Symform is trying to let you pay way more than advertised

Frank_Pohle
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Re: Symform is trying to let you pay way more than advertise

Post by Frank_Pohle »

Sorry symform....

Eyechatching "up to 200gb free" - in reality i have 10gb free
everything larger is only possible if the user INVEST his own material or money.....

http://www.symform.com/free-cloud-storage.aspx
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Crush
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Re: Symform is trying to let you pay way more than advertise

Post by Crush »

As we say here, this deal is a 'nice little earner' for the people behind Symform.
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dwdp
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Re: Symform is trying to let you pay way more than advertise

Post by dwdp »

This post is upsetting me and I am definitively considering killing Symform app, also beacause of
- Very low contractual warranties
- Very low performance (less than 0,3Mbps), even on fast hardware (TS-459U-RP+) and connectivity (10/10Mbps fiber).
Hope something may change soon.
SympleKaos
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Re: Symform is trying to let you pay way more than advertise

Post by SympleKaos »

Just wanted to say thanks to all that contributed to this thread. As a new owner I found it very helpful.

Symform- Don't bait and switch. Just tell people what the pricing structure is and how to get more "free" storage. Transparency builds trust and it's pretty clear that you're not very transparent.

As for me, I'm skipping this service.
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Symform
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Re: Symform is trying to let you pay way more than advertise

Post by Symform »

Thanks for feedback everyone. Again, we are not trying to "bait and switch" anyone, or create a lot of confusion around our offering. We've recently updated our website (right on our main page http://www.symform.com/ and http://www.symform.com/free-cloud-storage.aspx) to clearly show that we will start you off with 10GB for free and get up to 200GB free with referrals and contribution based on everyone's feedback in the forum.

We want to thank everyone for voicing your concerns and helping us improve our messaging and marketing efforts!
Symform Support Team

Symform, inc.
jameswatson3
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Re: Symform is trying to let you pay way more than advertise

Post by jameswatson3 »

This is kind of an interesting business model. I have 180G free currently on my NAS. If I can exchange something I already have, but am not using for something I want, that sounds rather attractive. Especially since I can take back (I can right?) my contributed storage at any time if I change my mind.

I have no objection to the marketing finer points or the concept of "spending" my unsused storage to buy a smaller amount of cloud backup storage. My main concern is the reliability / stability of the service compared to an Amazon S3 for example. I mean how does this service stay in business if everyone uses the service like me - ie "pays" nothing but storage? However, since I'm only using it for backup, it's less of a concern. I'm also curious about the load put on my disks and how I would measure that as that could change the "cost" equation dramatically.

I think I'm going to try this.
narkeeso
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Re: Symform is trying to let you pay way more than advertise

Post by narkeeso »

I was very interested in this business model until I saw the prices. It just doesn't make sense that I am contributing power and space for more money than something like Crashplan. Also, the upload speeds are horrendous and the uploads lock up constantly. This is not a good start for a great idea. Perhaps, I'll revisit in a couple years to see if they've made improvements but I'm out this round.
int21h
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Re: Symform is trying to let you pay way more than advertise

Post by int21h »

Wow, I wish I read this before I invested so much time into getting this product to work. Since Symform read this forum and appreciate feedback, perhaps i will share my thoughts.

1. Love the idea to be able to obtain free space by contributing some of my storage. However after finding out the software and process is painful, i'd rather pay for a service that works.

2. The pricing model for price per drive is a joke. I only have 33gb of photos that I want backed up to the cloud but my NAS is made of 6x 500gb drives. Which means the cheapest plan is $550 a year for a lot of storage that I don't need.

3. To speed up the initial data upload, I tried taking advantage of uploading my data from a very fast connection at my work. However we try to direct most traffic through our proxy server. Although I have the ability to bypass the proxy, I was still not able to get the software to upload the data on many different workstations. I believe this is because we have auto-proxy/wpad configured and the Symform software detects this and just assumes this is the only path to the Internet. From here I tried some other devices and upload the data through a dedicated ADSL connection which ended up with different error messages.

