Uploading 500GB to online storage?

[Happy Grumpy]

I'd like to upload 500GB-1TB of files online. It doesn't need to be secure.

Then download on another PC (other city)

It would save me buying another External HDD.

Any easy, free way to do so?

[kkerry]

Have you thought how much time this will take to upload and download? My Google Drive gives me 15GB free. That's better than most.

I'd buy another external drive... but here's one option for you http://www.symform.com/how-it-works/free-storage/

[GinBoy2]

I'm with kkerry on this one. The time is really prohibitive, and that's assuming that you have one of the better fiber upload speeds, and nothing goes wrong during the upload.

Back of the envelope calc: 500GB @ 25Mbps is somewhere close to 50 hours of continuous upload. If you are on one of the more common DSL uploads, then you're talking hundreds of hours.

Online storage ( I use a backup online server as well as local hard drives) is great but for such large amounts somewhat impractical.

Buy a backup drive, they're not that expensive and will save you a whole lot of grief

[Happy Grumpy]

Time wouldn't be an issue, between 5-7 days would be acceptable.

[ukrules]

It will take weeks to months to upload so you have no chance of doing it in such a short space of time unless you have a very fast upload speed on a high end connection.

By a high end connection I'm talking about fibre to the home, even then you will have almost no chance of doing it so quickly

It's worth noting that the domestic upload speed is often just 10% of the available download speed but this will vary a lot between ISPs.

It will probably take more than 5-7 days just to download it once the upload has completed.

I suggest buying the USB drive, it's going to be a lot less hassle.

[KhunBENQ]

I'm with kkerry on this one. The time is really prohibitive, and that's assuming that you have one of the better fiber upload speeds, and nothing goes wrong during the upload.

Back of the envelope calc: 500GB @ 25Mbps is somewhere close to 50 hours of continuous upload. If you are on one of the more common DSL uploads, then you're talking hundreds of hours.

Online storage ( I use a backup online server as well as local hard drives) is great but for such large amounts somewhat impractical.

Buy a backup drive, they're not that expensive and will save you a whole lot of grief

And who has 25 MBit/s of UPLOAD (!)?

Not many.

In the past upload rates were 10% of the download rates.

So more like 500 hours up.

Nowadays they offer more symmetric rates, but still a fallacious/absurd idea.

Which private user as 500 GB of "cloud valuable" data?

Do you want to upload movies that you downloaded to your disk in years

Edited February 24, 2016 by KhunBENQ

[steve187]

no free or easy way to do this,

uploading and downloading up to 1tb by any means will take forever

buy a 1tb and send through the post

have the other hdd sent to you, transfer and sent hdd back

take your hdd to the other city and transfer

[JSixpack]

Idrive will ship you a disk for the initial seeding.

https://www.idrive.com/cloud-backup

But I'm not sure it applies to addresses in Thailand. You can find that out.

[KhunBENQ]

The OP did not state whether the "other city" is within Thailand or not.

[SpaceKadet]

1TB Dropbox storage space will cost you $100 per year. And like the others said, you will struggle with network speeds.

A 1TB USB3 2.5" external drive can be had for around $62, 2TB for $95. And they last much longer than 1 year.

No logic, economic or technical, for going to cloud storage for those sizes for a private person.

If you are a company with a big fat pipe connecting you to the internet, and have a need to share 1TB, yeah, sure, go for it

[KhunBENQ]

BTW: even copying that amount of data to an external disk can take quite a while.

Hope you have USB-3 on the PC and buy a USB-3 external disk.

With that you come down to "some hours".

Edited February 24, 2016 by KhunBENQ

[SpaceKadet]

Depends on the size of the files. Few large files copy quicker than many small ones. Filling a 1TB drive drive with movie files doesn't take that long, but filling it with jpeg pics can take forever.

[innerspace]

For a transfer like this the fastest and most economical method will be the most exciting.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IP_over_Avian_Carriers

[DogNo1]

I have never had an upload of a large number of files that wasn't interrupted by something - Windows updates, software updates and a host of other things. Personally I use Bitcasa to mirror the data drive in my computer and upload to both One Drive Personal (1 TB) and One Drive for Business (1 TB per user.) With Bitcasa, you can just let it crank away once you have established what you want to mirror. If it's interrupted, it will carry on on restart. I think that you can mirror with One Drive Personal too. Good luck.

[cyberfarang]

Time wouldn't be an issue, between 5-7 days would be acceptable.

Forget it, not viable.

[jphasia]

Not sure if it can help but for me i am using Dropbox Pro, 1TB cloud. It cost 100 dollars / year. What i am doing is once i installed the dropbox app in my computer, i use the dropbox folder as my main "My Document" folder. So everything is automatically uploaded in Dropbox cloud, which is also use a my backup. If i change laptop or lose my laptop whatever and get a new one, the first think i am doing is to install Dropbox, sign in and all my docs are coming back as original. As I am using several computers, Dropbox is setup on the same way on the others machines. As Dropbox box allow you to select which folders / files to download, I can either get only part my docs in another computer or all if i select all. Also it will depend on the size of the hard drive on each computer. I might have 500GB docs which are store on my Dropbox but not all my computers have 500GB space on their hard drive

I think my dropbox has about 300/400 GB. Let say that i get a new laptop today and want to download the full content of my dropbox on it. Yes it will take some time and you better do it where you have a good internet connection but it's not that long. Maybe leave it online all night and in the morning it's done.

For the upload, it takes longer also depend on the internet speed. Gladly, as all is already on my dropbox it is more a matter of download for me.

