While reading Twitter in the last couple of days I stumbled upon an interesting new service that promises to be very interesting to people who feel the need to store their data in the cloud. It is called Bitcasa and if the announcements are true it could be a revolutionizing service in the cloud backup and synchronization space. Bitcasa is currently in beta and offers unlimited storage space for your data in the cloud. The beta is currently for free but they will be offering the service for only $10 per month. This is a very competitive offer especially when you compare it to Dropbox which costs $9.99 per month for only 50 GB.
Get exclusive access to the beta by signing up through this link and tell me your story. Did it work for you? Did you encounter any problems?
I am glad to say that I could sign up for the beta to test the service here for you. Obviously, as this is only a beta, I expected there to be bugs and would not recommend using it right now as your primary backup and synchronization service. However, in my testing Bitcasa performed quite well. And in this Bitcasa review I will talk about the most important facts and problems that might occur with the beta version.
I’ve also included a video which shows you the service in action so that you can consider signing up for the beta if you want to. And if not you can save some time.
Who is behind Bitcasa?
Bitcasa was founded in 2011 by former employees of MasterCard, VeriSign and Mozy. This combination of talent seems to be very promising for Bitcasa’s future. With the experience of having worked at MasterCard and VeriSign I suppose that Bitcasa will strongly put emphasis on the security side of cloud storage. An issue where Dropbox still has some weaknesses. Mozy is a very well known online backup service and this experience cannot harm Bitcasa either.
I’m really looking forward to testing the service and see how the beta works.
Installing Bitcasa
Create a new user or login to your account
Currently, there is only a stable version available for Mac. That’s why I’m going to test it on my iMac and MacbookPro both with the current Lion OS. As expected, installation works very well and without any issues. As Bitcasa has to dig deeply into your system you need your admin password to perform the installation.
After it is installed on your system, you can see a green icon in the top bar of your Mac indicating that Bitcasa is now active. You can create an account or you can sign in with your existing account for example if you install it on a 2nd machine.
How Bitcasa works
Unlike other online backup services, Bitcasa won’t start backing up everything you have on your PC or Mac. You have to select the folders you want to “cloudify”, as it is called by Bitcasa. That is easily done with a right-click selecting “Cloudify this…”. Bitcasa offers “infinite storage on your desktop” by using your hard drive as a smart cache connected to a cloud storage service. I think this is the future as we are not supposed to think in terms of “backups” anymore. Our computers will move to the cloud, accessible everywhere we go. Bitcasa seems like a great start into that world.
Select a folder or hard drive to put your files into the cloud
The selected folder then gets moved into “My Bitcasa Folders”. In the beta, Bitcasa will not delete the files from your system. However, when the final version launches, Bitcasa will delete the files from your system moving them into their cloud. But you can always uncloudify or unmount the files you uploaded. I am not sure whether I like this procedure as I don’t feel comfortable with files being deleted from my system. But I’ll have to see it practice when the final version is being released.
Bitcasa folders - accessible from anywhere
I have uploaded several folders with various files in it from a couple of megabytes to a couple of gigabytes and generally the upload was speedy and everything got backed up successfully. The user interface was easy to understand and even beginners can grasp it very quickly.
Syncing your files with Bitcasa
Unlimited online backup is not new. However, Bitcasa goes beyond that. With Bitcasa you get unlimited online backup and syncing space. Meaning you basically get Dropbox on steroids. You only have to install the Bitcasa client on your systems and start sharing files among them.
In my testing file syncing still did not work flawlessly. I selected the folder and cloudified it but the folder wouldn’t appear instantly on my other Mac. My setup is as follows: I installed Bitcasa on my iMac. Then I installed the client on my MacBookPro as I constantly need to exchange data with those machines.
When I selected the folder to be cloudified I needed to restart Bitcasa on the other machine to get it to notice that another folder has been added. I am sure this is only a beta issue and will get fixed very soon with other versions of Bitcasa.
