So yesterday I decided I would try a “Proof of concept” of backing up my 2TB Photos Library to Storj.
I decided I would put a few GBP into this project so fired up my personal EU1 account and created a new Project.
Project Limit: 50GB. Grossly insufficient. There is a link to request a storage increase.
So I click the link and I have to write all sorts of “reasons” why I need more space. My first impression is “none of your damn business, you’re not doing me a favour, I’m trying to buy your product!”, but I persevere, thinking maybe it’s just me being unreasonable. I would accept that you might want either a validated payment method on account (fair enough) or a prepayment for all the storage space (harder to “swallow”, but just about acceptable).
After humbly requesting more storage and bandwidth I get a confirmation email saying that my ticket has been submitted. OK, so not an automated process.
After a few hours I get another email saying that, in order to verify that I am the owner of the account, I will have to create an account at the ticketing system on Storj DCS
This was in spite of me being logged into my account at the point when I clicked the link to request the storage increase.
At this point I lost my patience and gave up. My money went to Backblaze to see how that goes.
You are seriously not making it easy for people to use this product.
50GB is not much on a product aggressively priced to be a “backup solution” and the limit increase process is clunky, morose and inconvenient.
You won’t get there like this, guys. If I am the “typical” consumer and this is the experience to be expected, this project will fail. A hard rethinking is required, IMHO.
Hi @ACarneiro,
Sorry your experience wasn’t good, but you’re missing the point. StorJ is not a consumer product. It says so right on the front page:
“cloud object storage for developers”
https://www.storj.io/blog/introducing-storj-dcs-decentralized-cloud-storage-for-developers
“Everything we do is for developers. We’re often asked why we don’t have a Dropbox-like GUI so non-technical customers can upload and download files to Storj DCS. The answer is that by focusing on developers and providing decentralized cloud object storage for their needs, we can enable hundreds of companies to build services like that on top of Storj DCS.”
Actually I think you are missing the point. Whenever a customer uses a product provided by developers like Filezilla, he needs an account with Storj DCS. And then he will experience exactly what @ACarneiro is reporting.
This is is still aimed at developers. Consumer solutions would be like a dropbox built using Storj as the backend. Not client software directly connecting to Storj.
The filezilla option should be seen as an easy way for those same developers to connect to their storage and move stuff around.
That said, I do think this onboarding experience could still use a little work. Partially this is still a manual process because Storj wants to know when to expect large volumes to come in. At the relative small scale they need to keep more of an eye on that. At some point the network is probably large enough that asking individual developers about what kind of increases they should expect is no longer necessary. But for now it requires some attention from hoomans.
Can we agree that Amazon S3 is aimed at developers?
Can we agree that Duplicaty supports Amazon S3?
Can we agree that that doesn’t mean Amazon S3 is not aimed at developers?
This does not change the fact, that Storj has to deal with consumers that are using integrations like Filezilla or Duplicati.
And this is the experience that @ACarneiro has reported.
I tried the ‘consumer’ side of STORJ - Filebase. I use Synology HyperBackup for our backups and Synology CloudSync for the live data using Filebase with STORJ as cloudstorage. It has been working fine for us.
I agree that STORJ should be much more clear on their website that using STORJ directly is intended for developers and point consumers to the different options available for them. I was spinning around like ACarneiro did until I realized I should use one of the consumer frontends to STORJ.
The 50GB is what you get for free, three times over for three different projects. I’m not aware of any other provider that gives you that much for free. Did you want several TB’s for free?
Well, it’s a form for now. It’s not rocket science or anything and you’ll get the upgrade you need. So I don’t see any reason to think Storj isn’t ready for more data storage and bandwidth. If my node is any indication, it can handle a LOT more than the network is dealing with atm.
It is still bothering me too that you have a 50GB limit for each project. I currently have a project called “Test” from my early testing, which has a 1TB limit. Now I created a new Project “Backups” cause I want to switch my backups to storj (soon) but that new project has a limit of 50GB So I have to contact support and ask for increase. What an unneccesary step… 50GB is ridiculously low. At least give us 200-500GB.
Guess I’ll just keep using my ridiculously name project “Test”… (edit: brightSilence told me how to change the name of that project so that’s something. Couldn’t find that before)
So, per the OP, paying for an increase beyond the free account requires writing an essay about how you will use it, and having it approved by a human? If that’s the case, I then Jen’s question is pretty relevant. For it to be “ready” as a product, I’d think there would need to be a purchasing process that doesn’t require sharing (potentially sensitive) information about usage, or human intervention.
My comment is based only on what I’m reading here; I’m operating a node, I haven’t tried using the product as a consumer. But if there’s not yet a seamless customer experience, that impacts my expectations around whether there’s likely to be sustained demand that will make things worthwhile for node operators. If it’s not ready now, that’s fine, I get that these things take time…but like Jen, I’m curious when it will be ready.
I think this is proof that the whole monetization is a still a bit of a hazy dreamland-in-future concept for the Storj guys.
The reality is a company that is taking making money serious would be monitoring customer drop off on each step of the way and would be carefully analyzing each step leading up to customer forking over cash. The OP is a really hot lead / willing buyer and still Storj manage to not convert to a sale. Very not promising for the future/sustainability of the platform.
Meta consideration aside:
What is wrong with just saying ‘yes thanks for the cash’ and increasing allowance and and then asking the questions afterwards.
So I have to contact support and ask for increase. What an unneccesary step… 50GB is ridiculously low. At least give us 200-500GB.