Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?
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Here is the other issue, if you want them to give away enough for the bulk of their target audience to be good with the free tier rather than just really small firms and/or limited use cases within a firm, basically you are saying that the entire product should just be free. Which is fine to want, but you have to understand that that is what you are asking for. If they make it big enough on the free tier, who would pay as small business is the primary audience. The free tier is fine for the important data of basically any home, essentially any SOHO and a good number of SMBs that are careful i how they back things up - unless you are generating things like engineering collateral, most SMBs don't product gobs of data to back up. Certainly lots do, but lots and lots do not.
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@BRRABill said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
@Dashrender said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
@BRRABill said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
@scottalanmiller said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
@BRRABill said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
I guess my thinking was by making it seem "free" as opposed to a trial level, it's just marketing.
Well it is not limited in functionality, nor in time, nor in use cases. It's totally functional for its size tier and is in no way whatsoever a trial. And for many (most?) SMBs of a smaller size, it's more than the amount of actual data that they need to protect. It doesn't "seem" free, it's very much actually free and in no sense a trial.
That's like saying that getting a small ice cream cone free is a "trial" and not actually free just because it's smaller than you want to get for free.
You think 25GB is sufficient for backup?
Maybe, maybe if you are just backing up data, and without a lot of backup revisions. (Please, no need to argue about the plusses/minuses of this strategy.
)who said anything about backup? it might be sufficient as a data store. We have around 30 GB of normal data... so it could replace a fileserver if we got down low enough.
Scott did.
I asked, and he said it's primarily used for backup.
That is the scenario we are discussing.
OK great - it's only one of the backups, i.e. it's not the offsite one. That will have to be a synced solution or a NAS/TAPE you carry offsite, etc.
Though I do agree with you - 25 GB is really not that usable. I have more in photos at home than that. At least Unitrends gives you 1 TB of backed up stuff.
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@Dashrender said
Though I do agree with you - 25 GB is really not that usable. I have more in photos at home than that. At least Unitrends gives you 1 TB of backed up stuff.
That was kind of what I was getting after, I think.
That their first paid level is more in line with other's free level, which is considerably more functional.
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@BRRABill said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
@Dashrender said
Though I do agree with you - 25 GB is really not that usable. I have more in photos at home than that. At least Unitrends gives you 1 TB of backed up stuff.
That was kind of what I was getting after, I think.
That their first paid level is more in line with other's free level, which is considerably more functional.
Unitrends 1TB for free. is your comparison I assume? That is not providing you with storage. Just that you can use it to store that much.
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@scottalanmiller said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
Here is the other issue, if you want them to give away enough for the bulk of their target audience to be good with the free tier rather than just really small firms and/or limited use cases within a firm, basically you are saying that the entire product should just be free. Which is fine to want, but you have to understand that that is what you are asking for. If they make it big enough on the free tier, who would pay as small business is the primary audience. The free tier is fine for the important data of basically any home, essentially any SOHO and a good number of SMBs that are careful i how they back things up - unless you are generating things like engineering collateral, most SMBs don't product gobs of data to back up. Certainly lots do, but lots and lots do not.
Again, that is assuming everyone works like you do, even at home.
I would like to take a vote and see, for example, how many people store their photos/music/videos etc all in cloud-based file-aware applications as you do, versus on their local machines.
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@scottalanmiller said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
Here is the other issue, if you want them to give away enough for the bulk of their target audience to be good with the free tier rather than just really small firms and/or limited use cases within a firm, basically you are saying that the entire product should just be free. Which is fine to want, but you have to understand that that is what you are asking for. If they make it big enough on the free tier, who would pay as small business is the primary audience. The free tier is fine for the important data of basically any home, essentially any SOHO and a good number of SMBs that are careful i how they back things up - unless you are generating things like engineering collateral, most SMBs don't product gobs of data to back up. Certainly lots do, but lots and lots do not.
Good point. Since this product is really geared toward the smaller SMB side (I think), then increasing it to the point where most would only use the free would basically kill the company, unless their goal is to make no money on it.? or by selling support only.
