[besson3c]

I don't know about your residential broadband upload speeds, but every network I've been on in has had incredibly slow upload speeds. I can't imagine being patient enough to upload 1 gig, let alone 10 - even spread out across multiple sessions.

Google and the other free email providers bank on the fact that their customers won't use their entire 1 gig quota. I would imagine that Apple is counting on the same.

Is Apple just trying to entice by offering 10 gig as a sort of gimmick, or do you really think that people will use anything close to 1 gig?

Perhaps this might be useful over commercial/corporate high speed networks, but I'm assuming that the bulk of .Mac customers do not have such bandwidth available to them.

[chabig]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

I don't know about your residential broadband upload speeds, but every network I've been on in has had incredibly slow upload speeds. I can't imagine being patient enough to upload 1 gig, let alone 10

Do you sleep at night? Your Mac doesn't have to...

[BRussell]

I'm not sure what it really has to do with bandwidth. They've made a big deal about putting your photos and "better than DVD" movies on .Mac. Put up a few thousand photos and a couple dozen movies, and you'll very quickly move beyond the 1 gig and close in on 10 gig. And that wouldn't have to happen all at once, but over many months.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by chabig 

Do you sleep at night? Your Mac doesn't have to...

My Macs are laptops, so we use Anacron for our tasks. Our backups run whenever.

If Apple has been intended .Mac to be a backup service for Mac users, don't you think the average Mac user has more than 10 gig of stuff in their home directory? Do people need 10 gig of space for iLife stuff?

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by BRussell 

I'm not sure what it really has to do with bandwidth. They've made a big deal about putting your photos and "better than DVD" movies on .Mac. Put up a few thousand photos and a couple dozen movies, and you'll very quickly move beyond the 1 gig and close in on 10 gig. And that wouldn't have to happen all at once, but over many months.

I guess that makes sense... homemade movies in particular.

[Chuckit]

Let's say you upload an average of 20 MB per day — even at residential broadband speeds, that's not exorbitant, and it even seems somewhat likely with the new focus on photo sharing. You will have used up your entire .Mac allotment in less than two years.

[C.A.T.S. CEO]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

My Macs are laptops, so we use Anacron for our tasks. Our backups run whenever.

If Apple has been intended .Mac to be a backup service for Mac users, don't you think the average Mac user has more than 10 gig of stuff in their home directory? Do people need 10 gig of space for iLife stuff?

My mom is a 'average Mac user' and she has a 30 GB home directory (albeit it has a lot of clutter). I'm not so average and have 22 GB, most of which is my Ubuntu VM, photos a music.

It also comes down to what 'average Mac user' means to you.

[::maroma::]

Photos
Movies
Backups
File Transfers (hosting files for clients, friends, etc)
Web Sites

Those are the things I use .Mac for. Steve kept emphasizing the word "sharing" in his presentation today. I think Apple intends people to really start putting more of their photos and movies and such on their .Mac accounts. They included a bunch of tools to make that easier and faster in the various updates to iLife. I could see 10GB becoming full in a years time easy.

Oh, and now that people can post pics they take with their iPhone instantly, I can see that becoming a space hog pretty easily.

[Cold Warrior]

I'd be shocked if .Mac could accept a 1GB+ single file without crapping out -- at any time of the day.

[goMac]

Originally Posted by BRussell 

They've made a big deal about putting your photos and "better than DVD" movies on .Mac.

I'll be excited when they put better than DVD movies on iTunes.

[alex_kac]

In my .Mac account I see 10GB on the website info but not in the .Mac System Prefs. It says 512MB instead. Any idea what I'd have to do to show 10GB? Even when I connect to my iDisk from Finder it says only 512MB.

[goMac]

Originally Posted by alex_kac 

In my .Mac account I see 10GB on the website info but not in the .Mac System Prefs. It says 512MB instead. Any idea what I'd have to do to show 10GB? Even when I connect to my iDisk from Finder it says only 512MB.

Mine shows the full amount.

[Mithras]

At this point, I'd actually consider getting a .Mac membership, even though I already have a Dreamhost account. The new galleries are very slick and hassle-free (much nicer than Flickr or Picasa, IMHO), it's family-friendly for Mom, &etc. I dunno, is that a foolish thought?

[Art Vandelay]

You should see the storage increase in your account by August 14th.

That's from the .Mac email I received today about the new features released today. However, I already see 10GB as my total storage in System Prefs and the Finder.

[BRussell]

Mine just updated to 10 gigs in the past hour or two. Apple has said they would update everyone within a week; I expect it will be a lot quicker than that for most people.

[goMac]

I think they're updating accounts in the order that they were registered. I was an iTools member from day 1, and my account was updated immediately after the keynote.

