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Google Music "cloud storage"

JimmyNeutron

JimmyNeutron

Super Member
So I was finally able to upload 20,000 songs up to Google's music cloud storage. It only took a whole week to do :yes: . 20,000 songs is about 600 gigs of FLAC CDs. Its not my entire library so I had to choose 600 of my more listened to albums. Pretty nifty service. You get to store 20,000 of your songs on Google's cloud for free, and for life. Not bad. Now my music that I uploaded to the cloud is in FLAC but Google downconverts the music to 320k for playback on your device. This is kind of a bummer at first glance but in reality its not so bad. I use my smartphone to access and listen to my music in the "cloud" while I'm at the gym, doing yard work, or riding my bike, and having any higher resolution really is not noticeable. Besides, 320k still sounds pretty darn good. Google has said that later on they will allow full FLAC downloads possible. Still, I thought my 160 gig iPod held a lot of music, but 600 gigs? Incredible. Sound quality is every bit as good as a 320k file played directly off your PC. Access is fast with Google's music player available from the Android store, and playback is pretty flawless. I've not had any buffering issues so far. Just imagine the possibilities. :thmbsp:

Jimmy
 
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yep, I'm a fan, been using it since the 'beta' days. The 20k limit sucks.

I am now uploading to my 'other' google account, because I max'd out the main one. Sheeit, I've got 12,000 Grateful Dead tracks alone! fidelity wise, it's as good(or better) as my ipod with 256k mp3's. Ain't wavs, but lets be honest, unless in a optimal location, mp3's are just fine. (on my main system, however, mp3's sound like, well, mp3's) I don't hear any major compression/ringing/flanging on any of my classical music, which was all encoded with Lame at 256k VBR or CBR. I've not had any buffering issues, whatever software/hardware google is using,,,, works!

One hint, watch your consumption if you aren't using wi-fi, I ran into the 3 gig throttle halfway through my billing cycle last month, unlimited, my ass.
 
I don't know if I'd be interested unless it's just as a back up.

Tell me, you can send it from your harddrive to the cloud but can you send it from the cloud to your harddrive? If not, I'm not interested.
 
Useless for me, I have a 2gb limit on my data use age, I would use that up quick.

Still a cool idea though.
 
I've just started to upload the music from my harddrive. I can then delete all the mp3's and make more room for downloads. Thanks for the heads up!:music:
 
I can't wait for the commercials that will accompany free playback.

I remember when YouTube was commercial free.
 
RamblinE said:
I don't know if I'd be interested unless it's just as a back up.

Tell me, you can send it from your harddrive to the cloud but can you send it from the cloud to your harddrive? If not, I'm not interested.
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From what I understand it is backup. You are able to download your music back again. Still, this is a good question because I've not seen, actually I've not looked for, the ability to easily download your complete untouched files again. And to be honest I've not actually read where this is the case. I need to go back to the description and read it thoroughly this time :D .

And another point about your data usage, how fast can you burn thru your data limit? So far I've only been using it about 99% of the time over Wi-Fi so I've not used any of my 2 gig data limit yet. Does anyone know how easy it is to burn through? This disinterested mentioned at all in the Google description but others have read that 'somehow" you don't actually download the whole file making your data usage much smaller. Is this true? Anyone know how this actually works? I can only imagine listening to about 20 albums before reaching my limit.

Think of the implications that these cloud services have. You now don't need to have that iPod with you anymore (for the most part and for most people anyway) or hi-capacity storage cards or hard drives to hold your music or data. I have 7 terrabytes in my home network right now filled with music, movies, and data. I wonder how long before I won't even need any storage here in my home?

Jimmy
 
js1138 said:
I can't wait for the commercials that will accompany free playback.

I remember when YouTube was commercial free.
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Good point. Well Google has to make its money somehow. Besides, it is free :thmbsp: . I guess they will offer a paid commercial free service if this ever comes to be. Personally, I don't mind the commercials. In this type of data cloud storage the commercials would be "invisible" to music playback. Already the playback software has commercial ads.

