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Differential backups or any sort of versioning seemed like one of the most obvious culprits (that and or total redundant storage to preserve the file) but the i

Differential backups or any sort of versioning seemed like one of the most obvious culprits (that and or total redundant storage to preserve the file) but the issue with all of this is it’s entirely opaque. Ultimately you’re increasingly tethered to some service for your storage that you pay for periodically based on total storage yet you have little-to-no information how to best optimize that storage if you want to operate in a fixed cost bracket or lower storage/cost ratio. So as a consumer, do I just wave my hands and keep throwing more and more money at the problem, especially now that devices are increasingly pushing everything, including storage, as a subscription service to meet my actual functional needs (that realistically could be met by local storage options if manufacturers didn’t have a vested interest in pushing me towards service based storage solutions)? The modern business strategy in technology is simply hiding behind complexity. The cost is too complex for you to understand, it gives too much information away about our internals to competitors, and so on. Yet somehow these metrics are derived to assure the business is operating above cost because when the rubber meets the road it must be done, yet when the consumer wants to understand it’s suddenly too complex. The problem is that tech in many cases is growing to scales that really is too complex and business managers know this, so it’s often a valid excuse to hide behind. Conveniently that’s where they focus on investment and padding margins though.

Dalewyn 3y ago
>So as a consumer, do I just wave my hands and keep throwing more and more money at the problem, Yes. I can go and buy 1TB of Microsoft OneDrive or 2TB of Google Drive for less than a Franklin a year, and most people won't even need 1TB let alone 2TB. Both Microsoft and Google also offer 100GB plans for a Jackson a year, which is what I purchase myself. The average person can get by paying a Washington per month to Apple for 50GB of iCloud. The amount of money I would save from managing photos myself locally isn't worth the time spent nor the money spent on the hardware. EDIT: For the downvoters, consider this: If I were to manage all this myself, I would need at least three storage mediums with one being a different form factor to satisfy the 3-2-1 backup scheme. I would also need to procure arrangements for that third backup copy in the 3-2-1 scheme. And I would need to spend time managing it all. That is going to cost me more than a Franklin per year. Life is short, my time is precious, and my money is ultimately expendable.
- chrismeller 3y ago
  This is the same argument behind paying for a streaming service. Could I "find" everything I want to watch somewhere else and maintain it myself on a Plex server? Sure, but the cost-benefit analysis just doesn't make sense to me. Particularly the older I get the more I value my finite free time. Throwing $20 at something to remove a problem that would take me hours (not to mention a large startup cost) to do myself is just an obvious choice.
- ebiester 3y ago
  Now, consider a world where you are making $42,000 a year. That's 20 dollars an hour and a very common wage. How do they handle the same when there are so many competing Franklins for them?
  - naltroc 3y ago
    bump this, and the implicit vendor lockin that this ideology creates
- a_vanderbilt 3y ago
  Hackers don't understand something that regular people more readily do: It works, it's cheap, and I'm paying for the convenience. We can all have our ideals about how tech should be, but these choices are driven by practicality.
- mysteria 3y ago
  As someone who has a Proxmox cluster at home (storage on RAIDZ, hot backups with PBS, cold backups on external HDDs) I literally recommend cloud storage for most people that ask me about backup solutions as it's simply not worth it for the average user. Those people already have all their data in the cloud anyways and share it on Facebook et al and they don't really care about the privacy side. Remember it's not just buying the equipment, it's maintaining and understand it as well (e.g. I have to be familar with how ZFS works, how to restore a failed node, write some scripts, etc.). And with every backup solution you also need to be familar with the restoration process and test it occassionally to make sure it actually works as expected.

Dalewyn 3y ago

>So as a consumer, do I just wave my hands and keep throwing more and more money at the problem, Yes. I can go and buy 1TB of Microsoft OneDrive or 2TB of Google Drive for less than a Franklin a year, and most people won't even need 1TB let alone 2TB. Both Microsoft and Google also offer 100GB plans for a Jackson a year, which is what I purchase myself. The average person can get by paying a Washington per month to Apple for 50GB of iCloud. The amount of money I would save from managing photos myself locally isn't worth the time spent nor the money spent on the hardware. EDIT: For the downvoters, consider this: If I were to manage all this myself, I would need at least three storage mediums with one being a different form factor to satisfy the 3-2-1 backup scheme. I would also need to procure arrangements for that third backup copy in the 3-2-1 scheme. And I would need to spend time managing it all. That is going to cost me more than a Franklin per year. Life is short, my time is precious, and my money is ultimately expendable.

chrismeller 3y ago
This is the same argument behind paying for a streaming service. Could I "find" everything I want to watch somewhere else and maintain it myself on a Plex server? Sure, but the cost-benefit analysis just doesn't make sense to me. Particularly the older I get the more I value my finite free time. Throwing $20 at something to remove a problem that would take me hours (not to mention a large startup cost) to do myself is just an obvious choice.
ebiester 3y ago
Now, consider a world where you are making $42,000 a year. That's 20 dollars an hour and a very common wage. How do they handle the same when there are so many competing Franklins for them?
- naltroc 3y ago
  bump this, and the implicit vendor lockin that this ideology creates
a_vanderbilt 3y ago
Hackers don't understand something that regular people more readily do: It works, it's cheap, and I'm paying for the convenience. We can all have our ideals about how tech should be, but these choices are driven by practicality.
mysteria 3y ago
As someone who has a Proxmox cluster at home (storage on RAIDZ, hot backups with PBS, cold backups on external HDDs) I literally recommend cloud storage for most people that ask me about backup solutions as it's simply not worth it for the average user. Those people already have all their data in the cloud anyways and share it on Facebook et al and they don't really care about the privacy side. Remember it's not just buying the equipment, it's maintaining and understand it as well (e.g. I have to be familar with how ZFS works, how to restore a failed node, write some scripts, etc.). And with every backup solution you also need to be familar with the restoration process and test it occassionally to make sure it actually works as expected.