How Long Does It Take to Upload 20 Gb of Photos to Amazon
While Amazon Basics is a separate line within the Amazon juggernaut, basic is certainly the correct word to describe the visitor's storage solution. That's not to say it isn't worth your attention. It certainly is if y'all're looking for a no-frills, secure cloud storage solution. Continue reading this Amazon Drive review to learn if it'due south for you.
Describing Amazon Bulldoze as bones isn't without skilful reason. Those looking for a feature-stacked experience with enough of productivity tools and integrated apps will exist sorely disappointed. Amazon's cloud service only plays home for bones files. There'southward no option to create documents, nor does information technology have avant-garde options for collaboration. Once more, it's basic.
Primal Takeaways:
- Amazon Drive'due south cloud storage is platonic for anyone looking to back up a large number of photos.
- The user interface across all of Amazon Bulldoze's applications takes no time to grasp.
- Professionals and businesses will be put off by Amazon's lack of productivity and collaboration tools.
- Amazon implements high-grade security for user files, but its stance on privacy is disappointing to say the least.
Amazon doesn't shy away from offering a plethora of storage plans. Starting with 5GB of costless storage, the largest plan can shop 30TB, which Amazon claims can hold up to 4,200 hours of 1080p Hd video.
That's the shallow stop of this Amazon Drive review. For those looking to go deeper into the production, stay with us. We'll cover everything you need to know in the rest of the commodity.
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12/25/2021 Facts checked
Cloudwards updated the review with new speed tests, pricing information and features.
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Amazon Drive is not discontinued and can be used across desktop, mobile and web browser applications.
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Yes and no. Amazon Prime members enjoy unlimited photo storage, but if you lot desire to upload videos and other file types, you'll need to pay for additional storage if you go beyond the complimentary 5GB of storage space.
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Google Drive takes the win in this head-to-head. It offers the same corporeality of costless storage as Amazon Drive, with a lot more than features. Google Drive has multiple file sharing options, and users can create documents and interact in large teams through Google Workspace.
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The main advantage of Amazon Drive is the unlimited storage infinite for photographs. Its wide range of paid plans makes information technology ane of the most versatile services in the space.
Amazon Drive Review: Alternatives
Amazon Drive: Strengths & Weaknesses
Pros:
- Good choice for beginners
- Plenty of storage options
- High-resolution paradigm previews
- Integrated print service
Cons:
- No cipher-knowledge encryption
- Non practiced for collaboration
- Separation of Amazon Photos is confusing
Features
As the intro suggests, don't look besides much from Amazon Drive. However, for content creators such as photographers and videographers, it'due south got some useful features that make Amazon cloud storage a viable selection.
Upload High-Resolution Images and Videos
Users have the power to view high-quality images through Amazon'southward image preview, including file types such as JPEG, HEIC and RAW. Embedded in Amazon Drive is Amazon Photos — Amazon'due south equivalent of Google Photos — which allows you to brand basic edits to images inside the spider web browser app.
Amazon Drive isn't the nearly feature-stacked cloud service, but information technology has some features worth looking at.
Video playback is bachelor within Amazon Drive. Nosotros uploaded a 4K video, and while we couldn't verify playback quality, it wasn't 4K. Yet, you can sentry full-resolution content through Amazon Drive if yous have an Amazon Prime account. There's no ability to edit videos through Amazon Bulldoze or Photos, simply editors volition likely utilize other tools to edit video anyway.
Sync Folders From Desktop
The desktop app lets you control how much bandwidth is used when syncing files, and you tin set the app to automatically sync and update specific folders. It's limited to a select few folders, such as pictures, documents and desktop. Those looking for a deeper online fill-in should consider other services similar IDrive (read our total IDrive review) and Backblaze (read our full Backblaze review).
Amazon Drive allows y'all to automatically sync specific folders when using the desktop application.
We should point out that Amazon Drive and Amazon Photos are ii different services from Amazon. They are often confused, every bit both allow you to upload files and shop them in the cloud. Amazon Photos only allows y'all to add photos and videos, whereas Drive enables you lot to upload and sync Word docs, PDFs and music (although you lot can't edit documents or play back music).
