SpiderOak

Review

Positives

I've used SpiderOak for quite a while, and I've found it to be a good service. If what the company says is true, it's very secure. The client seems reliable enough to actually perform the backing up, although its functionality could be improved. It automatically monitors and backs up your files while it's running, but it doesn't run on OS start-up by default. You can also access your files via the website, which is useful if you aren't at your computer.

The standard 2GB of free data is great for a moderate amount of documents, settings and the like, but it's not really well suited for music, videos, and other large data sources. You can increase this to 10GB by referring others to sign up. The referral program benefits both users; a referrer and referee both gain one gigabyte for a referral. If you want more than 10GB of storage, you'll have to pay for a subscription.

Negatives

However, there is also a noteworthy problem with the synchronisation functionality: in the case of conflicts, you lose data without any notification, warning or confirmation. Because of this, I recommend you don't use the service for synchronisation unless you are willing to risk data loss.

I have noticed some bugs in the Windows client. Once I exceeded my quota. When I tried to remove some backed up files and configure the client to stop backing up some folders, it would not let me because I had exceeded my quota. Obviously this is very counter-intuitive, but I was able to work around it with a bit of fiddling around, including re-opening the client. Another problem is I've spotted the client running at 100% CPU usage for very long amounts of time on one computer.

Conclusion

Overall, I've been happy with the service since it's free and apparently secure despite the client software's shortcomings.

Free 7GB

Similar to an earlier comment by another poster, here is a currently working method to create a new free account with 7GB of storage (instead of the normal 2GB):

1. Sign up using this referral link. This causes both of us to gain an additional gigabyte. (Alternatively, use someone else's referral link. If you don't use any referral link, you and someone else miss out on the potential gigabyte each.)
2. Use the Freedom4 promotional code:
   1. Sign in on the website.
   2. Go to the Account menu option.
   3. Click Buy More Space.
   4. Click Upgrade My Plan.
   5. Enter Freedom4 in the Promo Code box.
   6. Click Update.
   7. Ensure Monthly Billing is set to 6 Gigs: Free.
   8. Click Next.
   9. Click Confirm.

Since 2012 you can get up to 10 GB free online storage instead of only 7GB until May 2011

When you refer a friend to SpiderOak then you and your friend get an additional free GB of space. The more friends who join SpiderOak the more space you receive. The program is open to both free and paid users - allowing you to earn up to 10 GBs of FREE storage! This free online storage you can get is more tahn with with Google Drive (5GB) or Microsoft Live SkyDrive (7GB) ! Details see https://spideroak.com/referral/ . This is no referral link, only an information about this good referral conditions.

The biggest disadvantage of Spider Oak compared with dropbox:

SpiderOak needs an installation with admin rights, no portable SpiderOak-app is available. If you need a portable app, you must use Dropbox, and you also can get max. 10GB free online storage. TeamDrive is also available as a portable app, but in difference to DropBox I have the experience, that is does not work over a proxy in our company network and you can get max. 2.25 GB free online storage.

I used it before reading any controversial review, so I was not aware of users having difficulties with it: and I find none -- except for an initial uncertainty that I'll mention later. I've been using on five PCs, ranging from very old ones, to quite new ones, from desktop to laptops, and with two different Linux distributions, Windows XP x86, to Windows 7 x64, and I shared some hundreds MiB of data among all them, without any issue. I found the 'zero-knowledge' feature to be very important, as in the backed-up data I could have had a few sensitive ones, so that was very desirable.

The only initial difficulty I had was about syncing, that I didn't realize was first to set up as back-up, and after that to flag as a sync. Maybe that could be made more clear in the user interface, or in a quick setup documentation. Another drawback can be memory usage, that I find to be relatively "higher than expected", at around 70-80 MiB of RAM on a Linux Mint DE machine.

In the end I found it to be well working, not intrusive on computer's performance, and hassle free in using it on different platforms. Those were my requirements, with a need of exchanging less than 1 GiB of data, so the free version did perform pretty well for me.

I had high hopes due to price and encryption policy, but SpiderOak seems to be a mess. I tried to add under 2GB to my free 2GB account, and it estimated the files were actually 10GB. It uploaded flawlessly to Dropbox free 2GB account. With SpiderOak, I had to babysit it, uploading a few folders or files at a time so it wouldn't think I was going over my limit and ask me to purchase more space. If they don't know how to write a program that traverses a directory structure and does simple addition, then I don't really trust any of their technology.

Also, the Win7 GUI application is very slow - every time I switch to it it says "not responding" for a while.

Hi

You may also want to try free remote PC control software like Ammyy Admin or Logmein which allow to remote access files to a distant PC without need for synchronization.

As for me such approach seems a way more convienient and easy.

Hope it'll help. Regards

SpiderOak not only backs up your files and synchronizes them from anywhere, seamlessly, but it is also a Zero-Knowledge application.

I love the peace of mind that comes from knowing that no one, not even the service owners, can access my remote files but me. Did I mention the "share rooms" for clients or family members? Overall, it just seems more sophisticated than I have come to expect.

Best of all, though, Zero-Knowledge products like spideroak and clipperz are slowly putting control of data on the cloud back where it belongs: with the user. Products like these help to lessen the ownership of our personal data by myriad different national corporations.

It still has some rough edges, according to other users. Though I have had no problems on my 3 linux machines, many report that though the restore process works it is still much less than seamless.

Still, I cast my lot with the Zero-Knowledge applications.

:Nate

This has most of the features that Dropbox/Sugar Sync has with the exception of smartphone apps. The reason you would WANT this is total security. Dropbox has recently announced they own your data and can access it willingly(when they previously for years lied and said they couldnt).

Sugarsync has the same basic scheme for privacy and security.

SpiderOak's encryption is handled ON YOUR PC, your password is stored there as well, the spideroak staff cannot access your data based on this method giving you as complete privacy as possible.

Use my referral link so you and I gain a free GB of space based on the referral system: https://spideroak.com/download/referral/2346b1dd333cc910a91406ff74925463