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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Topic: Online backup for DNS-323 - now released (Read 23402 times)