onlinestoragesolution.com review |
All in all, a pretty solid service - easy to use, with a nice set of basic and advanced functions.
I was searching for a long time to find a descent and reliable storage that is not too expensive. Most of the time I would give up as prices were too high and the service wouldn't offer much useful features anyway.
So, I discovered OnlineStorageSolutions the other day. I use Linux, Windows and Apple Mac, and I am a medium-to-advanced computer and internet user.
Reading through their features, I did notice the spelling mistakes (I make them as well, but hey! I am not selling anything....yet:-). But I also noticed that they talk in short sentences, straight to the point. They offer Linux, Windows and Apple Mac synchronisation, though mapping network drives, ftp, rsync. One also gets advanced features as Webdav, iFolder, CIFS, and VPN Tunnels.
They offer 30-days money back guarantee. I didn't know them, didn't bother to read a review, trusted my own instinct and I signed for a 2-years period.
Within 30 mins I was able to check and confirm that everything works superbly: they have made a few videos that in simple sentences and urls show you how to get going. So, I was syncing through rsync, have mapped their service as my network, hard-drive, was connected through my mac and windows computers.
Their Ajax interface (a file browser within you web-browser) is pretty good as well, with a mini-audio player and photo thumbnails that can be enlarged.
With onlinestoragesolution.com one also gets a 'public' folder that could be used to display files publicly, for websites etc
But the public www-address of this folder includes the user name. I didn't know that, used a personal user name and didn't like the solution in the end. For example, I ended up having an url that looked like this: www.ols14.com/viktormastoridis.
There was no way to change my username online, on their control panel, so I emailed them. Within a few hours I got a link where I could create a new account using a different user-name. So, beware when signing up, use a user-name that you could use for public urls.
All in all, a pretty solid service - easy to use, with a perfect set of basic and advanced functions.
I recommended it to my brother, who bought it immediately.
The I decided to look on the internet. To read reviews about this company. And I was particularly curious with these 2 pages: page1 and page2.
Especially page2, which is a Complaints Board or so... I was reading and reading through the complaints addressed to onlinestoragesolution.com. Then at some point, two guys from the company itself answer the post and apologize and then in great detail describe many of the reasons for their 'failure', to use their word. And I read their answers and it makes sense what they say. And then I scroll further down, and the same complains continue! As if people didn't read! They just go on moaning that this company is scam, it should be shut down, their customer service is....
And I think - these are actually customers, who might even received some proper support, but didn't want to notice it as they were busy moaning, and moaning, and before even asking for help they were ready with their complaint in their head...
All in all, there are a few people complaining about this and that, but then you see Beth from onlinestoragesolution.com, replying to the online posts (complains) across the web...
I had a problem logging into the iFolder system the other day. Within 48 hours I received an explanation and a solution: some of the characters of my password were 2-bits long(!). Thus, they created a new iFolder account for me, assigning me a simple password that I could change later.
What else does one need from a company?
Online Storage Solution Review
After reading this review, I decided to sign up with OnlineStorageSolution.com and give it a try. They offer a three day trial, and even though my initial experience wasn't great, I decided to hand over my $US19 anyway for a year of service.
I have been investigating various online storage solutions, and have found many of the issues to be software related, particularly when trying to make use of the storage from Windows hosts. As a simple storage provider, Online Storage Solution has been great so far.
You can read more about my experiences with Online Storage Solution and user mode file systems here... http://www.absit-invidia.com/index.cgi/cmd;blog/fid;1/tid;2
We have been searching for
You are welcome. The guys are
Six months ago I was also
You should really get in
Hmmm, well I think the
We had all of our data lost
onlinestoreagesolutions.com
Have been a customer for several months. I had backed up a number of important items from my PC, into various directories that I created on OLS. A few weeks after joining, I noticed one of the directories was empty. I emailed with the problem and didn't hear back. Two days later I phoned, the gent answered by saying "Hello." Not what you expect to hear from Tech Support, "Hi this is OLS. How can I help?" would have been much better. I told him what the problem was, he said he would look into it. The next afternoon, the files showed back up in the proper directory. Problem solved, right? Wrong. They should not have lost the data in the first place. Also, the minute the data disappeared, an email should have showed up in my mailbox saying there was a problem. The data could have been missing for weeks before I had noticed it.
