SOHO and SMB Cloud Storage Recommendations
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With all of the talk about SOHO/SMB using the cloud and not even owning a NAS/server, what are some recommendations/reviews of cloud storage for these companies?
I know someone at one point mentioned DropBox for Business.
I'm looking for something that will sync files locally, and integrate and emulate as close as possible what the user is used to now.
I've had some issues with some of these services (such as OneDrive), but it was on the personal level.
(My OneDrive issue was on a new installtion of Windows. It was on a tablet, and automaticaly installed itself. I delted some files and .... oops, gone from One Drive cloud as well. I'm assuming that the business products ar emore robut and have backup copies available.)
Talk to me!
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OneDrive would not be "not robust" just because it allowed you to delete. You have to be aware of when you are using a sync product (online mirrors what you are doing locally) and a backup or non-replicated storage product. OneDrive is supposed to delete in both places together because it is a mirror, it's not a lack of robustness.
Amazon Cloud Drive is the opposite, it does not sync at all. You have to send files off to it.
Both of these are consumer products and you would not want to be finding them in businesses.
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Nothing that you want to use is really going to mirror what people are doing now - partially because part of the goal is to get them to stop what they are doing today and do something that makes more sense. The traditional models of file storage make little sense for the SOHO or SMB markets. It is actually far more complex than necessary.
Modern storage in this arena is much more geared towards users than towards IT oversight.
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Big players that you want to look at here will be products like Dropbox for Business, of course, or Office 365's OneDrive for Business, Google Drive and similar. A lot will come down to what ecosystem you are working with. If you are using Office 365 already, you will want to integrate. If you are on Google Apps, Google Drive will make sense.
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How does ODfB differ from OD. Don't they both just sync files? That's my experience at least.
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@scottalanmiller said:
OneDrive is supposed to delete in both places together because it is a mirror, it's not a lack of robustness.Yes but something like DropBox for Business has backups to restore from. OneDrive said .. so, so sorry.
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BTW: my original post was some of the worst typing I've ever seen. Kudos on putting those letters together into English.
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@BRRABill said:
@scottalanmiller said:
OneDrive is supposed to delete in both places together because it is a mirror, it's not a lack of robustness.Yes but something like DropBox for Business has backups to restore from. OneDrive said .. so, so sorry.
True, but you are then comparing the enterprise product to the consumer one. I know of no consumer product that gives you both sync as well as backup. The question would be "does normal Dropbox give you that?"
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All I am saying is I want a product that gives that.
I've had issue with cloud stuff, but just on a personal level. That's why I am looking for reviews/suggestions.
And I don't necessarily mean an exact mimic of what they are doing. I just want them to be able to save files in a way (such as from explorer) that makes sense to them.
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This company is hard to go wrong with. We use them for backups of traveling sales people's laptops\tablets.
http://www.nitrobackup.com -
@Jason said:
This company is hard to go wrong with. We use them for backups of traveling sales people's laptops\tablets.
http://www.nitrobackup.comI'm looking for more of a "local server replacement"
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ODfB has an online recycle bin, so even is a user deletes something, it can be recovered for 30 days.
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@BRRABill said:
And I don't necessarily mean an exact mimic of what they are doing. I just want them to be able to save files in a way (such as from explorer) that makes sense to them.
And what I'm recommending is considering doing some training and helping them to understand why that might be unnecessarily complicated. It depends what they are working with but MS Word, for example, can integrate with ODfB directly and make the need to work with the filesystem completely unnecessary. An entire level of complication that could be simply bypassed.
This is how the easiest computing model today, the Chromebooks are changing how people view storage. Most users are already used to this idea from their phones where storing local files is not something that they normally do but instead allow apps to access files locally or online through the apps rather than interacting through file system management utilities.
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Check this thread where we were discussing this very topic last week...
http://mangolassi.it/topic/6748/do-we-still-need-file-protocols-today
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@scottalanmiller said:
I know of no consumer product that gives you both sync as well as backup.
I'm not sure what you mean here. Both Google Drive and Onedrive have both a recycle bin for restoring deleted files and a version history to restore previous versions of existing files (though I think Onedrive only supports Office documents). I presume all consumer products work like this.
@BRRABill if you deleted a file it should be in the recycle bin on the Onedrive website.
I use livedrive.com and set it to backup user's local "My Documents" directory. I've had a few issues with it and am looking at replacing it, probably with Google Drive, but it's been a life safer over the years when users have lost or deleted files.
I'm not convinced that consumer products are any less robust than so called "enterprise products". In the case of Dropbox and Google, I thought their consumer and enterprise products were basically identical, and in the case of Microsoft, I suspect that their consumer product (OneDrive) is actually more robust than their enterprise product (ODfB).
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@Carnival-Boy said:
@scottalanmiller said:
I know of no consumer product that gives you both sync as well as backup.
I'm not sure what you mean here. Both Google Drive and Onedrive have both a recycle bin for restoring deleted files and a version history to restore previous versions of existing files (though I think Onedrive only supports Office documents). I presume all consumer products work like this.
I was basing that off of @BRRABill's statement that OneDrive specifically did not offer that functionality. I do not have a working OneDrive (several months of being broken now) to test or verify. I was a bit surprised but was taking him at his word. I only know that the commercial business systems have protections for this.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@BRRABill said:
@scottalanmiller said:
OneDrive is supposed to delete in both places together because it is a mirror, it's not a lack of robustness.Yes but something like DropBox for Business has backups to restore from. OneDrive said .. so, so sorry.
True, but you are then comparing the enterprise product to the consumer one. I know of no consumer product that gives you both sync as well as backup. The question would be "does normal Dropbox give you that?"
Regular Dropbox has a "recycle bin" or something to that effect. If you delete the files accidentally, you can get them back. However, it's only if they're deleted through the web interface.
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Since when is the Recycle Bin counted as a Backup? I hope that's not what you consider backups.
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@Jason said:
Since when is the Recycle Bin counted as a Backup? I hope that's not what you consider backups.
I don't think anyone does. Just pointing out that if you accidentally delete a file you can get it back.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
@BRRABill if you deleted a file it should be in the recycle bin on the Onedrive website.
Holy cow there is a Recycle Bin.
I never check online, so I didn't know that was there.
