Special Plan For Cloud Storage

This is generally NOT required, except in rare cases

Your backups generally are transfered to your cloud storage facility automatically, but in rare occasions, the link between the web server and the cloud storage server breaks down.

This is NOT a bug in your website.....  just one of those things which happens from time to time because of a variety of reasons (server busy, DropBox / Drive busy, or a host of other reasons).

Slightly more cost because software needs to be purchased

Normally maintenance is charged at an hourly rate, (and is discounted where multiple hours are purchased in a maintenance plan).

This One Hour Cloud Storage maintenance is however different. 

Effectively, (in this particular case), I am charging $30.00 per hour for the actual work done, the remainder is for me to purchase the software to do the work.

The $130.00 (ex GST), is made up as follows:

• $100.00 to purchase a function to enable FTP (File Transfer Protocol), to be used to access your Cloud Storage (DropBox etc).
  • This costs me USD $70.00, (or AUD $100.00),  then it has to be configured, and the transfer run to move the files.
• $30.00 for me to do the configuration, run the job and test afterwards.

 In the interests of transparency:

• it must be said that there is a free version of this USD $100.00 software, but it is limited both in speed, and in the amount to be transfered, so I have opted to always use the paid version
  • I CAN use this free version (depending on the amount of data you need to transfer), in which case, the maintenance will be at the normal hourly rate, and a normal maintenance plan can be used
• You can do all this stuff yourself without having to pay me for it.....  details are below

How To Do This Yourself

This is quite a simple operation, and can easily be done by you.

Steps required are:

• Start up FileZilla (if you are not familiar with this, I can walk you through it)
• Connect to your web server host computer
• Go to the directory where the relevant files (which you wish to transfer), are stored
• Download on to your local computer, the relevant files you wish to transfer up to your cloud storage (DropBox or whatever), .
• After this has completed, log on to your cloud storage account (DropBox or whatever)
• Go to the relevant directory where you wish to store the files
• Upload the files from your local computer into your cloud storage account (DropBox or whatever), making sure you have the corrent directory!
  • This upload uses the cloud storage 'Upload' facility, and not FileZilla

The Downsides To Doing This Yourself

There are pros and cons of course, doing it yourself will cost you nothing, except your time, but:

• Even though this is straightforward, you still need to have a reasonable understanding of what you are doing
• It will take more or less time, depending on the speed of your internet connection
  • If you have the NBN, this should not be a problem, eg a 5GB file will take around 30 minutes at 20 Mbs  (Mega Bits Per Second), which is a common NBN speed
  • If you DO NOT have NBN, the same 5GB file will take around 166 minutes at 4 Mbs  (Mega Bits Per Second), which is a common ADSL speed
• Both the downloads to your local computer AND the uploads to your cloud storage account, will form part of your Internet Service Provider file quota
  • This may not be an issue as most people have a large quota

So now I think you have all the information you need to make an informed decision on this:

• Do I do it using the fast option at a cost of $130.00
• Do I do it on your behalf, using the free software (slow) option at a cost of $90.00 per hour  (and depending on the amount of data, this may NOT be an option
• Do you do it yourself at a cost of $ 0.00 (zero)

*** There may be exceptions to the above, but these exceptions will be very rare. If they do happen to occur, we will discuss the details as soon as they become known.......  and in all cases, you will not be disadvantaged.