes that C2C has "a proven track record of success" where many of the cloud providers are new and do not have the years of experience that C2C offers.
C2C's ArchiveOne has been designed for the "real world" where email data may reside on Exchange servers as well as network file servers and end user systems, and, where it is not feasible to archive all email data before enforcing retention or searching messages. This "real world" approach separates ArchiveOne Enterprise from the competition because it aligns with IT organizations and drives efficiency into their daily activities -- rather than change them.
With its support for hybrid cloud environments, ArchiveOne Enterprise allows users to maintain control of their email archive while leveraging their own cloud accounts, such as Amazon's S3, as their cloud storage infrastructure without feature restrictions.
"Hybrid cloud environments can deliver impressive advantages for achieving high scalability and reliability at a low cost," said Dave Hunt, CEO, C2C. "ArchiveOne provides customers with the optimum set-up for on-premise data management that encompasses security, flexibility and ease-of-use all behind the firewall and enables them to benefit from hybrid cloud storage to achieve lower cost of storage. It's 'real world' archiving using 'new world' technology in the cloud."
A live online demonstration, references from ArchiveOne users, and a 30-day trial are available at: http://us.c2c.com/resources.
About C2C C2C Systems has earned the trust of its four million software users since 1992 by consistently delivering high-value, dependable core messaging system enhancements. Microsoft Exchange, SharePoint, and Windows File Server form the heart of C2C's commercial and governmental customers' businesses worldwide. C2C's ArchiveOne product family is the trusted choice for email and file archiving, eDiscovery, compliance management, legal forensics and storage management tools to enhance these platforms. For more information about the Company, visit http://www.c2c.com.
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Online-Storage.com is Now SIO.CO
Seattle, WA (PRWEB) October 11, 2012
Enterprise online storage software and hardware provider, Online-Storage.com has officially rebranded to SIO.CO. Intending to improve brand memorability and its internet presence, the company has moved from the domain Online-Storage.com to the more memorable SIO.CO. The companys offerings, vision and growth prospects remain intact, but the business intends to run a much more strategic web presence as witnessed by the latest adjustment.
We feel that having a five character domain will be much easier for branding, top-of-mind recognition and overall search engine effectiveness, says online storage sales engineer Stein Chu. Its a strategic move which we feel is congruent with a more long-term vision for the company, says Chu. Its much easier to direct some of our most tech-savvy customers to a short domain, than having them attempt to remember our previous web address.
SIO.COs software is a leap forward in cloud infrastructure and design. It seeks to eliminate many of the headaches involved in current cloud and magnetic tape backup solutions. The software allows for intense media rendering, online-based video encoding, big data backup solutions, thin provisioning and full scalability of pooled resources. Most importantly, its built with the generalist in mind, meaning most lower-level IT personnel are able to operate the system without extensive lower-level understanding and intense training. Its an out-of-the-box turnkey solution for the SMB, says Chu.
In addition, the companys software is able to operate on almost any commodity hardware, making the entry price point a bit more palpable for small business owners who may already have invested in server hardware. The software supports iSCSI for 1 and 10GbE for Linux, Windows XP,7, 2003 Server, 2008 Server, Hyper-V, VMWare ESX/ESXi, XenServer and Mac OSX. The software even supports server virtualization further expanding the use and maximization of limited resources.
Finally, cloud and hosted versions are also available, allowing even smaller operations to expand and pay on an as-needed basis without needing to invest in expensive hardware and potentially limited and eventually out-of-date software. Weve tried to think of just about every cloud computing need which may arise so the features match the needs our customers have and will continue to demand, says Chu. Weve created a robust solution for a growing market.
For more information, please visit http://sio.co/
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Online-Storage.com is Now SIO.CO
Cloud storage outage strikes Macquarie Telecom
Macquarie Telecom customers suffered a cloud storage outage and some are still experiencing problems, the company has confirmed. Macquarie plans to give rebates to affected customers.
Over the last 48 hours, 65 customers have experienced network outages that have left them unable to access cloud storage, Macquarie managing director of hosting, Aidan Tudehope, said in a statement.
Our technicians have been working around the clock to identify and fix the issue, and the majority of customers were back online within 12 hours.
Macquarie expects to restore service to the remaining eight customers today, Tudehope said.
We are still working on a detailed analysis of the cause of the outage but can confirm that it relates to a Storage Area Network at our Intellicentre 1, Tudehope said.
We deeply regret the disruption caused to our customers, he said. All affected customers will receive a rebate on their bill for the period of the outage. Our service managers, CEO and myself have proactively communicated throughout with all affected customers, and we will continue to update them on the progress of remediation works.
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Cloud storage outage strikes Macquarie Telecom
Cloud Storage Reviews Announcement Video – Video
10-10-2012 11:16 We are pleased to announce our new site dedicated to helping you learn more about cloud storage and online backup. We will have reviews, interviews, comparisons and more to help you find the best cloud storage option.
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Cloud Storage Reviews Announcement Video - Video
Otixo Adds Ubuntu One to Aggregated Cloud Storage Lineup
Otixo.com added Ubuntu One to its long line of aggregated cloud storage providers. Now One users can easily move files between 22 services including Dropbox, Google Drive, SkyDrive, Box, SugarSync, CX.com and more.
Boulder, Colorado (PRWEB) October 10, 2012
Otixos addition of Ubuntu One opens an easy path for integrating workflow between Ubuntu One and other cloud services. It is particularly exciting for users of iWorks (and other WebDAV compliant apps on iPad). Otixo allows users to retrieve and store files from iPad to Ubuntu One.
Otixo.com provides cloud service aggregation with a current focus on aggregating storage for personal file management and group collaboration. They enable full file management from a rapidly growing list of cloud storage providers such as Dropbox, Google Drive, Microsoft SkyDrive, Box, SugarSync, Picasa, Amazon S3, FilesAnywhere, CX.com, DumpTruck and now Ubuntu One!
Otixo also connects to any FTP, SFTP or WebDav server. Otixo turns all of these cloud services into one big online file system that can be reached by their elegant, intuitive and attractive web app or via Otixos own WebDav servers which allow people to connect Otixo to their local file system on their laptop, tablet (including iPad) or smart phone.
Look for news about integration of open source project management, workflow and collaboration in the near future!
Molly Dolby Otixo 7203348496 Email Information
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Otixo Adds Ubuntu One to Aggregated Cloud Storage Lineup