Cloud Storage Discussion

Folks

I've been looking for a cloud backup/sharing service for a long time that was (a) cost-effective (ie cheap) and (b) met a stringent set of criteria including (1) dead simple to use (2) set-and-forget (3) no limitations (ie no one telling me how I should backup my data) (4) SECURE SECURE SECURE.

As a stop gap I've been using Soonr for the past few years - nice but far from perfect or secure.  I've researched many others, including Dropbox (hated the way you were compelled to put your files into their dropbox folder instead of just pointing at one/many of your existing folders/files and saying "there, keep that backed up" and more recently I checked out Backblaze - nice hardware but their backup service is too scam-like for my tastes (ie they offer certain things in their service, then artificially limit what you can do so as to limit the amount of storage you consume on their servers).

Today I stumbled across SpiderOak (spideroak.com).  In a nutshell, almost perfect...

- 2GB Free Forever, $10/100GB increment/Month (or $100/100GB increment/Year) - massive online storage and cheapest pricing I've ever seen (especially considering all the features)

- Best security of any cloud provider!! - combination of 2048 byte RSA and 256 bit AES - impossible for staff to view your files or even filenames (even if compelled by govt) ... (google for info about recent Dropbox security concerns - very scary!)

- Unlimited devices/computers in your "network" all backing up to cloud/syncing their contents with each other

- Free desktop/server client for many OS's (Windows, Mac OS X, Linux (Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora & openSUSE)) - client has really nice GUI interface too

- Heaps of open source code/APIs (eg Python etc), may be adaptable to run under UnRaid ??

- Can backup databases and MS exchange

- Can backup any device - eg NAS shares (Unraid for example), USB drives, external drives etc

- Can backup any file/directory - completely customizable

- No file size limit!!

- Smart, intensive compression/de-duping of your data, so only one copy of each file is stored, even if identical files have different file names

- Only changes to files are backed up, not entire files = fast incremental backups and space savings

- Your used storage (eg 100GB) is based on what is actually stored AFTER de-duplication, therefore you will likely end up storing MUCH MORE than your quota of files

- Default is to watch your directories and immediately backup when changes are detected, but can also backup on a time-based schedule like a regular backup app

- Option to maintain an additional backup copy of your files locally, to a NAS share (eg Unraid) and even on an FTP/sFTP server for much faster restores of data and extra redundancy

- Maintains a version history of every file FOREVER - rollback/restore ANY version of any file

- Web interface to your files via spideroak.com (although more secure to use client app)

- Free app for iPhone/iPad (probably other mobile devices as well)

- Unlimited ShareRooms to share any of your stored files/directories with friends, family, business colleagues etc (easy to generate URL links for emailing)

- Command Line client also available for easy scripting etc

- Files are NEVER DELETED, unless you explicitly delete them via the client (simply deleting a file on your computer will only cause the file to be moved to a trash can on your cloud storage)

- Smart handling of open files

- Very robust storage infrastructure (would require 30% of cluster nodes to fail simultaneously before data loss occurred!!)

- Active/ongoing development of the product (they've been around since 2007)

IMPORTANT:

If you decide to try it out (free or paid), please sign up via my affiliate link below (PROMO CODE = unraidpromo).  It won't cost you anything extra, and...

ALL COLLECTED COMMISSIONS FROM SPIDEROAK SIGN-UPS WILL BE DONATED TO LIME TECHNOLOGY TO PAY FOR FURTHER IMPROVEMENTS/UPDATES TO UNRAID (so it'll benefit all of us).   I will NOT keep one single cent of the commissions for myself.

I'll also be trying to promote this awesome product via other channels along with another awesome product (Unraid!!!) and if you think it's a good idea, please join in and start promoting the sign-up using your own methods as well (I can supply a bunch of different banners for emailing or including on web pages).

I will post the final results of the commissions/donations at the appropriate time for everyone to see.

Note: even the FREE 2GB accounts attract a small commission, so give it a try for free (and tell all your friends and family about it too).

VISIT SPIDEROAK WEBSITE HERE:    http://www.spideroak.com

SIGN UP USING THIS LINK:              https://spideroak.com/download/promo/unraidpromo

Cheers

Toby

Sounds great!  How does it compare with Crashplan?  I only ask because some unRAID users have already put a lot of work into getting Crashplan working on unRAID, so it would be a shame to waste that if Crashplan works just as well.  At a glance SpiderOak does seem to have some better features.

