Jul 07 AT 1:14 PM Anthony Domanico 16 Comments

Amazon Cloud Player offering unlimited music storage for paid Cloud Drive customers

In an attempt to differentiate itself from the plethora of cloud-based music services hitting the net lately, Amazon is now offering unlimited storage space for MP3 and AAC music files for all persons who purchase a paid Cloud Drive account. Cloud Drive is a cloud storage system that allows you to upload many types of files to be stored on Amazon’s servers rather than your personal hard drive.

Amazon currently offers a free, 5GB storage option for Cloud Drive, with premium plans starting at $20 per year for 20GB of cloud storage. If you have a music collection that won’t fit into a measly 5GBs, Amazon offers the following pricing plans:

20GB – $20/year
50GB – $50/year
100GB – $100/year
200GB – $200/year
500GB – $500/yaer
1,000GB – $1,000/year

If you’ve already purchased any of these premium options, you’ll be grandfathered into the unlimited music storage the next time you launch Amazon’s Cloud Player.

Personally, being an Amazon Prime member coupled with some of the issues that have plagued Google’s Music Beta, I’ve already made the plunge and purchased the 20GB plan to house my 12+GB music library.

But that’s just my choice. We want to hear from you. Which cloud-based music service do you prefer? Is the offer of unlimited music storage enough to drive you into Amazon’s customer base? Sound off in the comments.

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16 Comments Join the discussion!

0 erickallen 07/07/11 1:55 PM

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Apparently this counts if you got the 20GB with album purchase deal previously.

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- 99 Anthony Domanico 07/07/11 2:04 PM
  
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  Yes, but will probably not continue if you don’t keep the 20Gb services.
  
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4 thered 07/07/11 2:10 PM

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I am actually really pleased with Google Music. It has a few glitches here and there, but I’ve never experienced anything that is prolonged or severely detrimental to my listening experience–particularly when you take into account the service is still in Beta and is completely free. It’s been my primary music service on the go, at work and at home for several weeks now.

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- 99 Anthony Domanico 07/07/11 2:18 PM
  
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  My problem with Google Music is that the upload service just seemed to not go over well. It successfully uploaded about 1500 of my 2000-song music collection, whereas Amazon took 1975.
  
  Also, I wonder how long Google music will remain completely free. At some point will they begin to offered tiered solutions like Amazon, or will it go the route of pandora/slacker and put ads after every 4 or 5 songs.
  
  Not to mention the lack of being able to purchase new content directly.
  
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  - 4 thered 07/07/11 2:57 PM
    
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    Yeah, I can see your point. My main problem when I was doing my initial uploading was it took almost A WEEK to upload my 7,200+ songs (and I have a very fast connection, downloads often top out over 2.1 Mbps). I had the same problem as you, in that it would not upload certain files (presumably because they were an unsupported format). I haven’t noticed anything missing that I really care about though, so I’m actually OK with that.
    
    As for it eventually being a paid service…yeah, I have a feeling it will, and that will sort of suck. I have the same fear with Google Voice, since I use that as my primary number now, but I guess I’ll just have to cross that bridge when I come to it.
    
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    - KthanidGuest 07/15/11 3:37 PM
      
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      @thered
      
      You are aware that how fast your downstream rate might be is completely irrelevant and completely distinct from your upstream rate (which is very likely a small fraction of the former), right? That aside, even for a downstream rate 2.1Mbps is fairly slow by modern standards (I’d peg your upstream rate at around 256Kbps based on the splits most large scale providers are offering for basic home packages).
      
      Assuming 256Kbps upstream, this would actually translate to around 25kb/sec of actual data… based on that speed I’d say you were darn lucky to have finished 7200+ songs in a single week.
      
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JayMonsterGuest 07/07/11 2:26 PM

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I just look at it this way. It is like getting Dropbox, but at a third of the price, and the music service comes along for free. Now if they just had a dropbox like app, it would be the end of DropBox, Box.Net and others.

It is also cheaper than iCloud, and you can store pictures there without worrying about them disappearing because Steve Jobs has decided nobody needs pictures online more than 30 days.

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TheOrtizGuest 07/07/11 2:30 PM

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I haven’t had the chance to beta test Google’s Music thing but I jumped on the Amazon bandwagon today ($20 plan) and am loving it! Plays well on both my Samsung Epic and laptop. Every song uploads smoothly and downloading them to a different device is nice.

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EricGuest 07/07/11 2:54 PM

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No cloud music player is as flawless as AudioGalaxy. Rather than uploading to a cloud, they stream music directly from your hard drive. Of course your computer has to be on, but if you’re like me and have a desktop pc that is always on, then this service can’t be beat.

The UI is better than Google Music or Amazon MP3 and the reliability of streaming is better than any cloud or music streaming service out there (including Pandora & slacker). Audiogalaxy streams flawlessly even on Edge. I listened to my music all the way from Sacramento, CA to Long Beach, CA – that’s 6 hours of driving through farmlands and mountains and cities – and it NEVER skipped a beat!

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- 99 Anthony Domanico 07/07/11 3:24 PM
  
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  My desktop is of the “usually off” variety
  
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- MarkGuest 07/09/11 6:11 PM
  
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  If for some reason, a family member disconnects the ethernet cable, power goes out or the pc randomly shuts down, you’re left in the dark without your files or music.
  
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MaxGuest 07/07/11 5:52 PM

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still not enough integration like google music

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DaveGuest 07/08/11 2:32 PM

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$20 a year isn’t bad at all. Now if only the data plans & battery lie of Android’s could compensate that, that would make it all the worth while.

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Ivan SamuelsonGuest 07/11/11 7:15 AM

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When you purchase music from Amazon from their MP3 store, all of your purchases are automatically stored in the cloud and it doesn’t count against your free 5 gb (or your paid GB) storage at all.

You can keep your music in the cloud and listen to it from there, or download it as many times as you want/need. Once downloaded, it’s still available to listen to from the cloud.

Not bad.

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Lily FroelicherGuest 07/12/11 6:13 AM

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Im not satisfied with Google Music and I don’t think Apple is offering a good deal. Amazon is the way forward, and I think it will win this sector.
http://cloudtechsite.com/news/amazon-cloud-offers-unlimited-music-to-combat-google-apple.html

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D. wilsonGuest 09/02/11 10:40 AM

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Unlimited cloud space is definitely enough to make me switch

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