D-Link Forums
The Graveyard - Products No Longer Supported => D-Link Storage => DNS-323 => Topic started by: Rani on June 20, 2010, 08:58:17 AM
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Hi everyone,
With the release of firmware v1.09, the online backup service powered by CTERA is also officially out.
The mini-site http://dlink.ctera.com (http://dlink.ctera.com) has all the information you'll need, including a video walk-through, features and pricing. You can also register for the service, and the 30-day free trial is still in effect for those who join.
The online backup option is only available in North America.
I'll be happy to use this forum to answer any questions you may have.
Rani Osnat
CTERA Networks
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I am not much of a forum poster, but I believe you are significantly pricing yourself out of the market with these prices.
$99 for 50GB
$199 for 100GB
At least you are pricing me out. These prices and sizes are for a small business, but not a home user. I personally use my DNS-323 for backing up all of my family files, pictures, videos etc. I have been waiting this entire time hoping this would be a good solution for me, but alas it`s totally useless for my needs. My files far surpass these sizes and the price is horible for this day and age :-\
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I am not much of a forum poster, but I believe you are significantly pricing yourself out of the market with these prices.
$99 for 50GB
$199 for 100GB
At least you are pricing me out. These prices and sizes are for a small business, but not a home user. I personally use my DNS-323 for backing up all of my family files, pictures, videos etc. I have been waiting this entire time hoping this would be a good solution for me, but alas it`s totally useless for my needs. My files far surpass these sizes and the price is horible for this day and age :-\
I think you should reread the prices as the ones you have mentioned are the introductory prices not the ongoing prices.
* Introductory Offer: $199 $99/year for 50GB
* Introductory Offer: $399 $199/year for 100GB
I don't see how any home user can afford these prices, lets put it another way, for $399 I can buy 7 500GB hard drives or maybe 3-4 1TB hard drives that I can use to backup my data as a one off cost.
These prices are outrages!!!
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I think you should reread the prices as the ones you have mentioned are the introductory prices not the ongoing prices.
* Introductory Offer: $199 $99/year for 50GB
* Introductory Offer: $399 $199/year for 100GB
I don't see how any home user can afford these prices, lets put it another way, for $399 I can buy 7 500GB hard drives or maybe 3-4 1TB hard drives that I can use to backup my data as a one off cost.
These prices are outrages!!!
Well, I did not see that, the problem is far worse than I had even thought myself. Did anyone conduct a census as to what the consumer would pay for this service? Did Ctera completely scam Dlink into this proposition? It seems ridiculous.
What a waste of time and honestly... after all these months this is what they came up with?
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I like the "introductory offer", which indicates after you have your data there for a year, they'll double the prices!
Thanks, but no thanks! There are much better deals in on-line storage available.
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I think dlink should be developing an application that allows the backup to be configured for any online storage since this solution is only available for US it leaves the rest of us hanging, that way dlink's customers can fine a more suitable online storage solution for home user and it wouldn't matter where one lives.
Instead dlink release a new firmware (or should I say old firmware) that I cannot see more than a few percentage of dlink's customer using, restricted one by where they live and two by the price, if dlink get more than a handful of customers actually purchasing this online storage I will be very surprised.
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Yeah.
I was shocked to see the prices as well.
There are times when you just kind of wonder what the heck some companies are thinking, when they release something, or they sell something that is just way out of line to what the market will bear.
Your typical DNS-323 user is a home user.
No way in the world will a home user pay those kind of prices for that little off-site storage.
It just isn't realistic.
As I like to say at work...
"Good Luck with that!"
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Actually, I'm hoping the luck isn't all that good with that overpriced product! Maybe they're rethink introducing such useless stuff for more practical improvements. :)
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LIKE ACTUALLY BEING ABLE TO ATTACH USB STORAGE DIRECTLY TO THE DNS AND BACKUP TO IT/TRANSFER FILES!
What a concept!
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LIKE ACTUALLY BEING ABLE TO ATTACH USB STORAGE DIRECTLY TO THE DNS AND BACKUP TO IT/TRANSFER FILES!
What a concept!
This gets my vote also.
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I think there is some misunderstanding of the pricing and CTERA has been notified. It should be resolved soon. For those questioning the introductory price and space, also remember that there is no limit to the amount of DNS-323's that can connect to this account at once and there is no limit to the amount of PC's in your home backing up unlike other service offerings.