4. I haven't tried contacting to support because both the software and website channel you to posting your problems into a public forum. If you do some browsing on their website you can contact them by email/phone, but after all the problems i've ran into, i'm not sure how much time i want to waste on trying to get it to work.

5. I have managed to get some data uploaded via my NAS, but it is extremely slow and unstable. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn't. This turns me away from even considering paying anything for this type of service.

All that being said, if Symform revamp their pricing and fix their speed issues, I'd look at contacting support to resolve the proxy and connection issues.

For now I am going to look at the other providers who are more competitive with their pricing.
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Symform
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Re: Symform is trying to let you pay way more than advertise

Post by Symform »

Hi int21h,
Thanks for sharing your candid feedback and sorry for the troubles! First of all, if you have the time and inclination, we are more than happy to dig in get your QNAP working with Symform. It could be as easy as updating your QNAP firmware to the latest version to take advantage of our crypto work (http://www.symform.com/blog/new-release ... en-source/), or it could be other issues like local congestion or ISP issues. Either way, we are more than happy to help. Even though we encourage our users to post to the forums, you can always create a trouble ticket by emailing support@symform.com at any time.

To address your pricing concern, if you only have 33GB of photos, technically you don't have to pay for a Symform account. Remember that we give 100GB of cloud storage in exchange for 150GB of local storage. So if all you need is 33GB, just take the free account.

We do have issues working with Proxies as we do not have any support for Proxies at this time. If you feel that this would be a valuable feature, please submit this request on our feedback forums at feedback.symform.com.

Again, happy to help look into the issue if you are willing.
Symform Support Team

Symform, inc.
wshyang
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Re: Symform is trying to let you pay way more than advertise

Post by wshyang »

Symform wrote:Hi int21h,
Thanks for sharing your candid feedback and sorry for the troubles! First of all, if you have the time and inclination, we are more than happy to dig in get your QNAP working with Symform. It could be as easy as updating your QNAP firmware to the latest version to take advantage of our crypto work (http://www.symform.com/blog/new-release ... en-source/), or it could be other issues like local congestion or ISP issues. Either way, we are more than happy to help. Even though we encourage our users to post to the forums, you can always create a trouble ticket by emailing support@symform.com at any time.

To address your pricing concern, if you only have 33GB of photos, technically you don't have to pay for a Symform account. Remember that we give 100GB of cloud storage in exchange for 150GB of local storage. So if all you need is 33GB, just take the free account.

We do have issues working with Proxies as we do not have any support for Proxies at this time. If you feel that this would be a valuable feature, please submit this request on our feedback forums at feedback.symform.com.

Again, happy to help look into the issue if you are willing.
Oh dear, I actually tweeted my praises about Symform before seeing these posts.

I understand that you guys are still a young company very much dependent on VC money to survive, but I think you should take the feedback you are receiving here seriously, and perhaps rethink your pricing model somewhat.

Not forgetting:
1) you actually need people to join Symform as storage nodes
2) you also need cashflow to keep whatever infrastructure you got going, and make a profit
3) who are your target market really?

Rather than scare people off with the prospects of having to pay multiple hundred of dollars just for the ability to contribute more to the cloud, and get more backed up. Perhaps you guys might like to drop the selling point of "unlimited" cloud storage (it is not, really) and go for tiered pricing based on quota instead?

I am sure if you guys sell some plan that allows for 1TB worth of backups for $5 a month, many home users will come on board, and it will look heaps better than Google Drive's "very good" $5 per 100gb deal.

In addition to that, what about users who might want to store a smudge more 200gb, but don't want to commit to a monthly plan for "unlimited" quota that they don't need? Why not give users the ability to contribute MORE node storage space (which you need) in return for a diminished ratio of quota increase? So for the first 200gb we might "pay" 1.5X of whatever quota we use, and beyond that, perhaps the system can have us pay 2.5X of whatever quota we use?