Crashplan was another service I researched recently (having read about it here).  Disclaimer: I haven't actually used it.  It's actually not too bad but the thing I didn't like about it was that it doesn't support archiving.  If you want to dump a bunch of old files into the cloud to just sit there and say, free up some space on your local computer, you can't do that with Crashplan.  They only offer backups (ie you must maintain a local copy before they'll keep a backup for you).  SpiderOak's killer feature, for me anyway, is that they offer pretty much total freedom.  They don't limit how you use their service in any way apart from the amount of storage your plan offers.  You can archive, no problem.  You can maintain multiple copies in the cloud and across your various computers.

Also, SpiderOak is the most secure of all the services I've researched over the past few years (including Crashplan).  I got so frustrated with the lack of security being offered, I started writing my own system for that.  As the recent security debacle over at Dropbox shows (http://boingboing.net/2011/04/25/dropbox-cto-on-their.html) - you need a system that completely encrypts your data and obscures your filenames BEFORE it ever leaves your computer.  SpiderOak does that, I don't think anyone else does (to that full extent).

Also, Crashplan can't backup to FTP servers, nor can it backup mapped network drives under Windows - SpiderOak can do both of those things.

WOW, $100 for 100GB, no thanks

Also, SpiderOak is the most secure of all the services I've researched over the past few years (including Crashplan).

I'm curious about this statement.  Could you elaborate?

WOW, $100 for 100GB, no thanks

That's $100 per year for 100GB.  That's less expensive than Dropbox which is a comparable service.

I don't want to hijack this thread, by all means go for SpiderOak or the many other providers showing up all over the net. But if you have the time, take a look at Wuala. I am by no means a network technician, but if you are interested in the ins and outs of their security, they have lots of blog posts (blog.wuala.com) and artikles on their (wuala.com) website on how things work. They are extremely open about the whole process.

Anyway, what I wanted to add to this discussion is this: We all use servers. These servers run most of the day if not 24/7. Wuala gives you storage if you offer space on your harddrive. The current maximum is 100GB. If I allow for 100GB to be stored on my drive, I will have 100GB available online.

Another key point for me, considering that I am storing lots of huge files online, is their transfer speed, which is blazingly fast. It works on the principle of a peer-to-peer network. So your file is never completely saved to any particular persons computer, but rather many many pieces are distributed among their servers and among the people sharing space. All encrypted of course. The great thing is that when you download, you will get whatever download speed your network supports. I tried at my University connection: the hard drive of my laptop couldn't keep up with the speed of the incoming data - so who knows how fast it could have been!

I just want to say that I am a happy customer, or rather contributor (as I don't pay but share storage space). And no I am in no way affiliated with Wuala, but have been using their service for a few years now.

That's fantastic.  I've never heard of Wuala, but I'll certainly check it out.  Are you sharing your 100 GBs on your unRAID server, or on some other system?  I would certainly love to give up 100 GBs on my server to get free cloud backup/storage.  I would consider doing it on another computer as well, but the server is my only true 24/7 uptime system.

I am sharing 100GB on my laptop, and have recently started sharing 100 GB on my PC and 100GB on my unRAID. The only downside of this whole sharing thing is your online Quota - you have to be online over 17% of the day, then you can start sharing. Before that the option will not be available. As your are online more, your share ration increases. Recently my computers haven't been online much, so that share has dropped. The great thing however is that nobody at Wuala will delete your stuff simply because you go on holiday and your share drops. So for example I have 80 Gigs saved online, but go away for some time and my share ration drops below 17 percent. I will still have those files when I come back, but I cannot expand, i.e. add more files, before I get that ratio back up.

But as of today I have Wuala on my unRAID which runs all the time, so that "ratio-problem" should be a thing of the past!

Interesting, I love the concept.  Care to write a tutorial regarding how to install Wuala on unRAID?  Or is there one already?

My thoughts are what keeps somebody from looking at your content on their machine? Encyrption?

There is one already, there is actually a whole thread dedicated to Wuala as of a few days ago. Basically, it is so simple that even I, a hater or all things commandline, was able to set it up (with the help of forum members hehe).