Amazon Bulldoze Features Overview
| Visit Amazon Deject Drive | |
|---|---|
| Sync | |
| Sync Folder | |
| Block-Level Sync | |
| Selective Sync | |
| Bandwidth management | |
| Sync Any Folder | |
| File Sharing | |
| File Link Sharing | |
| Link Passwords | |
| Link Decease Dates | |
| Folder Sharing | |
| Binder Permissions | |
| Link Download Limits | |
| Upload Links | |
| Productivity | |
| File Previews | |
| Edit Files | |
| In-App Collaboration | |
| Role Online | |
| Google Docs | |
| Notes App | |
| Media Playback | |
| Mobile Apps | |
| Deleted File Retention | |
| Versioning | |
| WebDAV | |
| Security | |
| At-Rest Encryption | |
| In-Transit Encryption | |
| Encryption Protocol | 256-chip |
| Zero Knowledge | |
| Two-Factor Hallmark | |
| Server Location | Us |
| Support | |
| 24/7 Back up | |
| Alive Chat Support | |
| Telephone Support | |
| Electronic mail Support | |
| User Forum | |
| Knowledgebase | |
| Misc | |
| Gratis Programme |
Pricing
When you sign up for an Amazon account, you instantly go access to 5GB of free storage. Nosotros'd call that mid-range generosity, as it'south not as bad as Dropbox's 2GB (read our total Dropbox review), simply it can't compete with MEGA'southward 20GB of complimentary storage infinite (read our total MEGA review).
Paid plans start at $1.99 per month for 100GB of storage — the same price as both Google Drive and OneDrive.
Many of the best cloud storage services quickly bump up their plans to 2TB of storage space, with non much in between. What's practiced about Amazon Drive is the 1TB storage selection, which costs $half dozen.99 per month, or $59.99 when paid annually. Amazon prices the 2TB storage program at $11.99 per month, making information technology one of the more than expensive services.
This is pretty expensive, and anyone looking for a more affordable selection (that also offers better security and privacy) should consider Sync.com (read our full Sync.com review).
Unlimited Photo Storage
Amazon is 1 of the few mainstream deject storage services that offers unlimited storage. It'south only applicable to photo storage, so it excludes videos, documents and music files. To get unlimited photo storage, y'all'll need to upgrade your basic Amazon account to Amazon Prime. If you're taking lots of snaps, or you're a photography enthusiast, having the option to store unlimited photos inside the Amazon cloud is a great thing to accept.
For those who crave a ton of storage for other files, Amazon offers storage plans all the mode to 30TB of deject storage. You lot'll pay $1,799.seventy per year to access the largest plan, and there'south no selection to pay monthly.
In total, Amazon has 13 different paid plans, making information technology 1 of the most versatile deject storage services around. For such a huge company, we'd adopt to encounter Amazon make its plans a picayune more affordable.
Ease of Utilize
Yous tin can access the Amazon deject through iii different ways: a desktop app, the web browser customer and a mobile app. We spent a few days testing all three Amazon Drive apps, and had an overall pleasant experience with them.
Desktop App
Although Amazon Drive isn't at the forefront of Amazon'due south products, the visitor has done an excellent job in designing its cloud storage apps. Both the desktop customer and web interface have piffling time to become to grips with.
In that location is some confusion when it comes to the desktop awarding. When downloading the desktop application on macOS, the app is downloaded every bit Amazon Photos, not Amazon Drive. This makes things a little confusing, as they're 2 split up apps, which is reflected on the spider web and the mobile apps.
The Amazon Bulldoze desktop application offers a minimalist design that takes little fourth dimension to grasp.
Mixed messages aside, the desktop client is a cakewalk to use and those looking to dorsum up and sync files won't accept whatever trouble navigating it. There's no sync folder kept locally on your computer, but you tin choose certain folders to sync automatically via the app. Amazon Drive also has block-level sync, for faster updates to edited files.
