
Ask HN: How are the new Google Drive/Dropbox plans so cheap? - christiangenco
Several months ago, Dropbox dropped their price[1] to $10&#x2F;month for 1 TB, matching Google Drive[2].<p>But cloud storage providers charge a multiplier more than this:<p>* S3[3] is $0.0220 per GB at scale for reduced redundancy, or $22.53&#x2F;month
* Google Cloud Storage[4] is $0.02&#x2F;GB for reduced redundancy, or $20.48&#x2F;month.
* Microsoft Azure[5] is $0.0224 per GB at scale, or $22.94&#x2F;month.<p>The only cloud provider that comes close is Amazon Glacier[3] at $0.0100 per GB, or $10.24&#x2F;month, but you have to wait 4 hours for your data.<p>These prices are just for <i>storage</i> - not including any transfer to&#x2F;from the user.<p>What am I missing? How in the world can Dropbox and Google charge less than half of what <i>just the raw storage</i> would cost?<p>Is Dropbox taking advantage of most users not actually using their full 1 TB? Are they losing money when someone actually stores that much stuff? Is this some kind of de-duplication magic? Do they have access to a cheaper method of storage than the rest of us?<p>1. https:&#x2F;&#x2F;blog.dropbox.com&#x2F;2014&#x2F;08&#x2F;introducing-more-powerful-dropbox-pro&#x2F;
2. https:&#x2F;&#x2F;support.google.com&#x2F;drive&#x2F;answer&#x2F;2375123?hl=en
3. http:&#x2F;&#x2F;aws.amazon.com&#x2F;s3&#x2F;pricing&#x2F;
4. https:&#x2F;&#x2F;cloud.google.com&#x2F;storage&#x2F;pricing
5. http:&#x2F;&#x2F;azure.microsoft.com&#x2F;en-us&#x2F;pricing&#x2F;details&#x2F;storage&#x2F;
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byoung2
Previous discussion here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8233328](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8233328)

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christiangenco
Ahh excellent - this is exactly what I was looking for. Thank you!

From that discussion, it looks like Dropbox:

1\. probably has lower costs than the published S3 rates

2\. compresses and de-duplicates their data

3\. oversells, so most people must not be using their full 1 TB.

