Re this ad for a Western Digitial "cloud based hard drive" what exactly is inside this "drive"?

[GMANCANADA]

@Revtim

I think the primary use of the device is to simply provide 2TB of disk space. The other stuff is useful, but not the main point.

In this case I disagree - in fact, the main point is that you can use this device as it’s own server. The comparable drive without the “cloud” server software is about $50 cheaper (at Costco anyway). Also when you look at the size, this is not designed to hold excel and word files that you can copy on a thumb drive, this is meant to hold big media files - I have 3.25 TB of movies on mine.

As you note, thumb drives are good, but when families are consuming media on ipads and iphones with no USB port, the thumb drive is useless. This streams to those devices over your home wi-fi without the use of a third party eternal cloud, (which may cost monthly storage fees and may impact your download limits.)

So far it’s perfect for sharing within our immediate house. I’ve read reviews where people complain about software glitches etc, but so far so good.

I still agree with the OP, they do a really piss poor job of explaining what it’s for.

[Lemur866]

@erysichthon

There’s a startup in New York called MakeSpace that claims to provide cloud storage for physical objects. Really.

AKA, “Too lazy to take your own shit to a storage locker? We’ll come by, pick up your box o’ crap and toss it in there for you.”

It’s actually a pretty good business idea. The guy who came up with “closet in the cloud” needs to be kicked in the nuts a couple times, though.

[Dewey_Finn]

Remember that the MakeSpace company’s target market is people who live in New York City. Some or many of them don’t own cars, so the $29 charge to retrieve a storage bin and bring it to one’s apartment might be worthwhile.

[Mangetout]

@davidm

In fact it seems like it’s kind of superfluous anyway. If I understand what it does, you don’t need specialized hardware to do it. The remote access functions are software, and any file server could be used for this if you have the right software.

Yes - any, including this one. That’s not what superfluous means.

[robert_columbia]

@Mangetout

…
ETA: well, almost. I guess there could be a niche market for something that presents cloud storage as a local SMB share or something like that - for the purposes of connecting legacy kit to the cloud.

Good point, backward compatibility is a big requirement in a lot of engineering. One of the reasons why Windows Me was so bad was that it was supposed to be able to act like and run software designed for a 1981 era green-screen IBM PC and everything in between. Microsoft threw much of that out the window with Windows XP and discarded more of the legacy compatibility with Windows 7 and 8. Windows 8 can’t even run most Windows 3.1 stuff.

[Mangetout]

@robert_columbia

Microsoft threw much of that out the window with Windows XP and discarded more of the legacy compatibility with Windows 7 and 8. Windows 8 can’t even run most Windows 3.1 stuff.

And rightly so. Maintaining compatibility with legacy code that works on a fundamentally different model is a horrible idea - especially as the reason for moving away from that model was specifically to increase security, stability and performance.