Sharing files with Bitcasa
Share folders of even hard drives with your peers
You can also share your files among your peers very easily: just click on a folder in the Bitcasa file explorer and hit on “Send this”. A link is being created which will allow other people (who also use Bitcasa) to join the folder you shared with them.
Bitcasa Pros and Cons
It is hard to do a list of pros and cons because the service is still in beta and pretty young. So I expect there to come quite a lot of changes in the next couple of weeks. But I’ll update this review constantly. Here’s a list of pros and cons I encountered during my testing:
Bitcasa Pros
- Unlimited storage in the cloud
- Very easy to use
- Unlimited bandwith
- All OS will be support (currently: Mac beta and Windows Alpha)
- Sync and share folder and also entire hard drives
- Share those folders or drives with other people
- Reserved cache available to load drives faster
- Files are fully encrypted locally
I am sure there are more pros than that but here come a few cons that I noted but could be eliminated with the final version:
Bitcasa Cons
- Web client still very rudimentary
- Advertising with “infinite cloud storage” which could be misleading because it is just not possible. Imagine Amazon wants to store their data at Bitcasa
- Still no file versioning in place to look back
Bitcasa review summary
Well, Bitcasa is still in beta and you defintely notice that. It worked well except the syncing issue where I had to restart the client to reflect the changes on the other machine. But I am sure this will be fixed soon.
All in all, Bitcasa looks very promising to me. For 10$ a month you’ll get unlimited file storage and syncing which I have not seen before on the market and that can be called “disruptive”.
I am very curious to see how Dropbox adapts to that and how the market will change. If you want to try out Bitcasa do so by clicking here which will give you exclusive access to the beta.
Also, I’d be interested if you had the same issue with syncing as I had or other problems we could foward to the developers.
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{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
I loved the idea of Bitcasa and all was excited to hear all of their plans.
I was in euphoria when I got the beta access.
That all changed when I downloaded the actual software.
I know its in beta, but as of now, it doesn’t “cloudify” the most important folders on my computer. There is a list of blacklisted folders in the client so that some specific folders linked/related to the Operating System will not be cloudified due to potential problems.
Most of my data is stored in my Downloads folder on Windows. I was disappointed that it couldn’t be cloudified. So, as of now, I’m out. Plus, as you said, I’m not comfortable with the data being deleted from the system (1. It is just a plan and might change 2. This does not happen during the beta 3.Again, as you said, we must think in terms of cloud computing and not in terms of backups).
I’ll just wait for the beta to get over and give the service another look.
Hi Mauricio,
I’ve just found your site and i’m very impressed with the in-depth reviews you have here.
I wonder if you fancy having another look at Bitcasa 6 months since your review?
Since you first looked at the beta they have changed a few things. Firstly you can change your folders into one of three types now.
“Infinite”
This is what they had in from day one and what you mention in the your review. It’s something that no-one else offers, truly unlimited storage. Some other backup services say they are unlimited but as they just backup your hard drive they are really limited to the size of the disk in your computer. With Bitcasa you can just keep sticking files in your infinite folder and your hard disk never fills up. This one feature is the thing that separates it from the rest (along with unlimited sync) and I think this is the most exciting. I know you mentioned in your review about concerns regarding Bitcasa deleting files from your computer, well now you have an option to keep them on your computer, see below.
“Backup”
This is a more traditional type of backup. Bitcasa simply backs up everything in the folder while leaving the data on the computer. If your computer blows up everything in the folder will be backed in Bitcasa’s storage centre. Bitcasa doesn’t delete files from this type of folder.
“Sync”
Unlimited sync. – Just like Dropbox, files you place in this folder gets synced to your other computers.
I think Bitcasa has the potential to really shake up the market and it sounds really exciting. Of course time will tell.
I’d love to hear what you think if you fancy taking another look at Bitcasa and how you think it compares to the other services you’ve reviewed.
Steve,
Thank you for the update. I was about to decide against it when I read that files would be deleted on my local machine. The idea that you can now choose backup type per folder has made it my cloud storage of choice.