Zumodrive Takes Cloud Storage And Syncing Up A Notch (YC S07) | Hacker News Reader

Zumodrive Takes Cloud Storage And Syncing Up A Notch (YC S07)

techcrunch.com

63 pointsdrm23751 comments

Can anyone enlighten me what's the difference between Zumodrive and JungleDisk? I've been using the later for a year. It creates a 'limitless' network drive on my MacBook with 1GB local cache (size can be increased), while synching with my Amazon S3 account in the background is almost not noticeable.

And by the way, JungleDisk simply passes Amazon S3 bandwidth/storage charges to me, no caps there; I can bypass it to access my data on S3 buckets; it is available for win/linux/mac etc.

I think that JungleDisk would be much harder for an average user to install. I haven't used it, but I did just install Zumodrive. I think that linking up with an s3 account is something that an average end user would rather not have to worry about.

I'm a Jungle Drive user, and while I don't pretend to be an "average" user, it was very easy to install. I'm not sure if setting up an Amazon S3 account and then putting the key into Jungle Drive would be too technical for the average user, maybe it would. Overall I've been very happy with Jungle Drive so far, and the $20 one time charge is pretty nice, particularly since I can use that on as many machines as I want with one Amazon account.

How does that compare with ZumoDrive?

--Disclosure - not currently a user of ZumoDrive

Other than the usability differences, the underlying technology is significantly different. ZumoDrive uses its own file system layer instead of WebDAV(what most drive services use). What this means for the user is that the drive is a lot faster to access, and it supports things like streaming & random access of files.

also what the difference between zumodrive and dropbox (other yc co.)????

At least one thing: Dropbox synchronizes its directory, meaning that every machine linked to your account has a local copy of the data stored there. Zumodrive keeps most things remote, unless you explicitly ask to have a local copy (seems to support some form of policies for which things should be local). In theory, then, Zumodrive lets you go beyond your disk capacity, but it's a bit too expensive to just offload hundreds of gigabytes.

Also, Zumodrive doesn't seem to have sharing like Dropbox does..?

Zumodrive actually supports sharing either by a public link or to a private email address. There is a share option in the right click context menu as well as on the web file browser.

I'm not sure why I'm so eager to post something sarcastic, possibly including words like "sshfs" and "already" mixed up with nasty stuff like "many years ago".

Am I a bad person or what?

P.S. And seeing another person asking for "linux support" doesn't help me to fight my sarcasm.

Clearly the root of the problem is that you're old. You also forgot to say "get off my lawn".

Reddit is that way -->

The technology is rarely the big problem. The big problem is getting the client to stop calling you multiple times per week.

"How did you set up that sshfs thing again? I lost the FAQ you sent me."

"I was following your FAQ, but I did something wrong and now I can't find my files."

"I love that sshfs thing you set up for me; can you set it up for my ten friends? I'll pay you five bucks!"

I haven't used this new thing, but I do use Dropbox, which solves these problems by being gloriously boring. You set it up in less than one minute, with no docs required, and then it just sits there, working.

Yeah, for us, sshfs, or even rsync is great for our uses. But what about the regular people who wanted online backup and sync across multiple devices?

You are a tech person.

I see facebook as ridiculously simple. But people use it to store their photos online. Really.

If my Mom can't store her data online - it is a problem. Asking for linux support misses the point.

Having already, accidentally overwhelmed my netbook's drive while using Dropbox, this does look interesting. My suggestion for Dropbox was the ability to designate some machines/directories as online only.

Unfortunately, Zumodrive doesn't have have Linux support right now...

I'm not sure what's with the people in here. Here comes a few guys, and invites you to try on a really smooth service for free (just tried it on my Mac, browsing the pictures with Cover-Flow; really slick) and all I hear is people complaining.

Come on, what more can you ask for?

Really great job guys, I think I'll be using Zumo a lot.

This could at last be an easy way to play Spaceward Ho! over the internet (the PC version). It "networks" via the file system, but didn't work with the WebDAV drives...

No support for Linux? :(

Dropbox is Linux friendly ;)

Actually I retract that, I'm trying it and it's buggy as hell.

I prefer dropbox, more free space.

Where do Zumodrive and Dropbox have their storage cloud? S3 or own boxes in colo?

I believe Zumodrive is S3

Dropbox uses S3.

