I have, as many others, been using services like Dropbox for a looong time, only to discover that I constantly ran out of space.

I then moved to HubiC where I bought a 1Tb drive. It wasn’t the fastest in the world but it was quite stable and they had linux support (though their client never left beta and could use a lot of CPU for file hashing if you had a lot of file). Their hosting serveres were located in France which is good these days with the GDPR and all.

They had a 5gb free subscription that gave 1gb extra per referral and apparently they gave 1tb extra for the users like me that subscribed to the 1Tb…..11 referrals later and I had 12Tb. Not bad for the quite low price I paid. They were even supported by the backup software of my Home NAS so I could do a full backup of that in the cloud if I needed.

Unfortunately they started getting a bit unstable and eventually announced that their service would stop (though it is still active here 2 years later).

Whats next?

I spent quite some time going through various cloud services. When you are used to having enough space, it is hard getting into a small space like dropbox without feeling that you miss something.

I had a short interim with the Swedish service Degoo where I could get 3Tb for life pretty cheap as they has some promotion going on (they are still often found out there on deal sites). Their cloud is actually pretty fast and the location in Sweden is perfect for me. Unfortunately they have not understood that ads, even for their own products, are annoying as hell. If you e.g. install their android app, it will daily notify that you can earn a wooping 100mb more space if you watch some video commercial. It also constantly nags you with info about their “space saver” solution where they back up your photos and only leave a crippled version of the photo back on your device. Thanks, but no thanks!

They also did not have a linux client (though they have “plans” to support it eventually) so I could not get my computer files backed up as they do not even have a web interface. Windows and Mac users get a pretty good client though and for them Degoo might work fine.

The solution – pCloud!

So after 4-5 other clouds services tested I finally came by pCloud. At first it did not sound interesting. Their page was pretty vague about where they were located, what you actually got etc. Their prices were pretty high compared to what I usually pay so that also scared me off a bit. One day however, I got by an add for a 2Tb lifetime subscription for their service. The price was still high, but a lot lower than usual. I needed good cloud, so I finally signed up. You know what? their cloud is fast, stable and supported on all platforms where I need it (except for my NAS where I can still use HubiC until they fully shut down).

The services at pcloud is sold as seperate things. If you buy the standard subscription, then you will get a server-side encrypted drive, filesharing support, web client etc. In order to get a client-side encrypted part of your drive, you will have to buy another subscription called “crypto”. Actually not a bad idea as many (the usual dropbox type of users) will not really need this. Those of us needing the better security then pay for it and get a great service.

The good, The Bad, The Ugly

If you look into cloud services these days you almost can’t get around ads for a the new kid on the block “Thunderdrive“. They are pushing an early-signup subscription with 2tb for life. It all sounds very good on paper. The problem is, that there is close to no information about the company behind the service on their site. The support says it is to prevent hackers from knowing where they store files (like hackers would ever find that sort of info via the website). Also when you actually sign up, you realize that they only have one client – the web client. You can in other words not use it from a mobile via an app but have to up/download files via a browser. The same goes for computers of course.

The web client works, but is very simple. If an upload fails with one file, then the rest of them fails too. This is especially a problem when used from a mobile where the connection could be lost from time to time.

They promise to have apps ready by Q3 2019 but right now I have my doubts. I did get me one of their lifetime subscriptions as they are dirt cheap and maybe they actually do exist as a real company and will eventually have both mobile and desktop apps available. Only time will tell.