Here is a tutorial to install & set up Wuala:

http://notepad.patheticcockroach.com/1176/installing-and-running-wuala-in-linux-using-only-command-line/

HOWEVER, I realised that if you ever want to use your server to get more online storage, then you should not install Wuala to your root directory - unless you have a 100GB flash drive! So in my case, I logged into my server, went to /mnt/disk6/wuala/ and then typed in all those commands in the link above. That way everything, including the shared storage space, stays on drive 6 rather than my 4 GB flash drive

My thoughts are what keeps somebody from looking at your content on their machine? Encyrption?

Basically, you register with Wuala, then set up an encryption key on your computer. All the files you add to your Wuala drive on your pc (it's mapped, integration works fabuilous on my mac as well, like Dropbox) are then encrypted, divided into many little pieces (like a torrent) and then distributed across the network. This means that no one person has your entire file, so unless he/she discovers how to somehow gain access to the hundreds of other computers that are storing parts of that one file, download these bits, then unencrypt it, your files should be safe.

Here is a simple description of how the "security" aspect of it all works:

http://www.wuala.com/en/learn/technology

EDIT: And here's a link to the acutal unRAID/Wuala thread:

http://lime-technology.com/forum/index.php?topic=12622.0

But if you have the time, take a look at Wuala.

Wuala is cool if you don't have bandwidth caps, otherwise it might turn into an expensive proposition.  Especially if you're on AT&T DSL with it's 150GB cap.

@aiden:

The main thing is SpiderOak was designed from the ground up to ensure they could NEVER have access to your data (or be forced to allow others to access it, or even by accident).  They are totally open about their processes, and most of (later = all) their code is open source and therefore completely transparent.  I just noticed that Crashplan offers the ability for "pro" users to keep their own private encryption keys, so that's good, but also that's an option that perhaps a lot of users might not take advantage of (due to lack of knowledge etc), whereas SpiderOak's system automatically protects the keys BY DEFAULT and obscures filenames etc (which are never available to SpiderOak employees or others).

See the following pages:

https://spideroak.com/engineering_matters

https://spideroak.com/blog (1st and 3rd post, and for a really funny april fools day laugh read the last post (and the comments!!))

@squirrellydw:

Your post was a complete troll.  It didn't add anything constructive to the discussion.  It didn't say WHY you think $100 for 100GB is expensive.  It didn't offer your "cheap" alternative and benefit the readers of the thread.  I would suggest that you are missing the point - there are certainly cheaper ways of getting cloud storage (I honestly know of a number of services that offer unlimited storage for $50/year, no joke) BUT each one is lacking something important such as usability or security and therefore either can't be used or require additional code to be written to plug the holes.  If you know of a solid service that "ticks all the boxes" and is cheaper than $100/100GB, please share.  I'm certainly open to learning about new services (such as Crashplan and Wuala) - I wasn't even aware of SpiderOak until yesterday - it's easy for good stuff to go unnoticed on the internet.

@sunnyville:

"I don't want to hijack this thread..." - sadly, it's very much been hijacked.  I only say that because my secondary objective for this thread was to try to generate some revenue and forward movement for UNRAID.  It would have been preferable for you to have started a new thread, but hey, that's cool.

Having said that, Wuala looks really interesting - I wasn't aware of it before you mentioned it.  At first glance (at their feature page) I was left thinking "what's the big deal?" but then I realised that you guys are excited about it's "Trade local disk space" feature.  From an unraid perspective, people on this forum are in an interesting position to take advantage of Wuala's trading system.  I'm definitely going to take a closer look, thanks.

@Rajahal:

I agree.  A lot of unraid owners probably leave their servers online a lot (or all day) and many would have some (or lots) of spare space ready to trade.

@SilverRubicon:

You'd certainly need to be careful as a lot of ISPs calculate your usage on your combined downloads and uploads.

@Moderators:

Any chance the Wuala discussion can be split off from the original SpiderOak posting(s) ?

 

 

@sunnyville:

"I don't want to hijack this thread..." - sadly, it's very much been hijacked.  I only say that because my secondary objective for this thread was to try to generate some revenue and forward movement for UNRAID.  It would have been preferable for you to have started a new thread, but hey, that's cool.

 

You are right, sorry about that. Originally I only wanted to put in one post, but then questions were asked, and well, I answered ;-) The reason I posted anything about Wuala at all is that both products are so similar, and, if we leave out the storage-sharing, are priced almost identically. Both cost about 100€/$ per 100GB per year. They offer similar encryption, are cross platform, offer smartphone apps, etc. Maybe a thread is in order that discusses online storage that is somehow compaitble with unRAID?

