AudioSAFE, New online backup concept Options

[spoon]

An EULA is one where the user agrees to our terms, that statement is the opposite, where we are setting forward terms and agreeing to them ourselves.

Or perhaps I am miss reading your remark.

[mudlord]

In most apps I seen, a EULA is shown at installation time. If the end user doesn't support what is done, they are expected to not continue installing the application.

My remark was you *could*, legally, sell end user's information if you add that in the EULA on install time. Of course, that is unethical, but legally, nothing can be done.

This post has been edited by mudlord: Nov 9 2011, 06:51

[Martel]

An EULA is one where the user agrees to our terms, that statement is the opposite, where we are setting forward terms and agreeing to them ourselves.

Or perhaps I am miss reading your remark.

An EULA is still an agreement (bilateral act) meaning both parties have rights and liabilities stemming from terms given therein. As soon as a user agrees to it, the terms apply to both sides. I'm no lawyer but I think it's very similar to a vending machine purchase.

Whether AudioSAFE actually promises certain private data handling policy in its EULA is a different matter. If it does not, it may put off "customers".

This post has been edited by Martel: Nov 9 2011, 10:11

[spoon]

I understand now

There will be an EULA shown on install, just not until it is finalized (that page is just a draft for now)

An EULA is still an agreement (bilateral act) meaning both parties have rights and liabilities stemming from terms given therein. As soon as a user agrees to it, the terms apply to both sides. I'm no lawyer but I think it's very similar to a vending machine purchase.

It is still one sided, in that a user cannot modify the EULA, whist the company can (as was part of the previous EULA that the company can modify it), look at Sony and the EULA where users are suddenly not allowed to class action them (just an example, I do not want Sony's negative perceived image rubbing off on AudioSAFE )

This post has been edited by spoon: Nov 9 2011, 10:46

[mudlord]

An EULA is one where the user agrees to our terms, that statement is the opposite, where we are setting forward terms and agreeing to them ourselves.

Or perhaps I am miss reading your remark.

An EULA is still an agreement (bilateral act) meaning both parties have rights and liabilities stemming from terms given therein. As soon as a user agrees to it, the terms apply to both sides. I'm no lawyer but I think it's very similar to a vending machine purchase.

Whether AudioSAFE actually promises certain private data handling policy in its EULA is a different matter. If it does not, it may put off "customers".

Exactly. Hence why I am waiting on terms all set in stone, etc, before even attempting to use this. I just like knowing my rights and all.

[Martel]

...look at Sony and the EULA where users are suddenly not allowed to class action them

Sorry for the OT but this kind of EULA would be invalid in my country (and probably most of EU). An agreement cannot remove rights (e.g. to sue someone) granted to you by a constitution or laws, no matter if you agreed to that/signed a piece of paper/clicked a "I agree" button or whatever.

This post has been edited by Martel: Nov 9 2011, 13:01

[spoon]

We have fixed the restore cost at $5 per 100GB, or $50 per 1TB

With the current HDD shortage there has never been a better time to use AudioSAFE to safe guard your collection.

[Brand]

The price seems reasonable.

A couple more questions:
1. I've already expressed my wish for a portable (non-installed) program. If that's not coming, does the installed program at least allow me to run it when I want (not on system startup), without resorting to killing any services or disabling tasks?

2. Can I select exactly which files/folders to backup, is the number of selectable folders limited?

Maybe it's already on your to-do list, but it would be great if there was a walkthrough page with screenshots and/or a video demonstration, even if the program is easy to use.

This post has been edited by Brand: Nov 19 2011, 14:27

[xnor]

The price seems reasonable.

Really? My external 2TB hdd cost about $ ~70 per 1TB, once.

This post has been edited by xnor: Nov 19 2011, 14:44

[Soap]

The price seems reasonable.

Really? My external 2TB hdd cost about $ ~70 per 1TB, once.

Really?
So $35 per TB is reasonable for a drive you may never need and which may die before you ever recover from it. A drive you must keep safe from flood, fire, theft, and old age.

But $15 more a TB paid for only if you use it, a HDD which doesn't need your protection or verification, is so unreasonable it deserves a childish emoticon?

This post has been edited by Soap: Nov 19 2011, 15:33

[Brand]

He actually wrote $70 per TB, but before the flooding prices were actually closer to $35 per TB, yeah.

Anyway, I agree with your analysis. I mean local backups are great and I recommend everyone to do them, but a remote backup offers some additional value.


One more question for spoon:

Is there a minimum charge for recovery or will you charge exactly per GB/MB? (Will recovering 500MB cost $0.025?)

[spoon]

AudioSAFE placesva shortcut in the startup folder, so is very easy to manage.

There would be a minimum restore charge, our cc processor takes a minimum so would be based off that.

Any number of folders can nbd selected, normally the default selection of the music folder is enough.

This post has been edited by spoon: Nov 19 2011, 16:03

[Soap]

Oops - I swore he wrote $70 per 2TB. But clearly not.

If anything that reinforces my point. AudioSafe is cheaper than HDDs and you only pay if you need it and you don't need to protect or verify.


