Amazon Cloud Now Offering Unlimited Photo Storage for $11.99 a Year
Mar 26, 2015
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Amazon seems set to beat competitors such as Dropbox, Google and Microsoft as it announced two new unlimited cloud storage plans earlier today.
While the first plan is aimed at photography fans, the second plan is unlimited not only by space but by media type as well.
Both plans can be tried for free for three months.
Amazon is by no means the first company to offer unlimited cloud storage but, unlike the other companies, it is offering this service to anyone.
While Dropbox offers its unlimited plan to businesses, Google to students and Microsoft to subscribers of Office 365, Amazon is targeting the average consumer as well.
The Unlimited Photos plan was launched last year when it was offered free for Amazon Prime members. As of today anyone can get this plan for $11.99, along with 5GB of storage for “other” files.
Although the service seems to have the average person in mind, rather than serious hobbyists or professional photographers, Amazon’s Cloud Drive does recognize RAW files as photos. This includes Canon’s CR2 files as well as Nikon’s NEF, Sony’s ARW and Adobe’s DNG files.
This means you can backup your entire photo collection, including RAW files, for just $1/month.
If you’re currently a Prime member you will still get unlimited photo storage for free, and you will be able to upgrade your account to the higher tier.
The Unlimited Everything plan allows you to store an infinite number of photos, videos, files, documents, movies and music in Cloud Drive for $59.99 ($5/month).
With the Unlimited Everything plan Amazon is now also the cheapest option for the most space, with competitors offering 1TB of storage ranging in price from $84 (Microsoft, including an Office 365 subscription) all the way to $99.99 per year (Google and Dropbox).
Despite there being no limitation on the storage size, Cloud Drive does have certain limitations that might be relevant to photographers and videographers. These limitations include a maximum file size of 2GB and videos cannot be longer than 20 minutes.
Visit Drive Cloud’s help section for more info on supported file types, limitations and requirements for uploading photos.
UPDATE: Thanks Bob for pointing out that this service might not be suitable for professional photographers. More on the matter here: Thought You Can Use Amazon’s Unlimited Storage Plan for Your Business? Think Again
[via TechCrunch]
Liron Samuels
Liron Samuels is a wildlife and commercial photographer based in Israel. When he isn’t waking up at 4am to take photos of nature, he stays awake until 4am taking photos of the night skies or time lapses. You can see more of his work on his website or follow him on Facebook.
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5 responses to “Amazon Cloud Now Offering Unlimited Photo Storage for $11.99 a Year”
I’m using the 1TB plan from Dropbox, and the filesystem integration works seamlessly between my work/home computers and mobile devices. I can also share links to documents with passwords and expiration dates. It simply fits my needs more than the other solutions.
“: Amazon Cloud Offering Unlimited Photo Storage for $11.99/Year – http://t.co/mChA5JsNkZ” With or w/o compression? RAWs?
From Amazon Cloud Drive Terms of Use. “You may not use the Service to store, transfer or distribute content of or on behalf of third parties, to operate your own file storage application or service, to operate a photography business or other commercial service, or to resell any part of the Service.” (Bolded by me). Not sure exactly how this works, but that statement doesn’t bode well for Pro Photographers.
Guess me bolding the text didn’t work.
I have the Amazon free service as an Amazon customer, though only use it through the browser interface. My understanding is that unlike Dropbox or MS OneDrive it doesn’t operate to sync local folders between devices, but simply stores files maybe with some display features (?) Dealing with cloud uploading and downloading for a large active project is still a PITA given most folks’ bandwidth limitations.