Upthere launches cloud service with a goal to replace your local storage
Apple iCloud, Google Drive, and Microsoft OneDrive are cloud storage services installed by default on our mobile devices. However, these solutions are not always the best fit and serve a primary role as a secondary backup or sync location.
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A new solution just launched yesterday from Upthere that treats the cloud as the primary storage location, intended to replace your hard drive or local mobile storage. We've seen Nextbit attempt to do this with the Nextbit Robin smartphone, but Upthere goes further with support for Windows, MacOS, iOS, and Android.
Upthere was founded by people from Apple, MongoDB, and Oracle. The company just brought its service out of beta testing and announced $77 million in funding from the likes of KPCB and Western Digital.
The Upthere service uses direct write technology, so everything is automatically stored on the cloud, assuming you have a connection. This technology is labeled UpOS, with the first app designated Upthere Home. You can sign up and download the various clients now with a free three-month trial.
I installed Upthere Home on my Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge and selected it to sync my photo gallery while adding music and documents to the Upthere service. So far, performance has been very responsive, and the Android app is easy to use.
Upthere automatically categorizes your content, so you can search by time, location, artist, song, file name, or file type. You can open, edit, and save documents directly from Upthere Home, so you don't have to download it first and then save like you do with other storage solutions.
Organizing and sharing your content easily is also important -- and Upthere has Loops for these tasks. With Loops, you can privately share content with family and friends in full, original quality. You can create Loops for trips, events, and other activities and then open that Loop up so others can share content within that same Loop too.
After the three-month trial, Upthere is priced at just $4.99 per month for 200GB of storage. Each additional 100GB is $1.99 per month. Content that is shared with you does not count toward your storage quote, so the storage allotment is just for your own content.