Dropbox ?

bbaraniec wrote:
To be honest Egnyte is a bit to expensive for single user at least it is for me. I don't need 5 power users and 100 normal users and single file limitation in cheapest plan... If you want to win single users think about plan for them. 20GB or even 10GB would be enough for me and one max two users.

Thanks for your input bbaraneic. Egnyte is more of a business focused cloud file server solution which is why our plans incorporate higher user count and storage size. Typically our ReadyNAS customers are businesses with 5+ users.
However, we have been in talks about developing smaller personal account for 1-2 users. I've been seeing increase demand for personal accounts. I've actually been pushing engineering/management to provide me with some free personal accounts for the ReadyNAS community :D *fingers crossed*

~ Johnny

JohnnyEgnyte wrote:
However, we have been in talks about developing smaller personal account for 1-2 users. I've been seeing increase demand for personal accounts.

+1

I think that would be a great addition to offer personal plans too. The cloud based file server features would be great.

Keep us posted!

Hi JohnnyEgnyte,

Looking forward to see personal plans.

I have looked at this closely before during an evaluation of Egnyte:

The basic plan offering 150GB of cloud storage for $25 per month is on par with the pricing of Dropbox ($100 per year for 50GB) - maybe Egnyte are considering offering smaller packages at appropriately reduced prices? That could be attractive.

However there is then the additional cost of $40 per month for the Local Cloud Storage feature (ie using your ReadyNAS). This is a price premium that would need to be addressed if home users are to be attracted as I don't see what significant benefit Egnyte offers to warrant such a premum

sphardy wrote:
However there is then the additional cost of $40 per month for the Local Cloud Storage feature (ie using your ReadyNAS). This is a price premium that would need to be addressed if home users are to be attracted as I don't see what significant benefit Egnyte offers to warrant such a premum

I forgot about that NAS surcharge. You are right Sphardy, that would be a definite deal breaker for me.

Appreciate the input guys. The small personal account I mentioned would be for personal computer use, similar to Dropbox except with more features. You guys are right, it would be hard to justify $40/mo for just 1-2 users. Like I said earlier, Egnyte is more of a business solution, not many individual home users operate ReadyNAS devices.

So with that said, would a small personal Egnyte account (at much lower price point) without the ReadyNAS automatic sync feature be useful?
Thanks for the healthy discussion guys, your input is greatly appreciate it, I'm bringing up all these points to management and engineering :)

~ Johnny

For me, having only laptops & mobile devices, my NASs are the only thing I keep running. Thus, I would have to keep my laptop on at various hours to seed the cloud. I'm not keen on that idea.

I currently use Crashplan, installed on a ReadyNAS Pro-6, for one of my offsite disaster recovery options. The price is great but it is just basically for disaster recovery as there aren't any file server features (i.e. file sharing, collaboration, user restrictions...). Once I put my files there I don't really touch them unless I need to recover them.

Why is there such a premium if you seed Egnyte via a ReadyNAS vs. PC? Is there more to it than that? Am I missing something?

I would be more open to paying a reasonable upfront fee for an addon vs. a reoccurring monthly fee.

Thanks for the open communication Johnny!

JohnnyEgnyte wrote:
So with that said, would a small personal Egnyte account (at much lower price point) without the ReadyNAS automatic sync feature be useful?

Functionally, what would Egnyte offer that Dropbox doesn't already provide? I don't see anything if the ReadyNAS piece is missing - but please correct me if I'm wrong. However, add the ReadyNAS piece and you may have reason for me to switch

FYI I also use Crashplan for disaster recovery

Dropbox is a great personal cloud solution. I used Dropbox before for small team (2-3 people) projects and it was great due to the simplicity. But one big drawback of Dropbox I found was the inability to share files. I either had to email the files as attachments or send out invites to share folders (which would require the recipient to sign up and log in to Dropbox), it became a huge hassle.

Egnyte is a more file sharing oriented cloud file server. Egnyte has a lot of robust file sharing capabilities (full list here). But the biggest benefit of Egnyte file sharing is the ability to share files using URL links (see how to thread), public folders with permission access controls, and virtual dropbox (the function, not the company :wink: ) There are other feature differentiations, but in my opinion file sharing is a major one aside from ReadyNAS integrations.

PLUS you guys get to have a great Egnyte community rep here to listen and help :D

~ Johnny

JohnnyEgnyte wrote:
But one big drawback of Dropbox I found was the inability to share files.

You may wish to refresh your Dropbox experience... Eg if I wish to share my NAS setup: http://db.tt/FicTvkJ

Point being: if Egnyte wishes to attract users from a popular service like Dropbox, there needs to be a key differentiator - without the Local Cloud Feature, the differences do seem rather small. That said, im not suggesting local cloud should be given away, just that the current pricing is too high for a home user