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Well, there may be no limit to the number of NAS units, but with more than one NAS, what's the chances that only that small amount of data would be important to you? Part of the issue is the price per gigabyte. Unless the pricing presented is simply wrong, I have no misunderstanding, I can read numbers and do simple math. :)
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Well, there may be no limit to the number of NAS units, but with more than one NAS, what's the chances that only that small amount of data would be important to you? Part of the issue is the price per gigabyte. Unless the pricing presented is simply wrong, I have no misunderstanding, I can read numbers and do simple math. :)
Simply stated, this service is not going to be for everyone. Users who already have a system in place with another service and are already copying files around to another pc for one of those 'unlimited' backup services may not be enticed by this service. Those services do offer the unlimited title but also have some fairly large restrictions to their service on what can actually be uploaded.
Other services also require a PC to be on in order to backup data to the cloud where the DNS-323, a low power consumption device, requires no intervention and no PC in order to store files to the cloud. The $99 price is correct however there is a misunderstanding I believe on the renewal which is what I was referring to. This is a difficult feature add to make everyone happy because everyone is so enticed by the advertising of these unlimited services and don't understand the actual drawbacks. Show me an unlimited service out there that lets you upload from unlimited amount of pc's without buying additional accounts per pc. Show me an unlimited service that allows you to upload a file that is larger than 2GB in size...
50GB may not be a lot of space these days especially in comparison to the terabytes of space you can purchase to put inside of your household in a NAS for cheap however not everyone has the want or need to purchase and manage multiple NAS units for safe-keeping their data. If you are simply using a cloud to backup images of your home PC's then this of course is not the correct solution for you.
Anyways I think I have rambled enough, back to work :0.
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I compare it to Amazon S3, which is supported on many NAS boxes.
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Crossing the line of fire here...
Amazon excludes quite a big part of the world I guess and calculating the cost was a bit hard, I must say.
Looking at the options from my horizon, central Europe, I can see that the ctera option is a bit high actually. I've looked at four options within my country and one is actually similar and the rest is about half the ctera price for unlimited space.
I guess it's in the nature of Ctera's business idea, not targeting individuals but rather companies and the D-Link - Ctera agreement seems to be a b2b contract. And also since we (dns users) are limited to this service, we can't choose another one I guess, the pricing is set from that point of view.
Connecting an external hard drive to the dns and have the back up that way is not an option for me. i want to secure my documents and photos from fire and theft, that's why i go for the cloud.
Another option is to set up another dns at a friends' or my parents' house and do the transfers that way.
Anyway, I've paid for the first year now and i'll see what happens. Half the price for the 50Gb would of course be better and maybe more reasonable...
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Connecting an external hard drive to the dns and have the back up that way is not an option for me. i want to secure my documents and photos from fire and theft, that's why i go for the cloud.
If I was that hardcore about any portion of my data, I would be backing up to an external attached storage (tape/CD/HD/papyrus) then moving it MYSELF to safety deposit box/fire safe or something offsite (buried in my backyard?) MYSELF, Which would actually be quicker/safer/cheaper.
Just my 2 cents.
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The online backup option is only available in North America.
And users who are not living in NA ? ???
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I have one NAS and some NDAS drives in a cinder-block enclosure in the basement in the corner. Those are my "off-site" backup, they receive a complete data image of all my stuff twice a week with an automated backup.
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And users who are not living in NA ? ???
There's nothing preventing "non-US" residents from using it - other than the relative sloth of their internet connections. I participated in the beta (from South America) and apart from the unrealistic time required to transfer the data it worked well.
Now - should I gripe about Ctera not having servers closer to me, should I gripe about my ISP not having faster links to the US backbone or should I just recognize the limitations that my geographical location impose on business of this nature and move on?
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Considering you can get 2Tb drives these days, I think the off-site back up is more for mission critical or business applications and not the home user.
IMO, the whole Ctera option is just a bad gimmick and the firmware update should have been to FIX problems with the 323 not add a pay service. Anyone want to speculate how much of a kick-back Dlink is getting??
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Considering you can get 2Tb drives these days, I think the off-site back up is more for mission critical or business applications and not the home user.
What does the one have to do with the other? Does a home user have less value for his/her data?
