[quyse]

It seems the catch is the same as with Wasabi. It says everywhere on the site that egress is free and there's no hidden fees. Except for this FAQ entry [1]:

> Pricing for Polycloud is only $0.004 per GB per month. There are no other fees as long as you do not egress more than 100% of your data during the month. If you do egress more than 100% of the amount of data you have stored then you will only be charged $0.01 per GB for any overages.

Looks like a hidden fee to me. Note that even the Pricing page [2] does not mention it, and the calculator does not allow to enter egress volume for calculation.

[1] https://crowdstorage.com/faq/#what-is-the-pricing-for-polycl... [2] https://crowdstorage.com/products/polycloud/pricing/

[19h]

That's pretty expensive.

Storing a 250GB backup = $1.

Sending to 2 machines 500GB - 250GB = $2.5.

Sending to 10 machines 2500GB - 250GB = $22.5.

How is storing this data so much cheaper than sending it? Especially given that it's stored redundantly?

I can't wrap my head around the fact that electrical signals are priced higher than equivalent HDDs.

Example, HGST 4TB MegaScale -- $60, or $13.46 per TB. Storing 4TB at 0.004 = $16. Transferring it 10 times would be $400.

Total $416, or $356 more than an actual physial hard disk.

Imagine getting a 4TB HDD, transferring the data to 10 computers and then throwing it away.

Being able to pay for excess egress is better at least than risking getting your contract killed by Wasabi if your egress exceeds your traffic.

[vitus]

One thing that stands out to me is an unintended consequence of the pricing structure:

Storing a 250GB backup and sending to 10 machines: $1 for storage, $22.5 for egress.

Storing a 250 GB backup, 2250GB of /dev/zero, and sending your backup to 10 machines: $10 for storage, $0 for egress.

[xyzzy123]

That's an interesting observation! Definitely creates weird incentives.

It seems incentives also depend on the nitty gritty details around how you are billed which are not defined very clearly. Granularity and timing, whether you pay for part months of storage etc.

However all games aside it does seem like if your own egress were free (or much cheaper than 0.01) it would be most efficient to send your data directly to where it needed to go, yourself.

Then you'd only be paying $1 for the backup.

[_v7gu]

Looks like someone forgot to put incentive compatibility constraints to their pricing optimization problem

[onionjake]

Interesting thought thread on our pricing structure... It saves money if you intend to send the backup to 10x places every month. If you only intend to do it once though you don't come out ahead $10 * 3=$30 versus $1 * 3+$22.50 = $25.50.

[vitus]

Good point -- the minimum 3-month storage duration eliminates this edge case for one-offs (since 3 * $0.4 > $1).

That said, it almost breaks even after the first month and pays off for itself a week into the second month. To eliminate this incentive, I'd suggest setting the cost of egress at (or below) the cost of storage.

It also would make more sense to me as a prospective customer that I'm not paying crazy overage fees, and I'm paying as if I reuploaded the same data and downloaded it an extra time.

[chrisshroba]

> I can't wrap my head around the fact that electrical signals are priced higher than equivalent HDDs.

I think this is standard with cloud storage. Check out this comparison [1], showing 2-6x higher costs for downloads versus monthly storage in B2, AWS, GCP, and Azure.

[1]: https://www.backblaze.com/b2/cloud-storage-pricing.html

[ddorian43]

> Sending that backup to 10 machines 2500GB - 250GB = $22.5.

They aren't doing 20x replication. They do 20+20? erasure coding, so the overhead is 2x or less.

> Being able to pay for excess egress is better at least than risking getting your contract killed by Wasabi if your egress exceeds your traffic.

You can upload dumb storage as needed in Wasabi. I assume you can do the same here.

[19h]

> They aren't doing 20x replication. They do 20+20? erasure coding, so the overhead is 2x or less.

With "sending that backup to 10 machines" I meant "egress 10x of 250GB" = 2500GB. With a pricing of $0.01 per GB after egress tops 100% of stored data, or 250GB, that's 0.01 * 2250 = $22.5. I'm not talking about replication overhead on their side.

[onionjake]

This is great feedback. We are redesigning the website right now and will make sure it is more prominent.

[gccs]

Change it to: exgress is free as long as you don't use it

[nine_k]

Egress is free as long as you use it for individual backup, or for other data you want to keep just in case and mostly discard, like old logs.

[igetspam]

If I do the math but I store a lot of data that gets served by a CDN. It rarely changes and is requested enough that it will stay in the cache. I'm already paying for the CDN, so I can't save there but if can save on storage, it could be useful.

I'm not disagreeing with the point that that pricing is clear or not "hidden" but more that there's a use case here that can make sense.

[gpm]

Wow, that's just outright false advertising (assuming they are actually charging for egress)... Here is everything the pricing page, signup page, and TOS (which reference the first) have to say about paying for egress... I especially like the part where they are calling this hot storage, which certainly implies that it might be accessed more than once a month.

Pricing page [1]

> We have no hidden fees and the monthly calculator to prove it.

> Egress $0.00

> No charge for egress, ops, or retrieval.

> With Polycloud from CrowdStorage, you only pay for the storage you need. And we never penalize you with fees for accessing your data.

> No egress charges

> We keep it simple—access your data when you want it, without being nickel-and-dimed with hidden fees.

> Hot storage for cold storage prices.

> Don’t overpay to get the speed you need. Polycloud delivers quick access you data whenever you need it.

> Egress $0.00

Signup page [2]

> Everything you need to store your data for only $4 per TB/mo and no hidden fees.

Terms of service [3]

> 6.1 Device Backup. In the event that you subscribe to a paid version of the Device Backup Services, we will put you on a recurring payment plan that charges you for the fees set forth at https://app.crowdstorage.com/pricing in advance for each billing cycle. We will charge the payment method you specify at the time of purchase and, if you do not cancel the Services prior to the end of the current billing cycle in accordance with Section 7, you will automatically be charged the then-current fee for the Services at the start of the following billing cycle.

> 6.2 Polycloud. With the Polycloud Services, you pay only for what you use. There are no set-up fees or commitments to begin using the Polycloud Services. At the end of each month, you will be charged for that month’s usage of the Polycloud Services as further set forth at https://polycloud.crowdstorage.com/pricing.

[1] Pricing: https://archive.is/K3Dyf [2] Signup: https://archive.is/c3fAf [3] Tos: https://archive.is/xBKJL

[onionjake]

I'm adding some quick edits to the page to make it clearer that it is free egress up to 100% of stored content.

We are currently redesigning our website and this will definitely be something we focus on making more upfront and clearer.