Gladinet

Gladinet Cloud provides some interesting unique niches compared to other online storage services. The most interesting one is the ability to support a variety of online storage services (while most of the others only support Amazon S3 under the hood). It is also interesting to see the drive letter based approach (as compared to full-sync based approach). Third, it is the file server solution that saved my day. We had an aging file server 2003, with gladinet cloud server installed, it helped migrate file server share to online storage.

Product Reviewed: Gladinet Cloud Desktop I was very excited when I read the software's advertisement but quickly became disappointed with the hurdles I had to jump through to make it do what I wanted. There was a heck of a learning curve trying to get Gladinet to do what it is supposed to do easily according to it's advertisements. Very rarely did I get the results I was seeking (if at all). Although I do keep it installed for it's ability to mount my cloud storage folders I ultimately I gave up on the software when it came to automated backup and synchronization from pure frustration. Cons and Complaints (Backup Operations): 1. Google Docs Issue: Had a heck of a time trying to get Gladinet Cloud Desktop to do a Cloud Backup to the directory I wanted in Google Docs. Even though I had previously setup some of the folder structure the way I wanted it in My Google Docs account to match my local storage. Gladinet insisted on creating duplicate directories side by side instead of comparing and synchronizing the one that already existed (very annoying and time consuming to fix manually). They should have a setup wizard or something. Cloud Backup Settings Note: When setting up a backup task in Gladinet Cloud Desktop be sure to realize that if you want to backup say C:/My Files on your computer to a first level folder in Google Docs named "My Backup" to just select Google Docs as the target because Gladinet will create the "My Backup" directory automatically. If you create a directory named "My Backup" in Google Docs and then select it as the backup target then it will create a second level collection called "My Backup" inside of the "My Backup" collection you just created Only solution I found was to fight with it till I got it right but then... 2. BACKUP ISSUE: After nearly a week of uploading I manually logged in and inspected my Google Docs collections to find that all of my backup directories had indeed been created however the files that were supposed to be inside them never arrived! (What the heck was it uploading for a week?) Cons and Complaints (Synchronization Issues): 1. SYNC ISSUE: Files over 2GB are not supported and will result in retry errors. In addition if you have many of these and wish to purge these files from attempting a retry you have to select them individually to do so. If you have dozens of them this could take awhile, UGH! Seems to be no way of telling it to ignore these files on future scheduled backups! I will be contacting support on this issue and will post the results. 2. PICASA ISSUE: Received many pending retry notifications for files that could not sync with Picasa and the software offers no explanation as to why. After contacting support with this error I was informed that sub folders are not supported in Picasa so whatever directory you store your pictures in can only have folders (1) level deep. Any deeper files and folder will result in errors. This is a Picasa limitation NOT a problem with Gladinet Cloud Desktop. After analyzing the folder structure and verifying files are not greater than (1) folder deep I am still receiving a handful of retry notifications for files that can not sync with Picasa. As of yet I have still not figured out why. 3. PICASA ISSUE: Gladinet added a bunch of crap to my Picasa web folders. Grrr. 4. Now I am receiving many dozens of retry notifications for files that can not sync with Google Docs and as with the similar Picasa issue above the software offers no explanation as to why. (I want to add that they seem to be some sort of Gladinet or System file ending in. Db) I will be contacting support on this issue and will post the results. Never mind to time consuming there are better ways to backup than this. 5. Would not allow me to connect to Windows Skydrive though it advertises support for it. From time to time cloud storage providers (like Amazon, Google and Microsoft) change their interface. When this happens it may take Gladinet a few days or so to correct the issue and release a patch which will be auto-detected by your Gladinet software once it's available. One day after having this error a patch was released and everything began working just fine with my Microsoft Skydrive account. Cloud Sync Settings Note: When backing up to Picasa sub folders are not supported so whatever directory you choose can only have folders (1) sub-level deep all other folder and files will result in errors. This is a Picasa limitation NOT a problem with Gladinet Cloud Desktop. 07/07/2011 Verdict: I am no longer going to use Gladinet for backup operations because there are just to many issues I have run into which make it simply unreliable. I will as I said in the opening keep it installed for easy access to my Cloud storage providers.