One problem: Java. The installer didn't find Java on one of my Windows machines, because I have the latest JDK installed in an unusual directory (and might not have run the official Sun installer, either). Maybe inspect JAVA_HOME before downloading and installing a whole new JRE, or better yet, let me specify where to find it?

Two: If you guys want to install MacFUSE, at least warn me. :)

Three: Java UI. I know, I know, I'm sorry for nit-picking, but I prefer native apps.

Thanks, I've filed a bug for the java check. There isn't much we can do about the Java UI though :)

You could do what dropbox did and make a real native UI for each platform. Honestly, I gave up on Zumodrive in part because I couldn't get your menu icon to not look selected. It always was highlighted, even before I clicked on it the first time. Also, the menu behaved in a weird, nonstandard way.

Playing with ZumoDrive and already like it. I think this is going to be HUGE, provided two things happen:

1. The clients become less buggy. They have a very alpha/beta feel to them; Mac client random crashes, can't remove dock icon, etc.

2. Linux support is added. You know most of those netbooks you speak of are running linux now, right? ;)

Good luck gentlemen, I will be keeping an eye on this one...

So, time for a Hacker News invite code then? :)

Yes please, I didn't get in on the TC invite soon enough :(

There's a code for all news.yc readers (good for 200)

newsyc or http://www.zumodrive.com/invite/newsyc

Great, tnx! Let's try this baby out.

Sorry, ZumoDrive is currently not available for: Ireland

Any plans to internationalize?

So ... I have to be online to listen to my music?

Granted, I'm usually online, but not all the time.

Ok, maybe I'm a bit biased, but I always vote up TC articles about YC Companies - good or bad.

just curious, why is that?

I see so much other stuff make the front page that I am not interested in, but I am interested in seeing YC Companies succeed. For better or worse at TC write up is still probably the best way to reach people who keep up with startup/entrepreneur/vc news, so when one of them makes it onto TC, I like it - and I vote them up =)

Anyone else having trouble downloading the iPhone App!?

Dell,

We are going to be sending out the iPhone app shortly. This takes a bit of time unfortunately, but you will hear from us soon.

Wow it's kind of expensive!

Gotta love it. "Unlimited storage!", they say. "Access your stuff anywhere!"

Of course, you better not have TOO MUCH STUFF, or you'll run afoul of this tasty provision.

General Conditions, 8. If your bandwidth usage significantly exceeds the average bandwidth usage (as determined solely by Company) of other customers of the Service, we reserve the right to immediately disable your account until you can reduce your bandwidth consumption.

I would much rather see a Gmail-esque size limit that continually increases with capacity than a false claim of 'unlimited' personally.

David with ZumoDrive here. I hate bandwidth caps as much as you do. But without this provision, we won't have a way to stop the guy that's distributing pirated ISOs via the service. This is really so that we, and indirectly our users, don't have to continue to pay for that. Other than that, we have no intention from you using the service, so feel free to stream away :)

So put in some kind of limits. I am EXTREMELY wary of using anything that doesn't define limits. As I can have the rug pulled out from under me.

Yeah - I think there is going to be a natural wariness as people get used to using cloud services. This kind of clause is only going to make people nervous.

Then you should look at whether you advertise it as "unlimited". It could look like mis-selling and I think the service looks good so you should possibly look at this

EDIT: I'd like to just say that I've downloaded and am using the app and its lovely. Really well done. Regarding the bandwidth usage, I think you should still be able to come up with something that is representative rather than what you are currently using. Hosting companies have done it for many years, so just come up with a bandwidth figure per Gb that you are happy with

I mean, look at it like this. I have a bunch of legitamite but highly used content. I throw it up on this, knowing that amazon's s3 service can serve it far easier than I can.

And it uses one hell of a lot of gigabytes. Hundreds of 'em. A week.

Would this get me terminated?

If you want to be able to pull accounts that are doing illegal things, why don't you just say "we can pull your account if you're doing illegal things"? You would even get the ISO pirates who keep their bandwidth usage in line with the herd that way. Is this some kind of common-carrier thing?

unlimited = if you pay for it.

exactly: and BTW whats the difference between dropbox and zumo?

Dropbox stores your files locally and syncs them with the files on the cloud. Zumo stores them only in the cloud and streams them to you on demand.

Pricing is pretty expensive!

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