Amazon launches Cloud Drive Unlimited plan for $59.99 per year. Good Deal?
Amazon's Cloud Drive has been a contender in the cloud storage and file synchronizing vertical for some time now. Today, Amazon announced the launch of two new plans that simplify Cloud Drive significantly for all users.
Unlimited Photos gives 5 Gigabyte of general storage space and unlimited photo storage to Cloud Drive users for $11.99 per year. This is the same deal that Amazon Prime members get for free.
Unlimited Everything on the other hand is a new top of the line plan that gives you unlimited storage for all kinds of files for $59.99.
Amazon is not the first company to launch unlimited online file storage offers. Microsoft for instance gives Office 365 subscribers unlimited OneDrive storage with their subscriptions.
Both plans, the only plans left by the way, are offered as 3-month free trials for users who want to test them before they pay for them.
Nothing changes for Amazon Prime users by the way as unlimited photo storage -- basically the unlimited photos plan -- remains available to them free of charge.
Prime members can upgrade to the Unlimited Everything plan at any time but will have to pay $59.99 for it just like anyone else.
The offer looks good on paper but the interesting question is how this compares to the offerings of other cloud storage providers such as Dropbox, Microsoft or Google.
Microsoft OneDrive
15 Gigabyte of storage free, unlimited storage with a Office 365 subscription for $69.99 per year when bought directly from Microsoft for a 1 PC license. Discounted options are usually available on third-party sites. On Amazon for instance, you get Microsoft Office 365 Personal for $89.98 which is the five user/system license that retails for $99.99 usually.
Google Drive
Google does not offer unlimited storage yet. Users get 15 Gigabyte of free storage space with their account which they can increase to up to 30 Terabytes. A 1 Terabyte plan is available for $9.99 per month or $119.88 per year.
Dropbox
Dropbox users get 2 Gigabyte of storage space for free. A Pro account is available that adds new features to the account and increases the storage space to 1 Terabyte for $9.99 per month or $119.88 per year.
As far as price per Gigabyte is concerned, Amazon's new unlimited everything plan offers more storage for the Dollar as any other service.
While that is one important metric, there are others to consider. For instance, which additional features come with the plan, which devices are supported and how good is the synchronization client?
Probably the biggest issue right now is how Amazon's Cloud client works, at least on desktop systems. The only option you get to sync files with the cloud is to drop folders into the interface. That's less practicable as using a root folder which the majority of other cloud storage services use for that operation.
In addition to that, it lacks viewers for many file types. It is for instance not possible to read documents online let alone edit them.
This does not have to be a problem depending on how you plan to use the storage. If all you want is to move tons of files to the cloud then this may very well work for you.
Now You: Are you using Cloud Storage services? If so which and why?
Martin, I would appreciate that you do not censor this post, as it’s informative writing.
Onur, there is a misleading statement “[…] GIFs are animated images …”. No, obviously you don’t seem to have take much notice of what you were told back in March regarding; Graphics Interchange Format (GIF).
For example, https://www.ghacks.net/2023/03/31/whats-gif-explanation-and-how-to-use-it/#comment-4562919 (if you had read my replies within that thread, you might have learnt something useful). I even mentioned, “GIF intrinsically supports animated images (GIF89a)”.
You linked to said article, [Related: …] within this article, but have somehow failed to take onboard what support you were given by several more knowledgeable people.
If you used AI to help write this article, it has failed miserably.
EMRE ÇITAK posts are useless because they are fraught with inaccuracies and are irrelevant.
AI is stupid, and it will not get any better if we really know how this all works. Prove me wrong.. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IYl1sTIOHI
Martin, [#comment-4569908] is only meant to be in: [https://www.ghacks.net/2023/07/09/how-to-send-gifs-on-iphone-two-different-ways/]. Whereas it appears duplicated in several recent random low-quality non relevant articles.
Obviously it [#comment-4569908] was posted: 9 July 2023. Long before this thread even existed… your database is falling over. Those comments are supposed to have unique ID values. It shouldn’t be possible to duplicate the post ID, if the database had referential integrity.
Don’t tell me!
Ghacks wants the state to step in for STATE-MANDATED associations to save jobs!!!
Bring in the dictatorship!!!
And screw Rreedom of Association – too radical for Ghacks maybe
GateKeeper ?
That’s called “appointing” businesses to do the state’s dirty work!!!!!
But the article says itself that those appointed were not happy – implying they had not choice!!!!!!
@The Dark Lady,
@KeZa,
@Database failure,
@Howard Pearce,
@Howard Allan Pearce,
Note: I replaced the quoted URI scheme: https:// with “>>” and posted.
The current ghacks.net is owned by “Softonic International S.A.” (sold by Martin in October 2019), and due to the fate of M&A, ghacks.net has changed in quality.
>> ghacks.net/2023/09/02/microsoft-is-removing-wordpad-from-windows/#comment-4573130
Many Authors of bloggers and advertisers certified by Softonic have joined the site, and the site is full of articles aimed at advertising and clickbait.
>> ghacks.net/2023/08/31/in-windows-11-the-line-between-legitimate-and-adware-becomes-increasingly-blurred/#comment-4573117
As it stands, except for articles by Martin Brinkmann, Mike Turcotte, and Ashwin, they are low quality, unhelpful, and even vicious. It is better not to read those articles.
How to display only articles by a specific author:
Added line to My filters in uBlock Origin: ghacks.net##.hentry,.home-posts,.home-category-post:not(:has-text(/Martin Brinkmann|Mike Turcotte|Ashwin/))
>> ghacks.net/2023/09/01/windows-11-development-overview-of-the-august-2023-changes/#comment-4573033
By the way, if you use an RSS reader, you can track exactly where your comments are (I’m an iPad user, so I use “Feedly Classic”, but for Windows I prefer the desktop app “RSS Guard”).
RSS Guard: Feed reader which supports RSS/ATOM/JSON and many web-based feed services.
>> github.com/martinrotter/rssguard#readme
We all live in digital surveillance glass houses under scrutiny of evil people because of people like Musk. It’s only fair that he takes his turn.
“Operating systems will be required to let the user choose the browser, virtual assistant and search engine of their choice. Microsoft cannot force users to use Bing or Edge. Apple will have to open up its iOS operating system to allow third-party app stores, aka allow sideloading of apps. Google, on the other hand, will need to provide users with the ability to uninstall preloaded apps (bloatware) from Android devices. Online services will need to allow users to unsubscribe from their platform easily. Gatekeepers need to provide interoperability with third-parties that offer similar services.”
Wonderful ! Let’s hope they’ll comply with that law more than they are doing with the GDPR.
No, they didn’t lmao.
https://twitter.com/vxunderground/status/1706523877478670542
What does this article about Musk/Tesla have to do with computing, devices, phones?
More irelevant filler.
yeah sure… they are always the victims and it is only against them ????
Believe them 100% and never question anything. This lawsuit sounds like the type you heard when people were eating batteries.