I take it you realise that the discussion is about "online backup" rather than "off-site backup" - there's nothing to stop you from buying a 2TB drive, copying your data to it, taking it to your neighbour across the street and considering it "off-site backup". In fact, all I'm asking (and a few others also) is that D-Link considering making such an "off-site backup" easier to do by providing firmware support to do it through the USB port.
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My problem is I'm looking at someone like Carbonite, who will give me unlimited storage capacity at about $50 per device. It doesn't matter that my NAS can be accessed from multiple computers .... thats true of ANY computer. Setup a scheduled backup form my various PCs/Laptops to a neutral share, or just folder redirect like a small business would do, subscribe to Carbonite on said single said box and i have _unlimited_ encrypted storage of all my data, my entire home network. The NAS then becomes a rapid recovery point and the onsite is my fire/disaster point.
Really thats what this little device needs to compete with. Its a cheep mini-server that offers backups and printer server options ... 50gb will barely even cover th base Windows 7 backup should i stream it to the NAS.
Only reason i have a NAS device is I'm avoiding adding another PC to play server... but at these prices I might as well build said server... cause the upkeep will be lower.
Sorry to be less than thrilled with ctera ... but the prices just don't come close to being reasonable.
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Sorry in advanced if I seem to be picking things apart too much, but I just want to clarify things from my position.
First off, the kind of user who is going to setup and run a NAS is going to be somewhat savvy. SO I don't think any of what I'm about to post to be out of reach for your target market. Once I've said my peace hopefully you'll see why I feel the pricing doesn't add up.
Simply stated, this service is not going to be for everyone. Users who already have a system in place with another service and are already copying files around to another pc for one of those 'unlimited' backup services may not be enticed by this service. Those services do offer the unlimited title but also have some fairly large restrictions to their service on what can actually be uploaded.
Obviously if someone has a service in place he may not want to switch, but that's not the root of the argument. Instead, the question is "why wouldn't they go with option B if it can be done at half price (or even less) than the built in model? What does this update add that makes it worth the premium?"
Other services also require a PC to be on in order to backup data to the cloud where the DNS-323, a low power consumption device, requires no intervention and no PC in order to store files to the cloud.
Require a PC vs requires a NAS is grasping at straws to begin with, and intervention is a non issue. EVERY service out there is basically hands off and streaming in the background these days.
The $99 price is correct however there is a misunderstanding I believe on the renewal which is what I was referring to. This is a difficult feature add to make everyone happy because everyone is so enticed by the advertising of these unlimited services and don't understand the actual drawbacks. Show me an unlimited service out there that lets you upload from unlimited amount of pc's without buying additional accounts per pc. Show me an unlimited service that allows you to upload a file that is larger than 2GB in size...
The unlimited PC argument is faulty, as the service itself only works from Ctera to NAS. It doesn't matter that the NAS potentially hosts files for multiple PCs ... _any_ PC i decided not to throw away can satisfy that role, and i could potentially buy said backup service just for that single box. If the service doesn't care about multiple NAS devices ... I would argue your market has changed to that of small business, in which case I strongly question the value of a DNS-323 at all and would be screaming instead for you to spend your time with an AD integration module.
50GB may not be a lot of space these days especially in comparison to the terabytes of space you can purchase to put inside of your household in a NAS for cheap however not everyone has the want or need to purchase and manage multiple NAS units for safe-keeping their data. If you are simply using a cloud to backup images of your home PC's then this of course is not the correct solution for you.
So lets play devils advocate here.
What then is the goal of this service? We've said what it isn't. What is it?
By definition a NAS device will interact with and store info from multiple PCs and sources. If the backup service was not envisioned to store enough data to handle multiple PCs worth (based on your hold multiple images fomr multiple PCs).... whats it's point at all?
It's as if the Ctera backup was envisioned as a backup for the DNS-323 itself ... and if thats the case it's pricing should be similar to single PC backup solutions .... aka $50 for unlimited storage. What you have here is a system priced to backup multiple computers with the capacity to only handle one (if that). "you can connect multiple DNS boxes!!!" So what at 50gb?
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Well it has been a week now and NO reply from Ctera regarding this issue. Glad to see they really care.
I really hope NOBODY signs up for this service as it is, a complete ripoff to the consumer.