This post has been edited by Soap: Nov 19 2011, 16:04

[spoon]

To an extent AudioSAFE is a generational backup system also, let me explain, you might backup once a month to your one Hdd, any changes to the library are set to backup.

If you had a faulty program, or a virus which overwrites some of your tracks with garbage, you might only find on playback of that track, by which time it has overwritten the one on your backup Hdd. AudioSAFE would keep the old undamaged file plus the current corrupted one, the original could be restored.

[xnor]

Most file synchronization and backup programs also show you what has changed. Even robocopy, which comes with windows, can show you that and mirror your music collection, personal data etc. bit by bit only copying changed files.

@Soap: Even at twice the price for the HDD I'd prefer it. I use the external hdd regularly and it has more uses than just backing up music. Backups are very fast (eSATA), need no internet connection and restoring is free too.
Yes, to me it is unreasonable, else I wouldn't have put the emoticon there.

Sure, if you live in an area where floods or other disasters are not uncommon this may be an option. Though if your house swims down the road I'd have bigger worries than restoring my music library.

This post has been edited by xnor: Nov 19 2011, 17:48

[Soap]

I use the external hdd regularly and it has more uses than just backing up music.

A - Not per GB it doesn't. You're double-counting the value of a HDD.

B - If you use the HDD regularly it is even more prone to failure, corruption, or loss. You dismiss the idea of a flood while fire, lightning, theft are the more likely options.

C - You're right that music restoration wouldn't be a top priority if your house was lost. But insurance won't give you back your time in ripping / tagging. By the same argument, though, SATA-speeds aren't needed for restoration either, unless your music collection is your livelyhood. (In which case why is $50 so worthy of derision?)

D - Restoration isn't free from a HDD. You paid for it up-front even if you don't use it.

Haters gonna hate.

This post has been edited by Soap: Nov 19 2011, 17:51

[xnor]

a) Because it is way more flexible. You can backup any kind of data, copy it there temporarily etc.

b) Right, using a hdd twice a month will shorten its life span considerably...
Surprise, I also dismiss the ideas of someone stealing or lightning destroying my external HDDs! There are things like surge protectors, but I usually don't use my computer when there's a lightning storm outside.
Sure, fire is a threat but storing data in the "cloud" isn't 100% safe either. Remember amazon's outage where they lost customer data?

c) SATA speeds aren't necessary, no, but it's nice to copy files at full speed and not worry about clogging the internet connection which I'm sharing.
I'm not deriding anything, I was just surprised of your reaction.

d) No, I paid for the HDD, not the restoration. A small but important difference.

I suggest not using the phrase "haters gonna hate" if you don't know what it means.

This post has been edited by xnor: Nov 19 2011, 18:15

[Goratrix]

You dismiss the idea of a flood while fire, lightning, theft are the more likely options.

For music, I have a primary storage at home plus two backups in two different places, about 100 kilometers apart (so that's three 1TB HDD). The probability of one of those distasters is miniscule in each one of the 3 places, and zero of it occuring in all of them simultaneously (short of a nuclear armageddon). Meanwhile, in the 15 or so years using the internet, I have seen literally hundreds of online services and companies disappear overnight.

[jdoering]

The seemingly passionate objections here seem strange IMO. If you already have a robust, offsite, multi-location strategy then more power to you. But why object to this service and the value based on non-astronomical restore cost?

The only upfront costs are upload bandwidth (cost depends a lot on your ISP arrangement and is likely negligible for a lot of potential users), local computer resources for running the program (again a personal concern with likely negligible costs for many users), and potential sharing of private data (e.g. What music is in my possession, etc). The final point is probably the murkiest but pretty much any cloud offering requires evaluating this trade off from a personal perspective.

If the above costs are nota significant concern to you then what the downside of using this as an extra layer of what-if data security just because you question the value of the recovery pricing? If your existing backup solutions never fail you never have to pay the price anyway. If something does go wrong despite your best efforts you then have a recovery option with an economic trade-off decision to make. No one forces you to restore - so the ball is in your court to decide the value of your lost collection.

Seems to me that only the personal privacy question and upfront cost of implementing the backup should factor into judging the value of the service assuming that restore fees stay on the current order of magnitude.

-Jeff

[wdekler]

I have lot's of remasters in my collection. Can I be sure that I get exactly the same files back when I restore?

In other words: during deduplication a file could mistakenly be replaced by the same track from a different master if some kind of watermarking is used (instead of checksums).

[spoon]

AudioSAFE will restore lossless tracks, byte for byte (audio content), we do not use an Apple Scan and Match, where there is a % potential error introduced by fingerprinting.

[wdekler]

AudioSAFE will restore lossless tracks, byte for byte (audio content), we do not use an Apple Scan and Match, where there is a % potential error introduced by fingerprinting.

Great! I'll be starting to upload soon.

[Pri3st]

Please add an option to know which file is currently uploading.

[Mangix]

Feature Request: Add support for .dts files. I have some and AudioSafe just complained about the storage quota for non-audio files being exceeded.

[wdekler]

I'm planning on uploading my collection at a place with a much higher uplink capactity (1Gb) to speed up the initial uploading process . To do that I'll take a copy to a PC over there and start the process.

My question is: can I just use the same account there? Both computers will probably never be online at the same time.