hubiC cheap 10TB cloud storage and Dropbox new pricing

There have been some updates in the cloud storage industry since my last post

hubiC – new cloud storage provider

First time I heard of hubiC I thought ‘yet another cloud storage provider’ but I was wrong. hubiC is a product of OVH one of the largest Internet Service Providers in Europe which has been around for 15 years. Their headquarters and most of their data-centres are based in France, hosting 170000 servers (and 18 million websites). I used to rent a dedicated server from them for a couple of years and I had absolutely no problems with them. Being this large and old it hopefully also means it won’t disappear along with my data tomorrow and that they have more than basic knowledge of network security to keep my data safe. They give 25GB space for free and 100GB for 1 euro per month (inc vat) undercutting Google Drive by about 50 cent per month – not really worth switching providers for. Where hubiC shines though is their 2nd tier package at 10TB for 10 euro per month. Here’s a quick list of features:

  • Owned by a large company with many years experience in cloud and hosting
  • Windows, MacOS, Linux, Android, iOS, Windows Phone and Blackberry clients.
  • Based in Europe means faster for us than Dropbox and Google Drive.
  • 10TB for 10 euro (0.1 cent per GB per month)

One concern I have about hubiC is that if its desktop apps work the same way as Dropbox it means it will be really hard to ever utilise the whole 10TB. Dropbox for example mirrors what you have stored on your dropbox folder to the cloud and any other desktop client you have running with the same account which means if you fill up 1TB of space, you need 1TB of space on your Laptop too. Consider the same with 10TBs. I will test their Windows app using the 25GB free package and post about it later.

Check hubiC out at here.

Update 1:
Tested upload speed with a bunch of RAW Image files totalling 300mb on 3mbit upstream. hubiC averaged to 325kb/s upload speed.
On their web interface if you choose more than one file to download, it sends you a ZIP file containing the selected files.

Dropbox “dropped” the price

Dropbox took its time but followed Google Drive’s and Microsoft OneDrive’s example and decreased its prices. They simplified their paid plans; now only one non-business option is available and costs 9.99 euro per month for 1TB if paid monthly (which is about 10 times more expensive than hubiC) or 99.99 per year. If you are US based you get the same for 9.99 USD, which means we are getting ripped off as usual.

In search for the best Cloud Storage

The past couple of months I started receiving warnings from Dropbox that my ‘gift’ 50GB space that came with the purchase of a Samsung Galaxy S3 2 years ago is coming to an end. I am left with around 20 days so I started looking at the alternatives because Dropbox is pricey. I already have accounts with Google Drive and Microsoft’s OneDrive and I also checked out Box at some point but never really used it. For Google Drive I have an 80GB plan which I signed up for years ago when Picasa Web Albums was still alive (it still is but I have the impression Google will pull the plug soon).

Just today OneDrive announced some big price reductions making it more competitive to Google Drive.
Here’s a table of the current pricing of the storage providers I am considering:

Annual cost for 100GB

Dropbox GoogleDrive Box OneDrive
$99.00 $23.88 $120.00 $23.88

Since Box is more expensive while not offering anything better than Dropbox I am no longer be considering it. Since I am currently using Dropbox I won’t need to do anything other than just buy more space. A great feature of Dropbox which I would miss if I was to move to DropBox is its automatic photo uploads for mobile devices. Any photos taken on mobile are automatically saved on my Dropbox and then automatically downloaded to my PC, keeping them both safe and available without having to do any manual transfers. Google Drive has a similar feature but with a catch; instead of saving photos to Drive it sends them to Google+ which means you don’t have direct file access to photo folders. If you want to download them you have to browse your Google+ profile and download them one by one, a very painful process. There is a third-party Android app which does automatic photo upload to Google Drive but I haven’t tested it yet – the fact that I will need to run another app in the background which could drain more battery worries me. OneDrive is supposed to have an automatic photo upload feature more in the lines of Dropbox than Google but I haven’t tested its Android app yet. It comes built-in Windows 8.1 and all Save Dialog default to OneDrive which is convenient for a Windows user like myself. Microsoft was  wise enough to release apps for all platforms so Android is covered. Another great feature of OneDrive is that unlike Dropbox, files stored in the cloud do not necessarily require to have a local copy. The OneDrive app ties in with Windows and creates place=holder files for large files and only downloads them when they need to be opened. This is especially useful for users on SSD drives which tend to have limited capacity.

Until today I was leaning towards GoogleDrive but I am reconsidering and might give OneDrive a go. I’ll install OneDrive app for Android and see how it goes. In the meantime I believe prices will continue to fall because of competition between Google and Microsoft.