Other providers offer MUCH better service
Review Elephant drive so I thought I would try stack-social offer Elephant drive, 1 TB for 2 years. Big mistake. I guess you get what you pay for… Multiple problems/issues. 1. not very intuitive setup, unlike some other cloud services where one does not need to read through reams of „help pages“ 2. one of the key things really should be cloud backup, and one should be able to choose for example a new cloud folder where the local backup goes to. That is impossible as one only has 2 options in folders, either equivalent to a directory on my local PC (but then it becomes an endless "directory chain" and you have to click through, for example PC/local/File/path to file/backup/folder etc to get to your files) or to „everywhere“. also seems impossible just to move one folder in the cloud drive into another, I can “delete” a folder, upload or download but not move – why is that? The problem with „everywhere is that it seems that there is always/by default 2-way sync. So if I upload a folder with data from local „everywhere“ folder to the cloud, but then don't need the local folder any more and delete it from the local folder it also seems to disappear in the cloud – after longer searching I found it in “archive” – which is risky because data in “archive” get deleted unless you specify for them never to get deleted! No way of changing this. - other providers have up to 5 options of sync: - local to cloud, - cloud to local, - sync local and cloud folders (ie keep both in sync), - local backup, - cloud backup, ..... why not here too? 3. File size limit, other providers have huge files size limit , here it is 10GB, why? If I create for example zipped archive of data… that can easily exceed 10GB. Perhaps only plus is that they have a Linux desktop app , but other providers have a much better functionality for their Linux app. In that context, the Linux app only comes as .deb package, other providers for example have an appimage (safer imho). Coming back to the app: For example if I want to upload a folder to the cloud, - ie separate from the „established“ backups - I need to use both app and website for this. For a functional app that should not be necessary, ie just do this from within the app without needing to log into the website as well. 5. Following on from this issue - needing both the app and accessing Elephant drive via browser for it to function - the whole thing is very buggy, for example just tried to download a folder, get error message “In order to transfer files securely, you need to install the ElephantDrive application.“ - well I have got news for Elephant Drive, this application has been installed and is running! Still this error message persists, meaning I am unable to download a cloud folder on this occasion! needed to log out, log in etc then it worked. also, there is no way of previewing files on the cloud - a functionality many other providers have. 4. other providers have a useful “Transfer manager” which shows progress of upload/download and a rough idea re ETA. I accept Elephant drive have a very very basic transfer manager but seems the actual transfer manager was not always visible and "disappears", for example if going on another tab of their website. With other cloud providers one can stop/resume backup but that does not appear to be possible, only to cancel altogether. Also, no indication if up- or download is going to take 20 mins, 2 hours or 20 hours…. Why is that? 5. Also, for info, testing Cryptomator – unlike with other cloud providers – leads to errors/inability to open a downloaded Cryptomator archive. 6. Support - while quick, I felt my queries not answered, for example regarding above issue of various backup options/sync options, I was just sent the same link to their website 3 times which fails to answer my queries probably 2 out of the 3 times. So have just cancelled the account , will ask for stacksocial refund , not sure if that is going to happen. wish me luck...(update - I did not get a refund but a credit for further purchases at stacksocial) I have used a number of cloud providers, currently am regularly using around 3-4 others, which are much clearer, better developed with significant better functionality, much easier to use, having a more modern interface - unlike Elephant drive where their interface does not appear to have been updated in the past 5-10 years! Suggest look elsewhere!
By TrustCrashPilot