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@Dashrender said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
@scottalanmiller said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
Here is the other issue, if you want them to give away enough for the bulk of their target audience to be good with the free tier rather than just really small firms and/or limited use cases within a firm, basically you are saying that the entire product should just be free. Which is fine to want, but you have to understand that that is what you are asking for. If they make it big enough on the free tier, who would pay as small business is the primary audience. The free tier is fine for the important data of basically any home, essentially any SOHO and a good number of SMBs that are careful i how they back things up - unless you are generating things like engineering collateral, most SMBs don't product gobs of data to back up. Certainly lots do, but lots and lots do not.
Good point. Since this product is really geared toward the smaller SMB side (I think), then increasing it to the point where most would only use the free would basically kill the company, unless their goal is to make no money on it.? or by selling support only.
If this is the case, then sure, I agree with the pricing.
I figured they were going more for medium to larger companies, not the small ones.
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@BRRABill said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
@Dashrender said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
@scottalanmiller said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
Here is the other issue, if you want them to give away enough for the bulk of their target audience to be good with the free tier rather than just really small firms and/or limited use cases within a firm, basically you are saying that the entire product should just be free. Which is fine to want, but you have to understand that that is what you are asking for. If they make it big enough on the free tier, who would pay as small business is the primary audience. The free tier is fine for the important data of basically any home, essentially any SOHO and a good number of SMBs that are careful i how they back things up - unless you are generating things like engineering collateral, most SMBs don't product gobs of data to back up. Certainly lots do, but lots and lots do not.
Good point. Since this product is really geared toward the smaller SMB side (I think), then increasing it to the point where most would only use the free would basically kill the company, unless their goal is to make no money on it.? or by selling support only.
If this is the case, then sure, I agree with the pricing.
I figured they were going more for medium to larger companies, not the small ones.
I so often hear that Medium starts at 300+ units. I suppose those companies could use this product as well, but would they?
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@Dashrender said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
Though I do agree with you - 25 GB is really not that usable. I have more in photos at home than that. At least Unitrends gives you 1 TB of backed up stuff.
Unitrends is ONLY backup, though. It's a bit different. This is general use storage. Totally unrelated target audiences. In one case, Unitrends is giving something away free to people who would essentially never pay for it. In the other, you want AetherStore to give away free to their entire target audience.
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@Dashrender said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
@scottalanmiller said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
Here is the other issue, if you want them to give away enough for the bulk of their target audience to be good with the free tier rather than just really small firms and/or limited use cases within a firm, basically you are saying that the entire product should just be free. Which is fine to want, but you have to understand that that is what you are asking for. If they make it big enough on the free tier, who would pay as small business is the primary audience. The free tier is fine for the important data of basically any home, essentially any SOHO and a good number of SMBs that are careful i how they back things up - unless you are generating things like engineering collateral, most SMBs don't product gobs of data to back up. Certainly lots do, but lots and lots do not.
Good point. Since this product is really geared toward the smaller SMB side (I think), then increasing it to the point where most would only use the free would basically kill the company, unless their goal is to make no money on it.? or by selling support only.
Right, they are working off of a "pay for use, pay a small amount, pay only when you use it" mode. Unlike Unitrends where if they lacked a free tier, would be a "tens of thousands of dollars" just to test it out. Because you can test it for $20 to basically unlimited scale, it's very different things.
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So here, I guess, is the real question... what would make you happy that isn't "I get to run my business for free?" How much free do you want that isn't enough to make the product non-viable? Is the only point that you want "whatever it takes for it to be free for me" and that's your line for what "a viable free tier" is?
If you are a real business that has real storage needs, and the free tier isn't big enough for all of your needs - then they have it at the right size. The point isn't to make it free for everyone. It's only to make it free for those that would not be able to pay for it. If you would ever consider a NAS instead, you have made the point that they sized it correctly. If the alternative is to not back up at all, then that's when they want it to be free.
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I'll toss it out there that backing up data only from my POV is pretty rare.