@toby9999

In theory you could backup your archive data to crashplan, delete the local copy and tell crashplan to never expire your backup. This would give you a permanent archive - though I do concede it's not a very elegant, or logical, solution!

Your comments on crashplans security are interesting. I spent a lot of time looking at this as well and I'll be honest, I didn't come away 100% happy.

Like you, I settled on the only obvious way of protection is having a completely private key. However this is still entered into the crashplan GUI, as is your account password (and the default setting to use this as part of the key for encrypting your data is very poor IMO). Details of your machines and what paths you're backing up are also stored centrally on their servers which is a bit leaky and something to be wary of.

Their security documentation is, to my mind, deliberately vague especially if you pay particular attention to some of the wording and phrasing they use -  as have been their responses on forums and twitter to people asking direct questions and I can't help but feel that no matter what you do around encryption keys as it's all channeled through their client which in turn constantly maintains a heartbeat to their central server there is, at the very least, scope for your data to be visible to them.

Having said all that the cost of crashplan (their central / crashplan+ scheme is cheap as chips), the ability to have every client also act as a server / target 'for free' (although as above, all the info you plug in will be cached in their central system so potential for them to use this data in some way) allowing multiple backups and it's cross platform-ness wins out for me. At the end of the day it comes down to trust. I'm not 100% on what I am able to discover about crashplans inner workings but by the same token I have no reason, yet, to distrust them. I hope that never has to change!

Thanks for the info on spideroak, I'd be very interested in updates / further thoughts if you continue to evaluate these services against each other.

edit : I should also add that whilst crashplan bill themselves as a cloud provider I don't really consider them to be very cloudy (though this depends on your definition I guess). You're assigned a specific backend server to connect to if using their storage and if that server goes down for maintenance (which happens) then you lose connectivity. I'm sure they have the ability to move your data around servers dynamically if they wish but this doesn't seem to be something that happens by default and, at least for your frontend connection, there doesn't seem to be any sort of clustering or high availability which would be the #1 feature of any 'cloud' for me. i.e when you connect to crashplan you don't generically connect to them and then see 100% availability with what is happening behind the scenes transparent to you.

- Maintains a version history of every file FOREVER - rollback/restore ANY version of any file

This sounds very odd. What is to prevent me from abusing this feature? I can write 2GB of files. And then update those files as often as I wish. This provides me with unlimited storage for free! I can roll back as I wish.

I can provide an unRAID application that presents as a directory with unlimited storage, provided you have a free SpiderOak account, if the FOREVER claim is true.

This is the best storage service offering ever!

@sunnyville:

absolutely no problem my friend!  It obviously wasn't your intention to change the direction of the thread - threads are organic things which go with the flow.  I certainly learnt a lot from the many responses, especially re: wuala.  As to all the interest around wuala, I think one reason people are interested in it is because it's so different because of it's trading feature, and because it's a (good) way to get some cloud storage for free (or close to free).  I read more about it today and it seems that they happily allow you to share one account across many of your computers, each one contributing max. 100GB thereby allowing you to end up with 100's of GB in the cloud for free/close to free.  I was wondering if you could just take an old PC, run a bunch of VMs on it, each one sharing 100GB (based on (a) you have say 1TB of free space lying around - a lot of unraid folks have soooo many free TBs - or just grab say a 1TB or 2TB hdd from newegg on special, and (b) you have unlimited uploads on your internet account) - then theoretically you could end up with say 500GB - 1TB in the cloud for a really really low cost!

@boof:

In theory you could backup your archive data to crashplan, delete the local copy and tell crashplan to never expire your backup. This would give you a permanent archive - though I do concede it's not a very elegant, or logical, solution!

Ahh I see.  As I said in my OP, I haven't actually tried crashplan.  You're right, it's not elegant (which actually is more important than a lot of people realise - a backup solution needs to be as easy and as set/forget as possible), but at least the option is there.

Your comments on crashplans security are interesting. I spent a lot of time looking at this as well and I'll be honest, I didn't come away 100% happy.

 

Like you, I settled on the only obvious way of protection is having a completely private key. However this is still entered into the crashplan GUI, as is your account password (and the default setting to use this as part of the key for encrypting your data is very poor IMO). Details of your machines and what paths you're backing up are also stored centrally on their servers which is a bit leaky and something to be wary of.