You can elevate and drop files into the app, then select which binder you would like to store them in. Sorting folders is easy and you can create new folders inside the desktop client if you wish.
We besides like that the front-end design tells you how much storage you take and how many photos and videos y'all've uploaded to the cloud. It'southward a modest perk, simply it's one that caught our center when we first opened the desktop application.
One feature missing from the desktop awarding is the power to view files. If you click on your photos or videos, you'll automatically be taken to the Amazon Drive web interface. It's not the end of the world, but it would be nice to proceed it nether one roof for those who prefer to use desktop over web and mobile.
Web Interface
The spider web interface sticks with the Amazon Drive branding, making it less disruptive on first utilise. Most of the activity lives on the left-manus side of the interface. Here yous'll hands discover how to upload a file, forth with an overview of your recent, shared and deleted files. If you prefer non to use the "upload" push button, the pick to drag and drib files is also available.
On the topic of deleted files (which Amazon Drive refers to as "trash"), users have upward to 30 days to restore them should they regret deleting them. Deleting a file is unproblematic too. Amazon Drive has done an excellent job with its blueprint layout, making it easy to understand where each role lives and how to use them.
Amazon Drive'southward spider web browser application allows yous to view high-res photos and videos.
At that place'due south also a tab on the left-mitt side that allows you to access Amazon Photos. Clicking information technology takes you to a new browser tab, where you'll see an overview of just your photos and videos. You can also guild prints of your favorite images with a few simple clicks, a characteristic missing from most other leading deject storage providers.
Mobile App
Like most cloud storage services, Amazon Drive has an app for both iOS and Android. We used the iOS version and were pleased to see Amazon had kept the tendency of offer a simple, sleek design.
On opening the app, users are presented with a view of each of their folders. You tin can also utilise the lesser carte bar to navigate between recent files and settings. Ane thing that'southward missing is an obvious "upload" button. Information technology lives inside the toggle menu, which you can find in the height right-hand corner of the application. Here you'll also find functions that allow you to select files and folders, sort folders by date, and create new folders.
If you'd rather not manually upload new photos and videos, you tin can cull to automatically upload files from your mobile device when you start set the application. This is good for those who take many images on their smartphones on a daily basis.
All in all, Amazon Drive has done a solid job with all of its apps. The desktop application could exist less confusing, only other than that, it competes with the applications from other cloud storage solutions.
File Sharing & Syncing
Amazon Bulldoze offers bones file sharing, simply the ability to do so is limited to the mobile app and web browser customer. Unfortunately, there's no way to choose dissimilar user permissions when sharing a file. Amazon Drive generates a sharable link, and anyone with that link has the ability to share, download and comment on the file.
Users tin share files through a link, electronic mail and some social media platforms.
When sharing files via the mobile application, you have the choice to share a file every bit an attachment. This gives y'all the ability to share images via e-mail, WhatsApp and iMessage, to name a few. Through the web browser application, y'all can share files directly to Facebook and Twitter; however, there's currently no support for Instagram.
Files uploaded via whatever of the Amazon Drive apps sync seamlessly across your devices, and can be accessed via desktop, web and mobile. We created a new folder and synced 1GB of files from the desktop client and could admission them in real time via both the web and mobile applications. As far as file syncing goes, we have no complaints with Amazon Bulldoze.
Speed
Because Amazon Drive prides itself on its unlimited photograph storage and ability to store loftier-resolution videos, we removed other files when uploading a folder to test how fast the deject storage service is. We uploaded a 5GB folder on a 100 Mbps internet connection based in Dublin, Ireland. The location is relevant, equally Ireland is ane of the many locations around the globe where Amazon keeps its data centers.
Being close to Amazon Drive's servers should improve how quickly files are uploaded to and downloaded from the cloud. The results were not mind-bravado, but they were stiff in terms of speed. When uploading files, picayune pressure was put on our CPU; however, it took quite some time to process the files once they arrived in the Amazon deject.
| Showtime attempt: | Second endeavor: | Average: | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Upload | 0:09:50 | 0:08:50 | 0:09:20 |
| Download | 0:07:00 | 0:07:10 | 0:07:05 |
We experienced good performance when uploading to and downloading from the cloud.