Jimmy
 
No thanks. Sooner or later cloud storage won't be free or will be full of commercials. I'll keep my stuff stored at home where I'll always be able to access it for free without commercial interruption.

Having to endure commercials when listening to my own music is something I'm not going to put up with. Besides, I have no desire/need to access all my data while I'm on the go.
 
JoeESP9 said:
No thanks. Sooner or later cloud storage won't be free or will be full of commercials. I'll keep my stuff stored at home where I'll always be able to access it for free without commercial interruption.

Having to endure commercials when listening to my own music is something I'm not going to put up with.
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Lol. I don't think the commercials will or can be played as you are actually listening to your music. The commercial ads are usually on the interface of the web site or the player just like any other ad enabled service.

Jimmy
 
JimmyNeutron said:
Lol. I don't think the commercials will or can be played as you are actually listening to your music. The commercial ads are usually on the interface of the web site or the player just like any other ad enabled service.

Jimmy
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I sorta figured it was that way. I just don't want commercials to accompany music that I own.:nono:
 
JoeESP9 said:
No thanks. Sooner or later cloud storage won't be free or will be full of commercials. I'll keep my stuff stored at home where I'll always be able to access it for free without commercial interruption.

Having to endure commercials when listening to my own music is something I'm not going to put up with. Besides, I have no desire/need to access all my data while I'm on the go.
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Yea. Its true that I also will always want to have my physical media with me....but.....I love the fact of having access to every one of my music files anywhere I am. If I'm visiting my family across town or across the country....my music is there. If I'm working out at the gym......there it is. If I have to leave in a hurry somewhere.....my music will be there too. I no longer have to buy SD cards to store a few hundred CDs, or buy that bigger iPod, or carry several SD cards, or even remember to take my iPod. All I need is my phone, a pair of headphones, and access to either Wi-Fi or a cell tower and my entire music collection will always follow me. And that's just the convenience aspect of it. What if my hard drives take a dump? Or are stolen? This cloud service ensures that I can always download them again.

Sweet. :thmbsp:

Jimmy
 
Pretty cool idea if you're "on the go" and for backup. I wouldn't erase my local storage though.

That being said, I like to have a hard copy of everything I own.

I still buy CD's then put them on my hard drives in wav format.

I just bought another 1 tb HDD, that brings me to 3.3 TB of storage (the .3 is a dedicated C drive).
 
jhal,

i'm with you owning the music and storing and backing up locally is the only way to go. The Cloud will eventually go "poof".:thmbsp:
 
WattNot said:
jhal,

i'm with you owning the music and storing and backing up locally is the only way to go. The Cloud will eventually go "poof".:thmbsp:
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I'm an old school IT guy. My attitude is "clouds" eventually dump on you or dissipate with changing weather. And try to collect a cloud in a small container. It can't be done. :no:
 
WattNot said:
jhal,
The Cloud will eventually go "poof".:thmbsp:
Click to expand...

So do hard drives.....all the time. But I agree with you. I think I just feel more comfortable knowing that I have the backup in my possession, whether its several hard drives, or SSD's, or Blue Ray backups. But as far as convenience goes, I'm really becoming a firm proponent of on-line storage/back up/retrieval. It just makes things so much more simpler, and whether we like like it or not this is where we are headed. The improvements will only get better.

Has anyone been keeping up with this whole Pirate Bay thing? Without going into it I read that the government, after shutting down the Pirate Bay, hired another on-line storage company to hold and allow the owners of the software the chance to retrieve their data. The reason I bring this up is because if Google goes belly up tomorrow, for whatever reason, I'm pretty sure the government, or a back up company hired by Google, would store all the members files and allow them to download them back to their home PC's. I just don't think its as easy as we think that our data could/would be lost. I'm sure steps were taken to prevent this from happening. Having a reliable cloud based storage medium is the whole point of moving from physical forms of back up to a cloud based form.

Jimmy
 
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