Next, I go on vacation recently overseas. My older laptop has limited HD space. I take some pics, and shrink them (DPI) on my lappy, and upload them into folders at OLS. I double check to see that they have uploaded, by downloading some. Then I delete them off my computer and camera. Travel to different place, do the same thing. Everything's fine. After a 10 days, I notice that 3 of the directories are empty. Email OLS, 3 days to respond. By then, 6 directories are empty. Seems everything is starting to disappear. I make an account with a different online backup service, start downloading everything from OLS as fast as I can, and uploading them to the new service. OLS blames connection problems at my location (they have no idea where I am), and also their own outtages. A previous poster here said we should not consider outtages a problem, but only OLS has this problem.
When I get home from vacation, now 8 directories are empty. Emails and phone calls go unheeded. Unexpectedly, 6 of the directories a few days ago show up fully restored. A phone call this morning, more promises to restore the remaining two directories. Then an email this afternoon from OLS, saying they can't find the missing files. If I have them locally, they say, I should re-upload them. Problema? Yes, I don't have them here anymore. I sent them to OLS to keep them safe.
Online storage organizations like OLS can NEVER lose files, and can NEVER have an outtage. When was the last time Yahoo.com went down? Multiple, redundant server farms prevent this crap. If they advertised that they lose files, do you think people would sign up?
Understand the problem before you flip out
I had quite a long talk with Online Storage Solution about a few of the commits posted here and have really got a much better understanding on how the cloud storage system works and just how awesome these guys really are.
First of all online storage is not like Yahoo or Google. You cannot expect your data to end up on server farms all over the place with fail over unless you are willing to pay a monster amount of money for it. All storage, online or off line needs to be treated as a single copy of your files. Never put up stuff you can afford to loose on any 1 device and filp out when you loose it.
Online Storage is better than say a USB drive af far as the chances of loosing data though.
Getting back to why files can go away and then come back with a online storage system.
Most online storage services work on a cluster, like Gluster or Lustre. Files are stored across many raid devices bridged into one large file system. If any single raid device goes off line for checking or any other reason the files that you have stored on that device will be gone. When the device comes back on they will show up. It's really that simple.
What the guys over a Online Storage Solution told me what causing all the problems with one of the servers was the way it got built out. It had 7 machines each with 12 raid devices as one file system for about 80TB.
The problem was if any of the 84 points had a problem files would go missing. Because of the size of the file system it would take a very long time for these files to show back up once the node was restored. Also this configuration suffered more problems that what they had seen with much smaller file systems.
The goal of the large cluster was to provide better service not worse but it did not work out that way.
They told me that their new configuration works on single servers with only 12 points that can cause a problem and that system has had 99.78% uptime since it was installed back in April.
The only issue with this system is dealing with full nodes. The servers will remap can copy files to a new node as needed to keep free space on each of the file servers.
This will result in some down time for the user that is having his files re-mapped and the amount of that time will really depend on how much data is there that has to be moved.
The reason that this has to happen is they offer unlimited storage and they don't know how much space any one user will use or when they will use it. It's not an easy thing to pull off but they seem to do it really well.
I also asked them about slow responses to email that a few people were complaining about. They said that they are sorry about that but when there is a problem that has many users with problems not only do they get a lot of email but most of the staff is working on the problem so the problem may have to get fixed first before all the email gets answered. I for one am willing to wait and get the problem fixed quickly than get a quick "we are working on it" and have it take more time to fix because staff is tired up with email.
My contact over there also said that the smaller servers help resolve this problem too because there is almost nothing that can go wrong that takes more than about 2 hours to fix. The large monsters sometimes take 12 hours to get problems resolved.
I guess it really boils down to this. If you need your files spread out over a large number of servers in different locations then S3 will go the job for $1680 per TB per year. Or you can just grab an account at online storage solution and spend $29 for the year and head over the the Wallmart and pick your self up a 1TB usb dirve for $69 and put almost $1500 in the bank.
To say things like a consumer based service like Online Storage Solution or Your Electric Service or Your Phone Service should NEVER go down EVER is foolish. If everything had to be built to this man's specifications we would not be able to afford anything.
To sum it up if you are running a life or death service and have deep pockets go with S3, if you are storing your music collection for mobile access Online Storage Solution is the way to go. It's cheap, fast works great nearly all the time and the people that work there really care about keeping it moving forward.