Space Monkey: Dropbox meets BitTorrent for peer-to-peer cloud storage | The Verge
Space Monkey: Dropbox meets BitTorrent for peer-to-peer cloud storage
By Sam Byford 03.08.2012
Space Monkey is a new cloud storage service that has some pretty cool ideas about how to serve you up your files. Instead of storing them on its own server for Dropbox-style remote access, it puts a free 1-terabyte hard drive right inside your home and lets you access the data from mobile apps or connected computers. Where the service really gets innovative is in its application of peer-to-peer concepts to data storage — that 1-terabyte hard drive actually has twice the capacity, with the other half being dedicated to storing other users' files. Data is broken up into little chunks like BitTorrent, and when you want to download a file remotely the service will hook you up with the peers closest to you.
You'd think this might be a security risk, but the company is adamant that it's kept things safe with strong encryption. It also results in cost savings, as the bandwidth usage is passed onto users and there's less need for huge server farms. How much? You'll be paying $10 a month when the service launches this summer — as company co-founder Alen Peacock puts it, "half what Dropbox costs with 10 times the storage." That's assuming you go for Dropbox's most expensive 100GB plan, of course, and we're not sure Space Monkey will be able to tempt away many of the free users, but those looking for high capacity cloud storage at a low price may well find this new player to be an intriguing proposition.
