

Get 50GB of Box free for life - 6thSigma
https://www.box.com/signup/o/dell_50gb_give_get

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rm999
My first thought: I see no reason not to switch over from dropbox, it should
take me about 10 minutes to switch. I could even run both at the same time for
redundancy.

My second thought: from an investing perspective the danger in this space is
the easy commoditization. This will lead to high competition and low profits,
with hopefully some differentiation on quality (especially dependability).

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lloeki
> _I see no reason not to switch over from dropbox_

First thing I did was check for local syncing abilities on the various
platforms: no luck on the Linux front, although they seem to offer WebDAV
access — a far cry from a syncing solution such as Dropbox or AeroFS.

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agiamas
seriously, they probably know it already but no linux client? not that google
( _google_ ) drive is any better but thumbs up for dropbox for being so easy
to use and send to a friend of yours a pic or a zip file...

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sambeau
I wish people would stop offering services 'for life'. They so rarely turn out
to be for life. Having to renege on a 'for life' promise only generates the
worst kind of publicity: justifiably vocal former-customers (even worse:
formerly-happy former-customers).

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iamdann
I've already got a 50GB Box account through a free promo a while ago...but the
account has file size limitations unless you pay for an upgrade. I'd assume
this deal has the same restrictions. I forget the upload size limit, but it
was enough to keep me from actually using them for my personal needs.

I pay $25/year for 25GB of Amazon cloud storage, which includes unlimited
music storage and no upload limits. I'm happy with that deal for now.

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kzrdude
Git Annex can store to it, and it enables automatic file chunking.

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jlgaddis
To Amazon or Box?

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kzrdude
box.com (the chunking thing is part of annex' webdav support)

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solox3
Just a marketing ploy. Box.com, formerly box.net, was initially a free 50GB
offering, until they decided to make their usual offering a special promo
after October 2012.

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mcintyre1994
It's still at the high end of what these services offer, though.

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andrewgjohnson
Signed up, the desktop client seems a lot clunkier than Dropbox (I use Windows
7 for those wondering)

I don't really use any online backup service all that much -- all my docs are
in Google Docs which I guess is Google Drive now and I'm a single dude so I
don't have hoards of kids videos & photos. After seeing this and signing up I
was planning on installing this on my mom's computer (currently she's using
Dropbox -- down to 2GB after not wanting to pay for more than that) but don't
know if I'm going to follow through just because this seems so clunky and un-
intuitive.

Odd, it seems Dropbox somewhat perfected the model of "here's your folder
(it's blue not manilla so you remember which one it is) just put your stuff in
it and we'll back it up online and sync it up with the blue folders on your
other computers" -- the "Default Sync Folder" is a real bummer.

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maccard
Pity that blue manilla folder is the same folder as every other folder on mac

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SoftwareMaven
You can't see the little dropbox icon in the folder? ;) I wish it were a
different color as well; I wind up differentiating by the red 𐄂 and green ✓.

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webwanderings
I would never trust Box. A long time ago (probably when they were starting up)
the service made me realize that you can upload whatever you want for free but
when it comes to download, you'll be SOL.

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buro9
Can you expand on this?

I'm assuming Box isn't a write-only file system as they'd have few customers
if it was.

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webwanderings
As someone else also mentioned it in the thread, my experience was that you
could upload folders/files but when it comes to download back, I could not
download the folders. I gave up the moment I saw that limitation.

