10 ms·

Rackspace Reduces Cloud Files Storage Price by 33%

65 points by NARKOZ 14y ago

sakai 14y ago
How long do people think it will take Amazon to match or beat this pricing drop?
- jarito 14y ago
  They dropped their prices in February: http://aws.typepad.com/aws/2012/02/amazon-s3-price-reduction.html http://aws.typepad.com/aws/2012/02/amazon-s3-price-reduction...
mthreat 14y ago
I just wish Amazon and Rackspace would lower the price of RAM on their cloud servers
- Lukeas14 14y ago
  One theory is that cloud hosting providers use memory as a metric to estimate a customer's use of resources that aren't directly paid for (bandwidth, CPU, support, etc). So even though you may be way overpaying for increased memory based on current RAM prices, their data may show that you're much more likely to also use more resources you aren't directly paying for and set the price accordingly.
- maratd 14y ago
  You, me, and every single one of their customers. Who doesn't want lower prices? I wish they had a 128MB option!
- ilaksh 14y ago
  Well you probably know its not really just the RAM you are paying, they just use the RAM amount as a label. If you take a large chunk of RAM, that significantly reduces the number of other users that can go on that machine. Really its the whole service is expensive when you want larger amounts of RAM. Basically I think we are paying for all of their support people and infrastructure and also a healthy profit.
- flyt 14y ago
  RAM is a resource that they can't oversubscribe, so it costs more. If I have an instance with 8x CPU cores they can timeshare CPU time between multiple customers on that physical server, since it's unlikely that all instances will use 100% CPU 100% of the time. However, if I have a server running memcached and a 30GB cache, they can't also cell that RAM to another customer. This limits the amount they can oversell server resources, thus they charge more for it.
jyap 14y ago
Amazon S3 has a more competitive outgoing bandwidth pricing. That works out best for me (lots of small files with small overall storage size but consume lots of bandwidth). You need to ask yourself, what is your main use case? More often than not, if your use case is a web service serving up files over HTTP then Amazon is more competitive. I would say bandwidth would be the greater consideration in most cases for web services. All of their comparison calculations (http://www.rackspace.com/cloud/cloud_hosting_products/files/compare/ http://www.rackspace.com/cloud/cloud_hosting_products/files/...) also include "AWS Gold Support" (which costs an extra $400+/month).
- nolok 14y ago
  Even S3 outgoing price are ridiculously expensive for any kind of significant bandwidth use, that's what CDN are for (and in that area, cloudfront is really not cheap either). I'm a fan of AWS and use a lot of their services, but their bandwith price from them to the outside world are far from the best deal (of course if your bandwith is still calculated in the hundreds of dollars this doesn't apply/matter much). I know you weren't saying the contrary, but still I wanted to point it out.
rb2k_ 14y ago
Is there any backup software similar to Arq[0] that uses Rackspace? [0] Arq: http://www.haystacksoftware.com/arq/ http://www.haystacksoftware.com/arq/
- themynnx 14y ago
  There's always JungleDisk: https://www.jungledisk.com/ https://www.jungledisk.com/
  - bosch 14y ago
    Has there been any development on that lately? They haven't even updated the blog for over a year.
    - krembo 14y ago
      Take a look at http://www.superflexible.com/ http://www.superflexible.com/ it's a great product, updates constantly, and with lots of features. We are using it on our production env.
- sreitshamer 14y ago
  Should Arq use Rackspace (I'm the author of Arq)? So far it's only been using S3 because that has always seemed to me to be the best option.
  - rb2k_ 14y ago
    Seeing as you build your own 'filesystem' on top of a simple key/value interface, I think advancing the backend support might be good 'low hanging fruit'. It doesn't even have to be something as 'cloudy' as rackspace, support for something like webdav as an ARQ backend would also be nice. That being said, I have actually no idea about the codebase and user base, so this could be a completely wrong assumption :) Personally, my biggest 'problem' with Arq at the moment is, that the iPhone client works, but I'm missing stupid small things like thumbnail previews for uploaded images.
  - 14y ago
WiseWeasel 14y ago
I hate to seem ungrateful, but I just wish their bandwidth costs would come down a bit. That said, this is much-appreciated. The object versioning system seems interesting if you haven't rolled your own yet, though I wonder how relying on it might affect your ability to migrate to Amazon.
- shuzchen 14y ago
  S3 has had object versioning since forever (okay, since 2010, but that's eons in the web world) The original announcement is here: http://aws.typepad.com/aws/2010/02/amazon-s3-enhancement-versioning.html http://aws.typepad.com/aws/2010/02/amazon-s3-enhancement-ver... I haven't looked at the RS versioning offering, but I can't imagine it being any different in terms of features of the amazon one.
sandis 14y ago
This is good news. It seems to me that Rackspace Cloud services don't get much publicity compared to AWS, which is a shame. RS is a good alternative and their tech support is great.
ven_shanmugam 14y ago
There are several backup solutions available in the Rackspace Cloud Tools program: http://www.rackspace.com/cloud/tools/category/applications/cloud-files-partners/rackspace-files-online-backup/ http://www.rackspace.com/cloud/tools/category/applications/c... You can leverage these with Rackspace Cloud Files.
- RKearney 14y ago
  Amazon Web Services S3 is still cheaper than Rackspace Cloud so I would still stick with Amazon.
po 14y ago
I often get intermittent SSL errors when speaking to the Rackspace API via python: ssl.SSLError: The read operation timed out I'm not the only one: https://www.google.com/search?q=SSLError+The+read+operation+timed+out+rackspace+cloudfiles https://www.google.com/search?q=SSLError+The+read+operation+... It's not that bad since I just retry it but it's one of the things that makes me wonder what is going on at Rackspace.

