DigitalOcean #Volumes

DigitalOcean has finally addressed a massively popular address from their community:

"We want more storage" and "we want SANs".

DigitalOcean has released their Volumes platform.

Any DigitalOcean customer can add up to 16384 GB of solid state storage to a Droplet (VPS) to increase storage.

A few of the higher end users, myself included, have requested FreeNAS, the FreeBSD based NAS and SAN specific operating system, to be added to the list of supported Droplet operating systems.

We feel FreeNAS would work excellently with the new DigitalOcean Volumes systems.

A few more high end users, myself included, have requested multiple Volumes added to high powered Droplets.

DigitalOcean have told me they are looking into having a specific high powered Droplets which can support multiple Volumes, each with up to 16384 GB of solid state storage.

The Costs

DigitalOcean is a large VPS provider, operating 12 data centres (12 working, one in rebuild).

It should be able to provide solid state storage at a competitive price point.

$0.10 per GB, which at their smallest Volume means $10 per 100 GB of solid state storage, is not good enough in my opinion.

I completely understand the costs of implementing an all solid state storage system, I run a few, but it should be offset over time, not an almost instantaneous return of all cost invested.

1000 GB or 1 TB data centre specification solid state drive will cost between $1000 and $2000.
DigitalOcean is charging $100 per month for 1000 GB or 1 TB.
DigitalOcean would recoup all costs of that drive in 10 to 20 months depending on the exact cost of the solid state drive.

10 to 20 months is excellent for the business, but DigitalOcean seemed to be all about the community.

I think DigitalOcean have over-priced their storage volumes.

I know my iCloud is on a mixture of magnetic spinning disk and solid state drive storage, but $2.99 per month for 200 GB is far more like it.

Apple Inc. is the largest and most valuable company in the world, with this comes an ability to build very expensive systems very easily and to drive vast amounts of customers to those systems.

DigitalOcean and Apple Inc.'s iCloud Drive servers cannot compare, but it shows just how far apart their costings are.

I will remain a DigitalOcean customer!

A simple issue with over charging for volumes will not stop me from being a DigitalOcean customer, I love their services, their support and their community spirit.

DigitalOcean make VPS business easy; I spin up a droplet and I am ready to do whatever I need to do on the VPS.