Filed under: OS, Software, Cool tools, Internet Tools
JungleDisk offers a far cheaper, cross-platform, encrypted iDisk
JungleDisk is quite possibly the first serious, easy to set up alternative I've seen to Apple's .Mac iDisk. Using the power of WebDAV, JungleDisk allows you to mount an online, syncing hard drive (with various size options available) on Mac OS X, Windows and Linux, and save and access data to and from it as if you were working with files in a local folder on your desktop. This is all run through Amazon's S3 online storage web service, which is "based on the idea that quality Internet-based storage should be taken for granted". As an extra kick-in-the-pants to .Mac's iDisk, data sent to and from your JungleDisk is encrypted. A software package is available for each OS to make installation and setup a snap.
Pricing is spectacularly low, though I'm slightly confused as to how billing works. They truly mean: "pay only for what you use" - there isn't a flat monthly or yearly fee for your storage and bandwidth. Instead, on their pricing page, they state that you are charged $0.15 USD per gigabyte of storage per month, and $0.20 USD per gigabyte of data transfer. They offer a convenient pricing chart on their main page to compare with other services.
I'm already a .Mac customer right now, as I like the integration of all their other services. But JungleDrive sounds like a great alternative for those who only want the ease of use of an iDisk. If you have already used this service or will try it out soon (bonus points for more than one platform), please feel free to comment on your experience.
[via ~stevenf]
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Brian Sweeting said 8:29PM on 5-19-2006
JungleDisk is actually free, the price you pay is directly to Amazon.com for use of their web service.
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Victor Agreda, Jr. said 9:04PM on 5-19-2006
TechCrunch had a good interview with a guy from Amazon's S3 effort. It's an interesting model.
Now I wonder if there's some PHP or Python (or something, jeez AppleScript) magic you could run from your local Mac to do .Maclike things?
Perhaps a folder action that uploads the pages spewed forth from iWeb? Stuff like that...
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Marc said 9:24PM on 5-19-2006
Is it possible to access this service from a web browser in addition to the jungle disk app?
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Brian Smith said 9:30PM on 5-19-2006
Talk about CHEAP! I would really like to backup my 10gb iPhoto library offsite. This would be very cheap to do that! It would only be like $1.70 a month to back that up with Amazon's S3 via JungleDisk! HOLY CRAP!
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Steve Shaner said 9:53PM on 5-19-2006
One caveat: you're charged for bandwidth both up- and down-stream at the rate of $0.20/GB/month. Uploading the iPhoto library would cost $2, but say you download it to 5 other computers. That's $2 apiece. It's best used as a long-term slowly-increasing backup store, not a "web disk".
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Joe Jacobs said 10:33PM on 5-19-2006
Does this work with iWeb? I need to know!
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Digger said 11:57PM on 5-19-2006
I've downloaded and set up my S3 acount.
I know it's a BETA but the interface and workflow is horrid!
A local host icon and cache folder cluttering up my desktop. No easy way to rename the localhost icon as S3 or JungleDrive.
No Preferences.
Almost no Help/Instructions.
Seems to work though. I'd like to be able to access the S3 account from a web browser to check that the data is there. Not suer if you can - more investigation needed.
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Mike said 1:01AM on 5-20-2006
Joe, the service is for storage only, so you couldn't serve your pages from there.
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Dave said 9:44AM on 5-20-2006
I tried it in a cross platform environment, it worked ok :)
My biggest issues were with the sign up process though, I blogged it here:
http://macnewbie.wordpress.com/2006/05/20/jungle-disk/
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Mason Galindo said 1:35PM on 5-20-2006
I found the signup process to be rather painless. Everything seemed quite self explanatory and I think this is something even a computer savvy lacking individual could setup with relative ease.
The software, although still in beta, is impressive in it's ease of use and from what I can tell (after transferring only 1GB so far) stability.
I wonder if it's possible to substitute an actual HDD with this service? Clearly it isn't as fast and to access it an internet connection would be required but perhaps under special circumstances it could work.
So far I'm happy with it.
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Jean said 12:11PM on 5-21-2006
Had a small issue with the installation process. The support site was quite helpful. After 5 minutes, I was up and running.
I'll give it a try for some time.
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