65 points by NARKOZ 14y ago

sakai 14y ago

How long do people think it will take Amazon to match or beat this pricing drop?

jarito 14y ago
They dropped their prices in February: http://aws.typepad.com/aws/2012/02/amazon-s3-price-reduction.html http://aws.typepad.com/aws/2012/02/amazon-s3-price-reduction...

mthreat 14y ago

I just wish Amazon and Rackspace would lower the price of RAM on their cloud servers

Lukeas14 14y ago
One theory is that cloud hosting providers use memory as a metric to estimate a customer's use of resources that aren't directly paid for (bandwidth, CPU, support, etc). So even though you may be way overpaying for increased memory based on current RAM prices, their data may show that you're much more likely to also use more resources you aren't directly paying for and set the price accordingly.
maratd 14y ago
You, me, and every single one of their customers. Who doesn't want lower prices? I wish they had a 128MB option!
ilaksh 14y ago
Well you probably know its not really just the RAM you are paying, they just use the RAM amount as a label. If you take a large chunk of RAM, that significantly reduces the number of other users that can go on that machine. Really its the whole service is expensive when you want larger amounts of RAM. Basically I think we are paying for all of their support people and infrastructure and also a healthy profit.
flyt 14y ago
RAM is a resource that they can't oversubscribe, so it costs more. If I have an instance with 8x CPU cores they can timeshare CPU time between multiple customers on that physical server, since it's unlikely that all instances will use 100% CPU 100% of the time. However, if I have a server running memcached and a 30GB cache, they can't also cell that RAM to another customer. This limits the amount they can oversell server resources, thus they charge more for it.

jyap 14y ago

Amazon S3 has a more competitive outgoing bandwidth pricing. That works out best for me (lots of small files with small overall storage size but consume lots of bandwidth). You need to ask yourself, what is your main use case? More often than not, if your use case is a web service serving up files over HTTP then Amazon is more competitive. I would say bandwidth would be the greater consideration in most cases for web services. All of their comparison calculations (http://www.rackspace.com/cloud/cloud_hosting_products/files/compare/ http://www.rackspace.com/cloud/cloud_hosting_products/files/...) also include "AWS Gold Support" (which costs an extra $400+/month).

nolok 14y ago
Even S3 outgoing price are ridiculously expensive for any kind of significant bandwidth use, that's what CDN are for (and in that area, cloudfront is really not cheap either). I'm a fan of AWS and use a lot of their services, but their bandwith price from them to the outside world are far from the best deal (of course if your bandwith is still calculated in the hundreds of dollars this doesn't apply/matter much). I know you weren't saying the contrary, but still I wanted to point it out.

rb2k_ 14y ago

Is there any backup software similar to Arq[0] that uses Rackspace? [0] Arq: http://www.haystacksoftware.com/arq/ http://www.haystacksoftware.com/arq/

themynnx 14y ago
There's always JungleDisk: https://www.jungledisk.com/ https://www.jungledisk.com/
- bosch 14y ago
  Has there been any development on that lately? They haven't even updated the blog for over a year.
  - krembo 14y ago
    Take a look at http://www.superflexible.com/ http://www.superflexible.com/ it's a great product, updates constantly, and with lots of features. We are using it on our production env.
sreitshamer 14y ago
Should Arq use Rackspace (I'm the author of Arq)? So far it's only been using S3 because that has always seemed to me to be the best option.
- rb2k_ 14y ago
  Seeing as you build your own 'filesystem' on top of a simple key/value interface, I think advancing the backend support might be good 'low hanging fruit'. It doesn't even have to be something as 'cloudy' as rackspace, support for something like webdav as an ARQ backend would also be nice. That being said, I have actually no idea about the codebase and user base, so this could be a completely wrong assumption :) Personally, my biggest 'problem' with Arq at the moment is, that the iPhone client works, but I'm missing stupid small things like thumbnail previews for uploaded images.
- 14y ago

WiseWeasel 14y ago

I hate to seem ungrateful, but I just wish their bandwidth costs would come down a bit. That said, this is much-appreciated. The object versioning system seems interesting if you haven't rolled your own yet, though I wonder how relying on it might affect your ability to migrate to Amazon.

shuzchen 14y ago
S3 has had object versioning since forever (okay, since 2010, but that's eons in the web world) The original announcement is here: http://aws.typepad.com/aws/2010/02/amazon-s3-enhancement-versioning.html http://aws.typepad.com/aws/2010/02/amazon-s3-enhancement-ver... I haven't looked at the RS versioning offering, but I can't imagine it being any different in terms of features of the amazon one.

sandis 14y ago

This is good news. It seems to me that Rackspace Cloud services don't get much publicity compared to AWS, which is a shame. RS is a good alternative and their tech support is great.

ven_shanmugam 14y ago

There are several backup solutions available in the Rackspace Cloud Tools program: http://www.rackspace.com/cloud/tools/category/applications/cloud-files-partners/rackspace-files-online-backup/ http://www.rackspace.com/cloud/tools/category/applications/c... You can leverage these with Rackspace Cloud Files.

RKearney 14y ago
Amazon Web Services S3 is still cheaper than Rackspace Cloud so I would still stick with Amazon.

po 14y ago

I often get intermittent SSL errors when speaking to the Rackspace API via python: ssl.SSLError: The read operation timed out I'm not the only one: https://www.google.com/search?q=SSLError+The+read+operation+timed+out+rackspace+cloudfiles https://www.google.com/search?q=SSLError+The+read+operation+... It's not that bad since I just retry it but it's one of the things that makes me wonder what is going on at Rackspace.