 

Their security documentation is, to my mind, deliberately vague especially if you pay particular attention to some of the wording and phrasing they use -  as have been their responses on forums and twitter to people asking direct questions and I can't help but feel that no matter what you do around encryption keys as it's all channeled through their client which in turn constantly maintains a heartbeat to their central server there is, at the very least, scope for your data to be visible to them.

You know, it's very interesting what you say about crashplan security.  I spent a few hours yesterday/today trying to learn more about crashplan's security model so I could answer the questions asked here, and I couldn't find much at all.  At this point, I'm very wary of crashplan because of that.  Security is something that MUST be transparent and open.  That is one of the most compelling reasons I like SpiderOak so much - they are VERY open and upfront about their design and approach to security.  I've learnt more about crashplan's security just now from your posting than I could from reading their website!  Unfortunately, your info leaves me even more concerned about trusting my data to them.

Having said all that the cost of crashplan (their central / crashplan+ scheme is cheap as chips), the ability to have every client also act as a server / target 'for free' (although as above, all the info you plug in will be cached in their central system so potential for them to use this data in some way) allowing multiple backups and it's cross platform-ness wins out for me. At the end of the day it comes down to trust. I'm not 100% on what I am able to discover about crashplans inner workings but by the same token I have no reason, yet, to distrust them. I hope that never has to change!

For me, the best (and really only) way to approach cloud storage is actually not to trust (the provider) at all.  By either (a) doing the encryption myself or (b) finding a provider that has designed a system based around you never needing to trust them, then you have the seeds for long term safety and stress free backups.

Thanks for the info on spideroak, I'd be very interested in updates / further thoughts if you continue to evaluate these services against each other.

You're welcome.  This is one of the best communities I've found on the net and therefore one I like to share with. Personally, I'd still leaning towards SpiderOak as the solution for me (not because of some silly "sticking to my guns" reason, but because the more I research, the more SpiderOak just seems to have gotten it right.  As a close second, putting aside the trading system, the more I look at Wuala, the more I also like their approach to security.  I haven't tried it yet, but I believe it uses more of a dropbox folder-like approach (as opposed to you just pointing to certain folders to be backed up).  Personally, I find that a little limiting (but I know a lot of people have no issue with that).  So what I'm now considering is a joint SpiderOak+Wuala solution, both very secure, giving me double protection in the cloud (especially should one change their policies later or close their business).

edit : I should also add that whilst crashplan bill themselves as a cloud provider I don't really consider them to be very cloudy (though this depends on your definition I guess). You're assigned a specific backend server to connect to if using their storage and if that server goes down for maintenance (which happens) then you lose connectivity. I'm sure they have the ability to move your data around servers dynamically if they wish but this doesn't seem to be something that happens by default and, at least for your frontend connection, there doesn't seem to be any sort of clustering or high availability which would be the #1 feature of any 'cloud' for me. i.e when you connect to crashplan you don't generically connect to them and then see 100% availability with what is happening behind the scenes transparent to you.

Ouch!  I'm finding more and more that when it comes to cloud storage, the devil is in the details.  The more you dig/use, the more you like or don't like.  For me, crashplan isn't the way to go, but SpiderOak+Wuala is looking real good!

On a side note, I discovered a really interesting open source project today - http://tahoe-lafs.org/source/tahoe/trunk/docs/about.html.  The opening info on that page shows the developers have got the right attitude towards "not trusting the provider".  Although it doesn't appear to be something I could use practically (it requires a number of storage servers to run), it's amazing in it's ability to survive multiple simultaneous failures (default is you can lose 7 out of 10 nodes and still not lose data!!).  I'd love to see this sort of approach used at the hard drive level in unraid - lots of protection!

@dgaschk:

I'm not sure I understand you.  The free 2GB version history (which to my knowledge is very much for forever) would only be for updates to the original 2GB of files (wouldn't it?).  How could that allow you to store more than 2GB of files (as opposed to updates to the originals)?  I'm probably missing something here, so would love to hear more.

Crashplan's security model so I could answer the questions asked here, and I couldn't find much at all.  At this point, I'm very wary of crashplan because of that.  Security is something that MUST be transparent and open.  That is one of the most compelling reasons I like SpiderOak so much - they are VERY open and upfront about their design and approach to security.  I've learnt more about crashplan's security just now from your posting than I could from reading their website!  Unfortunately, your info leaves me even more concerned about trusting my data to them.