If you only want to have your huge amount of data to be move only 1 time to another machine, it might not be the best solution as you have to pay a yearly plan for it.

For me this solution is perfect as i am always on the move, interacting with different companies (i am consultant) either in Thailand and others countries. I have all the folders (per company or projects) in my main laptop and synchronise only specific folders for the specific company /project in the respective computers. Also found it great as backup (but i am also backing up my datas on external drive regularly just in case).

There might be similar options which i would be happy to hear about but so far Dropbox Pro is doing great for me. I tried also one drive (microsoft) and google drive but i have not been convinced so far.

Dropbox has also well improved these last few years. I found the synchronization faster compare to one drive or google drive (or maybe just because i am used to Dropbox). Also a new function in Dropbox (maybe they are doing the same in others clouds) is that when you are opening a share file, it tell you who and when saved it for the last time, if it's currently in use by another user and tell you while you are working on it that the other user already saved a new version...

Also last point, i might find Dropbox easier compare to One Drive or Google Drive because amonst the different computers, I am mostly using Mac.

Sorry for this long post and if it was not appropriate.

[WorriedNoodle]

>I'd like to upload 500GB-1TB of files online. It doesn't need to be secure.

>It would save me buying another External HDD.

>Any easy, free way to do so?

Do the math. What internet speed you got? My home internet at best offers 1mbps upload speeds. So a 1TB upload might take around 100 days? You could walk to another city with a HDD in your pocket faster.

[csabo]

"Not sure if it can help but for me i am using Dropbox Pro, 1TB cloud. It cost 100 dollars / year."

I use PogoPlug and pay half that for unlimited storage. Files are all uploaded automatically when created.

[guzzi850m2]

I uploaded all my photos to Flicr, over +9000 of them, it took me about one month with a 10mbit i-net connection and that is less than 500GB.

Uploading speed is very slow compared to download speeds.

[chrisinth]

OP, as others have said, there is no free or easy way of doing this (500GB - 1TB upload/download) in the time frame you have given.

As an example of data transfer (10 up/10 down business package) it took me about 5 days to upload (and sync) about 200GB of data early last year. And this was a reasonably stable upload.

If you do not have the receiving computer setup to sync before you start, then add extra time. If you are transferring an image of your OS, then you are going to need an external drive anyway for the simplest install on a new machine.

IMO, by far the easiest way is by external drive, either 2.5" or 3.5" (3.5" will be cheaper) with USB 3.0 and EMS the drive to the destination. Once the transfer has been done, utilize the external as an additional backup or storage; you won't lose money on a 'one job only' drive.

[StraightTalk]

Go to mega:

and create 10 accounts, easy!

[jphasia]

"Not sure if it can help but for me i am using Dropbox Pro, 1TB cloud. It cost 100 dollars / year."

I use PogoPlug and pay half that for unlimited storage. Files are all uploaded automatically when created.

Thanks. Never heard about PogoPlug. I will have a look. But also one of the reason i am using Dropbox is because it is well know and many people are using it (or at least around me). Whenever i want to share something, and asking are you on dropbox, either people are telling me that they have it or at least the free version or know it but never use it before.

Unlimited data is good but as for me 1TB is more than enough.

[StefanBBK]

As I see it you have three choices:

1) Subscribe to a cloud storage and upload/ download as planned. $$$

2) Use free Cloud storage or indeed large file email, You may need to split your data into smaller packages, use multiple accounts etc.

3) Buy an external drive (1TB= 2,000 Baht) use that. You either keep it afterwards or sell for 50%.....

Given the money and time it would take for 1) and The time and effort it would take for 2), I would opt for 3).

[Bear0Mack]

Happy Grumpy, you said it was because of the cost of an external hard drive right? I would've thought the bigger concern would be carrying unencrypted data across borders, as some customs agents will inspect your data regardless of your wishes to be left alone. They do it under ridiculous guise of being kiddy porn inspector superheroes, but really they're just thugs in suits invading your privacy.

If you do want to transfer your data this way, I would suggest purchasing an AIS Superwifi package and an 802.11ac wireless card for your laptop (assuming it's a laptop here), and upload it while sitting in a cafe. That would be the fastest way, but as others have pointed out it will take a VERY long time over eve the best internet connection.

[Bardeh]

It's going to cost you more to pay for the cloud storage than it would to buy an external HDD. They're not expensive, and uploading that much data in the timeframe you've suggested is just not going to happen.

[Catoni]

Get yourself some USB Flash (Thumb) Drives. They come with various amounts of storage.. I store my important files on my Macbook Air lap top and on my iPod Touch, and also on USB Flash Drives.

But I also use Google Drive to store my important files in the Cloud as some other member or members here also use. As was mentioned... it is only 15 G free storage. (Which is more then enough for me.) It's great to have multiple places to save your important files. Then, even if your place burns to the ground with your computer....and your flash drives are stolen... your important information is still stored in the Cloud...where you can access it.

[Cam Khao]

I did his with 140GB of files a few weeks back using bitorrent sync.

It took about 8 days to upload, which didn't really matter as it was happening in the background while my PC was on. So I would expect 500GB to take about a month.

[WhizBang]

Just curious why the OP would want to upload so much, only to download it again?

I have a 250GB thumb drive, so 2 of those would do the trick. If it's the content, encrypt the drives.

[gandalf12]

Mediafire.com will give you 50GB but I dont know of anything else that is free which gives you so much. Get yourself a 1TB external drive and use that.

Edited February 25, 2016 by gandalf12