Dropbox doesn't have such restrictions, nor do any other such service I have
experienced in the free tier.

~~~
qqg3
Box allows you to download any files or folders. It's better than Dropbox in
one respect because it automatically keeps a certain number of versions of a
file (up to 25 I think) so you can easily backdate to a legacy copy in case of
emergency.

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RubyPinch
Dropbox also has that feature

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compilercreator
Has anyone used Box for personal data? How is the reliability and sync speeds
compared to the competition?

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GotAnyMegadeth
I signed up during a 25GB free deal they had a while a go. I use it along side
Dropbox and Google Drive and as far as I can tell it's as good as either of
those.

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webwanderings
Have you tried downloading back your files? Is it as seamless as Dropbox?

The other day I signed up with SpiderOak (over the recent buzz about security
and all) and luckily I had to share a folder with a friend in another country.
He has the fastest bandwidth available but complained that his connection
would drop during the downloads out of SpiderOak. I switched the content to
Dropbox and he downloaded trouble free in one go.

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mattdeboard
In my experience throughput is much lower on Box. Also there's no desktop
client for Linux.

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digitalabyss
Comparing Box.com with Dropbox is like comparing apples to oranges in my
opinion. I have a 100GB dropbox account for personal use and a enterprise
Box.com account for work. They are two different service aimed at different
markets. Box.com has always primarily been driven by its web interface where I
can count the number of times I have used the dropbox interface on one hand.

In a business environment you cant ask your clients to install software on
their computers in order to share files with you. First off it may not be
allowed by corporate policies or security controls and even if it is allowed
would you install software a vendor asked you to install to accommodate their
workflow? Box.net is absolutely awesome in a business environment and has
allowed me to get rid of insecure FTP servers and clients trying to use their
web browsers as FTP clients and blaming us when they did not work. Box.com
also allows project managers to create and manage permissions on their own
client folders freeing up IT from that task.

In short I would not give up either account.

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nekojima
Only seems worthwhile using and relying on online storage, if you use two or
three completely separate services, all sync'ed. So if one goes down or
disappears without notice, you have backups, and can add another completely
independent service.

Though with bandwidth limits and limited online storage capacity (I've over
200GB of business files, plus 450,000 photos, over 1TB), still appears more
cost effective and efficient to backup to a portable hard drive every few
months anything new and store at a secondary secure location, with online
storage only being used for short periods until that backup is made and a
local drive copy of that backup used on a daily basis.

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ylem
For those with existing free accounts, there was no upgrade in storage limits
(for me, it's 5GB). Of course, it's their choice since it's free, but it
doesn't leave me wanting to upgrade to their paid plan (like I did for dropbox
and sugar sync).

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buro9
On the signup form it says "for friends or co-workers", which implied to me
that this is a free account that you could use for personal or business use.

But it's a personal account, NOT a business one. You can certainly gift it to
a co-worker, but this isn't a way to get 50GB free on a business account with
Box.

So if you were hoping for something cheaper than £11 per person per month to
try the business account with a much lower storage capability... i.e. a Bronze
price point for small businesses and startups to get started on... well...
you're out of luck.

Signed up, but I already have Dropbox for personal stuff so I won't be using
this.

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j_s
Last time I checked, file size is capped at 250mb for the free tier.

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obviouslygreen
This reminds me of a recent "for life" promotion having ended; it was some
kind of virtual server hosting, I think.

Bad advertising, in my opinion; this may or may not mean "free for the life of
the service," which is the best possible case, since they have absolutely no
way to guarantee this thing is available for the life of a user.

~~~
KMag
Well, they do have names and phone numbers. They could ensure the thing is
available for the lifetimes of their users by hiring some assassins. I suppose
technically taking out a hit doesn't guarantee results, but I really wouldn't
argue that technicality with them if they started killing customers.

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manishsharan
Thats a lot of GB. Several times more than my free Dropbox + Google Drive. So
where is the catch ? There has to be one .

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msh
Max file size is 250 megabyte.

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SanjayUttam
Yep...Came here to say the same thing. They also had a 250GB promo a few weeks
ago, but with a 250MB cap...it's really not going to do wonders.

ref: [http://bensbargains.net/deal/25gb-cloud-storage-account-
free...](http://bensbargains.net/deal/25gb-cloud-storage-account-free-at-box-
com-295463/)

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GotAnyMegadeth
I already have a 25GB free account, is there anyway to upgrade it to a 50GB
one?

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tadhgfitzgerald
If you used GMail to sign up you can sign up again with
youraddress+box50@gmail.com

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renatosc
Yes, file size limited to 250mb.

Account type: Personal Storage (used/total): 0B / 50.0GB 0% used Bandwidth
used: 0B of 10.0GB Max file size: 250 MB — Upload files up to 5GB

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Maven911
The 10 gig is the montlhy bandwidth for shared links only, not for personal
downloads:

The bandwidth limitation refers specifically to your usage of shared links in
a given month. Once you reach 10GB you can no longer download via shared links
until the next month

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calvinlough
Why do I have to provide my phone number to sign up?

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KMag
They accepted my Hong Kong phone number, which has a plus in it and has a
different number of digits than a U.S. number. Either they're using better
phone number validation than 95% of sites, or they're not validating the phone
number format at all.

Edit: I was able to activate my account and log in with out getting a txt or
anything, so presumably you could make up a fake phone number with the wrong
number of digits, and no real person would get spammy calls.

You could always try setting your phone number to Bobby'); DROP TABLE STUDENTS
--

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calvinlough
I provided the single digit "1" and they accepted it right away. If they don't
care if you provide a valid phone number I don't see why it should be a
required field.

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jordan_clark
Signed up. Goodbye DropBox. Thanks for posting!

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dbarlett
Two limits of free accounts: no sync agent, and you can't be logged in on two
browser sessions simultaneously.

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yread
I just downloaded a windows sync agent and started syncing 20+GB from an
external disk (symlinked a folder there with junction). Works like a charm

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mladenkovacevic
I already have 50GB from the LG promo by signing up from my Nexus 4. I guess
this is only for new accounts?

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myth
Excellent. I've been trying out Dropbox lately. I will give Box a go and do a
write up comparing both.

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whattttttttt
"For life". More like for 18 months until the company goes bust, taking all
your data with them.

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abhishekg
very doubtful. the company is planning an ipo in less than a year.

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medicine23
probably a reaction to MEGA

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B-Con
It seems to be a promotion with Dell. Dell often has little perks like this
for employees.

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tiredoffps
good for family photos. 250MB file limit...can't really use it for much.

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jmathai
Trovebox lets you supply your own storage accounts, including Box. Proper
photo management and sharing... <https://trovebox.com/for/box>

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junkblocker
Their Android app wants access to all contacts/social information.

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lttlrck
With inflation I hope otherwise its an empty gesture.

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jyothepro
Why phone number is a required field