I couldn't decide if the crashplan docs were :

- simplified so much as to give some basic details to the layman in an understandable way.

- deliberately simplified so as not to actually answer the pointy questions.

Their use of analogies - rather than actually using formal encryption terminology - in many places just confused matters for me. As you start to wonder what they actually map to in the actual models behind the scenes.

I haven't been back in a while to see if the docs have been updated. Certainly not since they recently revamped their entire offering so perhaps this is much better now.

 

@squirrellydw:

Your post was a complete troll.  It didn't add anything constructive to the discussion.  It didn't say WHY you think $100 for 100GB is expensive.  It didn't offer your "cheap" alternative and benefit the readers of the thread.  I would suggest that you are missing the point - there are certainly cheaper ways of getting cloud storage (I honestly know of a number of services that offer unlimited storage for $50/year, no joke) BUT each one is lacking something important such as usability or security and therefore either can't be used or require additional code to be written to plug the holes.  If you know of a solid service that "ticks all the boxes" and is cheaper than $100/100GB, please share.  I'm certainly open to learning about new services (such as Crashplan and Wuala) - I wasn't even aware of SpiderOak until yesterday - it's easy for good stuff to go unnoticed on the internet.

 

A troll??? I don't think so, all I was saying is that is WAY more than I would spend.   I will wait to see what Apple and Google come up with.

I couldn't decide if the crashplan docs were :

 

- simplified so much as to give some basic details to the layman in an understandable way.

 

- deliberately simplified so as not to actually answer the pointy questions.

 

Their use of analogies - rather than actually using formal encryption terminology - in many places just confused matters for me. As you start to wonder what they actually map to in the actual models behind the scenes.

I think they are a victim of their marketing department.  It's the age old battle of too much information that confuses versus not enough information that doesn't say enough.  Obviously for those of us who are technically inclined Crashplan's documentation is sparse at best.  They would be well served to reveal what security methods they incorporate beyond the "we encrypt your data" answers.

Having said that, Crashplan runs flawlessly on my unRAID server, and I very much appreciate the "set it and forget it" convenience of it.  The $50 for unlimited capacity is also extremely compelling.

Ouch!  I'm finding more and more that when it comes to cloud storage, the devil is in the details.  The more you dig/use, the more you like or don't like.  For me, crashplan isn't the way to go, but SpiderOak+Wuala is looking real good!

 

On a side note, I discovered a really interesting open source project today - http://tahoe-lafs.org/source/tahoe/trunk/docs/about.html.  The opening info on that page shows the developers have got the right attitude towards "not trusting the provider".  Although it doesn't appear to be something I could use practically (it requires a number of storage servers to run), it's amazing in it's ability to survive multiple simultaneous failures (default is you can lose 7 out of 10 nodes and still not lose data!!).  I'd love to see this sort of approach used at the hard drive level in unraid - lots of protection!

Boof and I share a disdain for the term "cloud" in the way it's thrown around right now.  It's not properly quantified or standardized among the providers, which leaves far too much ambiguity to just hand over my data.  Since you seem to be heavily into the research for the available solutions and how they can integrate with unRAID, I will watch your comments with interest as you pursue SpiderOak+Wuala.  Thank you for pushing the envelope, and for challenging people like me who have gotten comfortable with a process and stopped searching for something better.

... I will wait to see what Apple and Google come up with.

Seriously?  With all the press lately about how much respect they have for user privacy?

I haven't tried it yet, but I believe it uses more of a dropbox folder-like approach (as opposed to you just pointing to certain folders to be backed up).  Personally, I find that a little limiting (but I know a lot of people have no issue with that).  So what I'm now considering is a joint SpiderOak+Wuala solution, both very secure, giving me double protection in the cloud (especially should one change their policies later or close their business).

 

Just wanted to clarify something - yes there is the dropbox like approach in WUALA, i.e a mapped network drive on your desktop representing your online storage. HOWEVER there is also the option, once you have become a "pro user" by trading storage, to select folders on your hard disk to be backed up to the cloud. ANOTHER option is to synchronize folders across computers. So in my case, I have a download folder for...things....on my macbook and on my pc. This folder is constantly synchronized, so if my laptop downloads an episode, it will appear on my pc as well. And now back to discussing SpiderOak ;-)......or rename thread to "Cloud Storage discussion" or something?