[MacosNerd]

I think its a very good move. While besson you seem to question, most things that apple does its a great move to keep .mac a viable solution. I'll definitely be able to use the 10gig personally. Storage is storage and you don't need to sit there while it transfers and your mac doesn't have to be single tasking. It can do other things while uploading (or downloading).

Bottom line is if you think its not the right thing, or the servers are too slow or you just don't like .mac there's plenty of other solutions on the market.


edit: My .mac account was upgraded yesterday so it probably is in the order that goMac mentioned. I too have been a member of iTools since day one also.

[steamy]

is there a way to get 10 gig .mac storage as a part of other service?

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by steamy 

is there a way to get 10 gig .mac storage as a part of other service?

If you could, it wouldn't be .Mac storage

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

I don't know about your residential broadband upload speeds, but every network I've been on in has had incredibly slow upload speeds. I can't imagine being patient enough to upload 1 gig, let alone 10 - even spread out across multiple sessions.

Be a little more imaginative.

I have 256k up, and my online backup of all my data is 250 GB (!!!). Using rsync to backup and limiting it to about 10k up; takes many days, but what's the harm ? Good enough for backup.

-t

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by turtle777 

Be a little more imaginative.

I have 256k up, and my online backup of all my data is 250 GB (!!!). Using rsync to backup and limiting it to about 10k up; takes many days, but what's the harm ? Good enough for backup.

-t

If the backups can keep up with the rate of change of your local files and you only have 10 gig of stuff to backup, yes...

I'd just be curious to know what the average amount of consumption will end up being, and whether it is well under 10 gig.

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

If the backups can keep up with the rate of change of your local files and you only have 10 gig of stuff to backup, yes...

I'd just be curious to know what the average amount of consumption will end up being, and whether it is well under 10 gig.

Well, as far as 10G is concerned, I think it's almost utterly useless. That was acceptable about 3 years ago.

For about the same money, I get 255 GB at Dreamhost. Allows full online backup of ALL of my files.

-t

[Mastrap]

Turtle, is rsync available for OS X?

[steamy]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

If you could, it wouldn't be .Mac storage

well if it was plain 10gig hosting yes but as it is intended to be used with other paid services such as ilife I would hope you buy one and you get one free otherwise it is pretty expensive. Or maybe I just fail to see how I could earn money using it...

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by Mastrap 

Turtle, is rsync available for OS X?

Sure it is, it runs on any Unix platform including OS X. It is included in OS X, you already have it installed

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by turtle777 

Well, as far as 10G is concerned, I think it's almost utterly useless. That was acceptable about 3 years ago.

For about the same money, I get 255 GB at Dreamhost. Allows full online backup of ALL of my files.

-t

Well, the other thing is, are we ready to usher in a new era of people backing up their personal files online? There are several security/privacy related concerns here, and you know how naive and trusting the general public is

With secure tunnels, this is probably safe, but I'm sure there will be cheap copycat products with several security issues, and/or companies that may want to data mine your backup data, or lock you into their service, push ads on you, whatever.

I'm very distrusting of the way business is handled these days, in case you can't tell

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

Well, the other thing is, are we ready to usher in a new era of people backing up their personal files online? There are several security/privacy related concerns here, and you know how naive and trusting the general public is

I know.

On my part, I actually believe that my data is more secure in a remote data center than on my computer at home.

1) Someone could easily break into my home and steal my computer.
2) Even if someone gets his hands on the servers in the data center, chances are small that of the Terabytes of data stored, he would actually pick exactly mine. The odds are just playing FOR me.

-t

[Chuckit]

Originally Posted by steamy 

well if it was plain 10gig hosting yes but as it is intended to be used with other paid services such as ilife I would hope you buy one and you get one free otherwise it is pretty expensive.

iLife is not a service; it's a set of software. .Mac is the service that goes with it.

[Mastrap]

I'm with turtle on the online backup. I've backed up 6GB in three days to Mozy Online Backup: Free. Automatic. Secure., with no problems. It's $5.00 a month for unlimited backup, which is pretty reasonable. I keep local backup too, but this is a real reassurance in case of theft or fire.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by turtle777 

I know.

On my part, I actually believe that my data is more secure in a remote data center than on my computer at home.

1) Someone could easily break into my home and steal my computer.
2) Even if someone gets his hands on the servers in the data center, chances are small that of the Terabytes of data stored, he would actually pick exactly mine. The odds are just playing FOR me.

-t

Aren't you ever afraid that the company will significantly increase their rates? Prevent data export? Create restrictions for the purpose of monetary gain? Lock you in to their service some other way (say, by creating some proprietary protocol that only works with their service)? Data mine? Start pushing ads on you in an obnoxious fashion?