We experienced no interruptions during uploads and downloads, giving us an overall fluid experience. Amazon Drive won't win awards for its speed, but information technology does the chore just fine.
Security
An issue we take with Amazon Drive's security is that it isn't easy to detect out what type of technology is used. We'd expect security-related data to exist at the forefront of Amazon's feature list, and we're disappointed that it isn't.
The frustration extends to the level of encryption Amazon Drive offers. While we're non surprised, Amazon doesn't offer zero-knowledge encryption for users' files. This means that Amazon Bulldoze — or more specifically, people working at Amazon — could admission your files. For those who want more than security, check out our roundup of the best nix-knowledge cloud storage of 2021.
Amazon uses AES 256-bit encryption for files both in transit and at residuum. Two-factor authentication is also bachelor for anyone who wants an added layer of security. Its security is built on Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3), the aforementioned applied science used with AWS (Amazon Spider web Services). AWS is a cloud calculating platform used by businesses and governments that excels at keeping data safe from unwanted optics and criminals.
Privacy
While Amazon may do well to keep your files secure, its approach to privacy is lackluster. Information technology's on a par with Google and Microsoft, and that's not a skilful matter — at least if you don't desire your information beingness accessed and used.
Amazon'southward terms of utilise states that the company may access, utilise, and retain user files.
Furthermore, it reserves the right to copy and change files, and use information about user files to organize them. Amazon sells its ability to practise all of the above by proverb it will aid ameliorate the user experience. That's certainly true, but it too ways that too many people accept access to your personal information.
Customer Support
Amazon Bulldoze doesn't have a dedicated user support section. If yous experience an issue, yous'll have to try to resolve information technology past going to the centralized assist center via the Amazon website. You can use the search office to enquire specific questions relating to your issue; nonetheless, results are a little vague on Amazon's part.
Back up is possible through the Amazon Drive and Amazon Photos user forums. The forums cover a lot of bases, and yous take the ability to post a new question if y'all can't find an answer to your query. User-based support has plenty of value and you can often resolve your issue much faster than by speaking to an Amazon employee.
Amazon'south customer support is underwhelming and would benefit from several improvements.
If you desire to speak to the Amazon support team, there'southward no easy style to do so. Finding how to contact Amazon felt similar an obstruction course nosotros couldn't complete. Determined to succeed, we kept going and eventually accessed the alive chat.
After speaking with a less-than-responsive chatbot, we somewhen got continued to a support assistant. We were besides given the pick to asking a call, but connected with the live chat. Subsequently acknowledging our question about the level of encryption used for our files, the support fellow member took ten minutes to answer with an answer.
Instead of giving us a direct response, we received a link to the privacy department of the Amazon site and were left to find the answer ourselves. Non merely did the response disappoint, simply the link provided didn't answer the question we asked.
When the user forum is the saving grace of a service'southward support network, information technology'due south time for the company to learn how to better back up its users.
The Verdict
For a bare-bones photo storage service and a place to back upwardly video files, Amazon Drive doesn't disappoint. It'due south perfect for those looking for a basic backup solution on their mobile device to keep their treasured memories condom and easily accessible.
If a professional or business user needed a recommendation for cloud storage, we'd quickly direct them to other services. The lack of productivity apps and ability to collaborate makes information technology a no-become for most professionals.
If the boilerplate user next door asked how they could keep their files safe, nosotros'd accept no problem recommending Amazon's take on cloud storage, especially considering that Amazon Prime members tin back up an unlimited number of images. We think that's where Amazon wants to position itself: every bit an like shooting fish in a barrel-to-use cloud storage for users with niggling experience and basic needs.
What do you recall of Amazon Drive? Would you recommend it to someone else? Practise y'all agree with our overall assessment of the service? Let us know in the comments. Thanks for reading.
Source: https://www.cloudwards.net/review/amazon-cloud-drive/
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