If I have a single server with a dozen shares on it, I don't want to have to rebuild all of that manually because I only backup the data. The case of whole server failure, I just want to restore the whole server, share permissions and all.
I use Dell AppAssure. It takes a base image, then only backs up changes going forward.
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Again, I had their target market wrong.
And again, at the low pricing, it's really not even a thing. If you can't afford $120 a year for a TB of backups, well then as you always say they can't afford to be in business.
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Not done a proper test of 2.0 yet. The first I knew about it was an email that went out saying "Hi, please test" after launch.
Is anyone here going to talk about the performance of 2.0? Stop going on and on and on about their choice of business model.
https://mangolassi.it/topic/7718/aetherstore-in-the-real-world
13 months on, what news, what has changed. Well the pricing model has but how has the core product changed drastically?
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@scottalanmiller said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
So here, I guess, is the real question... what would make you happy that isn't "I get to run my business for free?" How much free do you want that isn't enough to make the product non-viable? Is the only point that you want "whatever it takes for it to be free for me" and that's your line for what "a viable free tier" is?
If you are a real business that has real storage needs, and the free tier isn't big enough for all of your needs - then they have it at the right size. The point isn't to make it free for everyone. It's only to make it free for those that would not be able to pay for it. If you would ever consider a NAS instead, you have made the point that they sized it correctly. If the alternative is to not back up at all, then that's when they want it to be free.
I don't have a problem with the cost - I have a problem with the general idea - mostly around performance. Scott's OP and other posts definitely show how this can be cost effective.
I currently find myself in the situation of needing a new backup target and offsite synced solution (second site connected via VPN). $240/yr for 50 TB of storage space is pretty good (not the space itself for this, but managing/access to it I guess you'd call it).
But I'm guessing that my new NAS will last me 7-10 years, so that's $1680 - 2400 over the life of a typical NAS, and that's before I consider the need for more storage in my PCs to allow for it.
Currently the dual drive Synology with 8 TB drives I was looking at was around $900.
So for my situation, I'd still need a NAS at the remote site to replicate to -so that cost is a wash, and the Local NAS will have a higher upfront cost, but lower life time cost - so it boils down to the time value of money equations to see which is better (and that assume zero drive purchases in the PCs to give me 8 TB of usable storage in AetherStore).
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@Dashrender said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
I'll toss it out there that backing up data only from my POV is pretty rare.
If I have a single server with a dozen shares on it, I don't want to have to rebuild all of that manually because I only backup the data. The case of whole server failure, I just want to restore the whole server, share permissions and all.
Right, but that's because you've opted for a manual setup process. Which is absolutely fine, but you've decided, probably based on your large available backup space and restore time windows, that doing that is better than having an automated build and only backing up data. It's a choice, and a very legitimate one, but it remains a choice.
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@BRRABill said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
Again, I had their target market wrong.
And again, at the low pricing, it's really not even a thing. If you can't afford $120 a year for a TB of backups, well then as you always say they can't afford to be in business.
And, more importantly, it's only $10/mo to test at that size if you want to play with it with a full 1TB of data. You can always test and cancel, unlike a NAS, for example.
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@Dashrender said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
So for my situation, I'd still need a SAN at the remote site to replicate to...
Did you mean a NAS?
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@scottalanmiller said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
@Dashrender said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
So for my situation, I'd still need a SAN at the remote site to replicate to...
Did you mean a NAS?
Corrected
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@Dashrender said in Why Choose AetherStore Over a NAS?:
Currently the dual drive Synology with 8 TB drives I was looking at was around $900.
But with no device failover, so a very different comparison. It's fine if that is not something that you need, then it certainly applies to you. But it is very, very important to understand that it's not a fair comparison to compare a single node NAS to the AetherStore approach. You are comparing a two way mirror, single node solution against a four way mirror, four node solution. You can argue that there is a risk to data accessibility in the case of desktops being shut off all at once, but the durability of the data is generally dramatically more important and the quad mirror and quad nodes simply is in a different class than you are considering.
