Amazon curtails its online storage plan
New tiered service similar to Google, Dropbox options
Amazon’s Cloud SAN FRANCIS CO Drive online backup service was too good to last.
Amazon had the best deal in online storage — unlimited backup for $59.99, which Wired called “absurdly cheap” when it was launched in 2015. Now, unlimited is out. It has been replaced with tiered pricing, the system used by Amazon’s rivals.
The new rate, announced to customers Wednesday night, is now $59.99 yearly for 1 terabyte of online backup, with each additional terabyte (TB) costing an additional $59.99 annually.
Additionally, Amazon is introducing a lower-priced tier set at 100 GBs of storage for $11.99 yearly.
Amazon still has the best pricing for backing up 1 TB of data online, but just barely. Microsoft offers 1 TB for $69.99 yearly and throws in a subscription to Office 365.
Online backup is an important tool in the digital age, where consumers have an ever increasing array of photos, videos and other files that add up.
Hard drives are less expensive, but not as reliable, and online backup provides access from any device, anywhere.
Amazon says the vast majority of its customer base — 82% — only used a small portion of backup, around 100 GBs worth.
Amazon still has the lowest entry price for online storage, but consumers will get considerably less for their dollar.
How rivals stack up for 1 TB of storage: Amazon: $59.99 yearly Microsoft: OneDrive $69.99 yearly
Dropbox: $99.99 yearly Google Drive: $99.99 yearly. Apple iCloud charges $9.99 monthly, ($120 yearly) but for a more generous 2 TB; the 1 TB tier was upped to 2 TB this week.
Amazon says members of Amazon’s $99 yearly Prime shipping and entertainment service still get to store their photos for free, unlimited, via Prime photos. However, they must primarily be in JPG form. RAW files from some camera manufacturers are accepted, but video files are not.
Amazon said it will honor the unlimited plan through the expiration of the current contract. At that point, consumers will need to either pay additional for the extra storage, delete or move files off the service.
Folks who don’t take action won’t be able to upload new data for 180 days, at which point, Amazon will start deleting them for you, the company says.