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by Mastrap 

I'm with turtle on the online backup. I've backed up 6GB in three days to Mozy Online Backup: Free. Automatic. Secure., with no problems. It's $5.00 a month for unlimited backup, which is pretty reasonable. I keep local backup too, but this is a real reassurance in case of theft or fire.

And how does one know that a service like this is actually secure? Just because they say they are secure doesn't mean they are...

[Mastrap]

How do you know anything? As turtle says, somebody stealing your laptop from home is a problem in itself. If you're really paranoid, and this includes myself, just encode anything private before upload.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by Mastrap 

How do you know anything? As turtle says, somebody stealing your laptop from home is a problem in itself. If you're really paranoid, and this includes myself, just encode anything private before upload.

Will naive and trusting users encrypt their data?

I welcome the era of online backup, but I also smell some bullshit looming too, and some messes that people like us will have to clean up after akin to the Spyware era.

I just hate how a lot of tech companies do business, is all.

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

Will naive and trusting users encrypt their data?

I welcome the era of online backup, but I also smell some bullshit looming too, and some messes that people like us will have to clean up after akin to the Spyware era.

I just hate how a lot of tech companies do business, is all.

Uhm, could you please be MORE vague.

Thanks.

-t

[macintologist]

If the Finder craps out while you're uploading, then use a 3rd party app to upload to your iDisk. For freeware try Goliath but shareware I recommend Transmit.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by turtle777 

Uhm, could you please be MORE vague.

Thanks.

-t

What is non-specific about the questions I've raised thus far?

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by macintologist 

If the Finder craps out while you're uploading, then use a 3rd party app to upload to your iDisk. For freeware try Goliath but shareware I recommend Transmit.

You can also use the Terminal.

[Mastrap]

If you upload your bank statements unencrypted then you only have yourself to blame if you run into problems. However, I suspect that most users will use online backup services mostly for music and pictures. And that is rarely critical data.

[PBG4 User]

Originally Posted by besson3c 

Aren't you ever afraid that the company will significantly increase their rates? Prevent data export? Create restrictions for the purpose of monetary gain? Lock you in to their service some other way (say, by creating some proprietary protocol that only works with their service)? Data mine? Start pushing ads on you in an obnoxious fashion?

Originally Posted by besson3c 

And how does one know that a service like this is actually secure? Just because they say they are secure doesn't mean they are...

If these are true concerns, then go with a company that has a proven track record of data storage & security like Iron Mountain or something.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by Mastrap 

If you upload your bank statements unencrypted then you only have yourself to blame if you run into problems. However, I suspect that most users will use online backup services mostly for music and pictures. And that is rarely critical data.

If they backup their home directory, this would include things like their Keychain...

I'm not concerned about me though. I know exactly what I'd need to do if I wanted to use an online backup service. I'm just speaking to the very realistic and likely possibility of various companies preying upon unknowing users in various ways, as many do today.

[Mastrap]

Mozy offers:

Open/locked file support
448-bit Blowfish encryption
128-bit SSL encryption
Automatic or scheduled backups
New and changed file detection
Block level incremental backups
Bandwidth throttling
File versioning
Public or private key encryption

Which companies are you talking about?

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by Mastrap 

Mozy offers:

Open/locked file support
448-bit Blowfish encryption
128-bit SSL encryption
Automatic or scheduled backups
New and changed file detection
Block level incremental backups
Bandwidth throttling
File versioning
Public or private key encryption

Which companies are you talking about?

I don't know, I've never surveyed the online backup company options because I have absolutely no need for such a thing myself.

If this catches on, you can count on a number of solutions popping up though.

[nonhuman]

It would be nice if they also added a way to assign some of that new storage space to family pack sub-accounts...

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by Mastrap 

Mozy offers:

Open/locked file support
448-bit Blowfish encryption
128-bit SSL encryption
Automatic or scheduled backups
New and changed file detection
Block level incremental backups
Bandwidth throttling
File versioning
Public or private key encryption

Which companies are you talking about?

Seems like a good service.

-t

[Railroader]

[QUOTE=besson3c;3450660If this catches on, you can count on a number of solutions popping up though.[/QUOTE]
You mean like .mac and the other services already mentioned? Nah, it'll never catch on.

[Big Mac]

Originally Posted by nonhuman 

It would be nice if they also added a way to assign some of that new storage space to family pack sub-accounts...

That happens automatically - check the email sent for details.

[Eriamjh]

Pffft. The way iWeb makes web pages, you'll need 10GB.

[nonhuman]

Originally Posted by Big Mac 

That happens automatically - check the email sent for details.

Hmm, my sub-account still only has 128 MB. I only really use it for syncing my address book, yojimbo database, &c. between my two computers (and for backing them up off-site, obviously), but at times I think it would be nice if I kept all my work files on there as well (about 500 MB atm).