I really wouldn't mind. I have a multi terrabyte disk and a 50mbps home fibre connection sitting around, and if using some of that free space can help me safely have a store of some photos backed up onto the internet safely, I will be very happy to contribute.

I think you guys really ought to look at Dropbox. Because you are trying to paint yourself as being a new green and (for lack of a better word) "cool" innovative company in comparison to other companies. Focus on community building instead, and perhaps seek to make more money from enterprise customers, for whom you also provide slight better guarantees by investing some of your own servers and infrastructure into it to give them some assurance (afterall files stored on community nodes are really not exactly THAT safe, despite the good algorithms).

I am a bit of a techie person (more than "a bit" actually, I have a Hons BSc in Comp Sci), and I too find it a bit painful, why doesn't the desktop client have uPNP auto configuration built in? The way you guys did it, you actually require the user to set up static IPs and port forwarding... which is actually something that (once "tech" people like us get out of our circles, and out into the real world) a lot of people find VERY difficult to do.

You guys have a good idea, and I really hope you guys will stay around for a long time to provide a viable solution that is really lacking in the marketplace. This stupid pricing model at the moment is really making it hard for your offering to gain traction. I hope you guys will really rethink elements of the service as it is.
dimitrij
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Re: Symform is trying to let you pay way more than advertise

Post by dimitrij »

attention to buy symform cloud.
after asking for a refund within the time stipulated in the contract, I have not yet received my money.

focus on space Unlimited: y
ou have to share locally twice what you require in the cloud.

This is written in small print in the contract, rather than being written in great advertising.
I read that some call a scam!
arnok666
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Re: Symform is trying to let you pay way more than advertise

Post by arnok666 »

After Seeing it was "free" i installed it and configured.. but after contributing 60GB of space i kept getting emails saying i was out of space. plus i was getting phone calls and emails from symform to up my contribution and pay for the backup space.

The process also ate up a large amount of memory on my TS-439 Pro.
So i disabled it and will be unsubscribing from their service.
Crashplan is not as redundant but it seems to work better, so i will be switching ..
sorry Symform, the idea is great in theory, but just not for the average home/SMB user.
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Symform
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Re: Symform is trying to let you pay way more than advertise

Post by Symform »

Sorry for the confusion around our "Free" offer. I'm happy to announce that we have some exciting changes regarding our offer coming out in the next few months. Based upon all of the feedback from our users and this forum, we will be making our new offer clear and simple.

Again, we apologize for any confusion in the past and hope that you will give Symform another chance after we make this announcement!
Symform Support Team

Symform, inc.
djarvis8
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Re: Symform is trying to let you pay way more than advertise

Post by djarvis8 »

I tried Symform. I like the web portal, I think it is easy to navigate and well-written. The client software was easy to set up, though some of the settings for bandwidth and allowed contribution sizes didn't really seem to correlate well.

I contributed 1TB to get 500Gb of storage. It seemed to be working at the start but then I kept seeing little yellow warning triangles on the web portal next to my folders, saying something like "errors have occurred, we will resume later". I waited and waited, reconfigured the client software, but still I did not see any changes in the number of files uploaded.

I have a simple setup with a 30MBs/5MBs network connection, but the thing just didn't work. I decided to pull the plug and find some other solution. I think it's a really awesome idea, but I didn't feel as if I could ever get 500GB of data retrieved in the event of a crash, with the way it was failing all the time. Perhaps I will revisit in the future to give it another shot.
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fedoralinux
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Re: Symform is trying to let you pay way more than advertise

Post by fedoralinux »

symform Rocks!!!!! :D :D

i contributed 25Gb and get 25Gb of cloudspace from them.
no issues with that, never.

i can recommend symform to everyone
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FREE cloudstorage on dropbox
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