Amazon just announced how serious it is in the consumer cloud storage market by releasing an unlimited cloud drive. This is a serious shot at the likes of Dropbox, Google, Microsoft and every other cloud storage provider out there.
This is different than the S3 and Glacier storage service that many people are used to from Amazon. This is the consumer storage service that Amazon was offering unlimited photo storage for Amazon Prime members but have now opened it up to all with an unlimited photo storage option and an unlimited everything plan.
Prices for the new plans are also very affordable. The Unlimited Photos plan offers unlimited storage for photos plus 5GB for videos and files for just $11.99/year. The Unlimited Everything plan lets you store all of your photos, videos, files and documents for just $59.99/year.
Compared to Dropbox Pro which offers 1TB of storage at $99.00/year the new Amazon plan looks like a huge win for those users that have a large amount of data and are getting close to the Dropbox size limit. Considering Dropbox also uses Amazon cloud storage it will be hard to stay with Dropbox when you can get many of the same features and function for less money.
Then there is poor Bitcasa, who late 2014 announced the removal of unlimited plans and charges $999.00/year for 10TB. Not many people have stuck around with Bitcasa after their consumer collapse in 2014 but there is no reason for anyone to stick with them now that Amazon has an unlimited offer.
The Amazon Cloud Drive Desktop application is compatible with Windows Vista and up, and Mac computers running Mac OS X 10.6 and above. This is the one area that Dropbox has going for them. Dropbox still supports a Linux desktop client, but that is a pretty small percentage of computer users. This move by Amazon could put some serious pressure on Dropbox, Google and Microsoft and it could be the nail in the coffin for some of the smaller services offering cloud storage. After all why pay more when you can get the unlimited from Amazon.
I have already signed up for the trial of the new unlimited Amazon cloud drive and will be posting a review of the service soon. If you are currently trying the service out what is your opinion of the new plans and service from Amazon?
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