ReadyNAS Vault : great but overpriced!

Great input. While many of the points your raise and suggestions you offer could justify extensive discussion threads on their own, a few quick thoughts below...

@claykin:

Thanks for helping to highlight the misconception regarding "apples to apples" comparisons. When many of the most aggressive advertisers in the space are offering "unlimited" storage but restricting the devices that are covered, it can be challenging for us to explain the difference.

The software you are currently using is a nice alternative and very reasonable from a cost perspective (essentially passing Amazon S3 costs directly to you). It does not, as you note, currently run natively on the NAS, so a connected host is required. Also, for the same reason, you cannot manage or configure via the web. We are working to devise pricing that will be closer to what you are seeing there.

We also appreciate your suggestions. Some are coming just around the corner (#2 and #3 are really just a matter of exposing the interfaces to you) and almost all the others are part of the road map. If you private message me your username, we can alert you for beta release of this functionality as it becomes available. As a follow up, are the desired features in order of priority or importance to you?

@rschoonh

We can't say for sure why other providers restrict access based on device, but the conventional wisdom in the blogo-sphere appears to be that the make these restrictions for cost management purposes. That is, they may offer "unlimited" or large fixed amounts under the assumption that most users will not actually use that much space. Because outliers who either truly take advantage of the full amount of space offered or test the limits of "unlimited" become very unprofitable very fast for them, they then may institute restrictions that make it practically very unlikely for such outliers to influence their average storage. While sophisticated users have been able, in some instances, to develop work around techniques to use services for unsanctioned devices, these users run the risk of having their service shut off by the providers for violations of the terms of use.

What we can say for sure is that your feature requests (folder level storage visibility and rules-based deletion) are very reasonable and echoed by others in more private communication. We are working on implementing them now and will take the other issues you've identified as problems or annoyances into account as we proceed.

Again, while we are disappointed that you've had a challenging experience, we appreciate the candid and clear feedback very much and will attempt to improve based on your (collective) input.