Which Amazon Cloud Drive plan are you using?

By Phil Nickinson  | Mar 29 2011 | 10:28 am  | 70 Comments

Amazon Cloud Player

Now that Amazon's unleashed its cloud-based music service (the short version: you upload your music and can play it from anywhere), you've got a choice to make: Which plan to choose? Here's the breakdown:

  • 5GB - FREE!
  • 20GB - $20/year
  • 50GB - $50/year
  • 100GB - $100/year
  • 200GB - $200/year
  • 500GB - $500/year
  • 1000GB - $1000/year

But, wait, there's more. Amazon's currently bumping you up to the 20GB plan with the purchase of any album from its MP3 store. Buy a 69-cent album and get $20 worth of data storage for a year. Can't beat that.

So let's hear it, folks. Which plan are you looking at?

Phil Nickinson

Phil Nickinson Editor in Chief

"Phil is a recovering print journalist, editor of Android Central, subtitles and street signs."

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There are 70 comments

slinky317 says:

You forgot to mention a very important point: any music you purchase in the future from Amazon gets added to your cloud and DOES NOT COUNT to your overall space requirements. So if you buy everything from Amazon from here on out and you currently have less than 5gb to upload now, you'll never need to buy a plan.

xorg says:

They have a long way to go to catchup to DropBox...

Dropbox...
- has a client for every major phone and OS
- can retrieve previous versions of files or deleted files
- support truecrypt since it does block level syncing
- can publicly or privately share files
- Only 2GB to start with but free 250MB for every referral

I'm up to 7GB free storage using the referral method.

Here is how to download and try, is far superior to Amazon...
http://db.tt/qWSvMDo

Gameboy70 says:

Amazon, on the other hand, doesn't encourage people to spam comment threads with referral links. then again, all comments seem to be considered spam on AC :(

dchawk81 says:

Where's the "None" option?

PS: You're losing me with this captcha BS. I'm about to delete you from my bookmarks.

slinky317 says:

Not only that, but the site constantly logs me out which is a real pain. They need to switch to Disqus.

xHunt3r says:

never seen a captcha pop up for andriodcentral.. what browser are you using?

Phil Nickinson says:

Guys, if you wanna yell at us about the spam system, please do it here. That said, we're working on it this morning.

Juhani says:

[X] None - because none of these cool things are available in Europe. Damn!

jjwa says:

Amazon helped me make the choice easy, by not giving me any choice at all.

"Please note that AmazonMP3.com is currently only available to US customers."
And also
"The 5 GB free storage plan is available to all Amazon.com customers, however further upgrades to the storage plan are currently unavailable in the following countries:"
(Followed by an impressive list of 27 countries.)

There's too much of that :(. Come on US companies, let me give you my money, don't exclude me...

Crackberrier09 says:

relax..I'm pretty sure they will expand to other countries sono. just be patient, this is first time amazon offering this service. Give them time.

tim242 says:

Patiently waiting for Google...

blueorder says:

What ^ said...

I'll wait to see what Google has to offer.

hmmm says:

Need a none option added to the poll.

Crackberrier09 says:

5GB Free!!! That is a killer deal for a lot people right there!
Fck iTune monopoly. I’m going with this.
Keep up the good work Amazon!

Rigelian says:

Amazon is making a strong play in the Android market. Google better step up its game. First Amazon's Android AppStore, now this.

aditya says:

they were running a promo of "buy an mp3 album" and get the 20gb plan for one year, so I spent $5 on an album.

GutterIsATool says:

Ah thanks. I was wondering why they upgraded me to the 20GB free for a year. I had bought a couple albums just try it out.

Mobius360 says:

This is what I did too, great deal. So far I am really liking what Amazon is doing with this. The application seems to be working very well.

TheProfessor says:

Yeah, I just spent $3.99 on an album and now I have 20GB for the next year. That should hold me over enough to see what Google launches.

Nchaka says:

This what I needed! I like being able to access my music anywhere and I have a choice to stream or download the music. Now I need an android phone to go with my Xoom. Hopefully Amazon will open this up to movies purchased thru their website.

antk90 says:

I found a $2.99 album and Amazon upgraded me to 20 GB. Great deal.

paulmike3 says:

What's the Tip Us button for if we don't get credit for the tip?! :(

And where's the option for $0.69 / 20 GB?

Shady, Phil! :P

DesertSilver#AC says:

Link to 69 cent album:
http://www.amazon.com/Trouty-Mouth-Glee-Cast-Version/dp/B004SKEEM8/ref=s...

Phil Nickinson says:

lol. Nah. Just mentioned by a TON of people. Come on over to my inbox. :p

paulmike3 says:

lol, understood. :)

strikethree says:

It wasn't exactly a big secret...

karqren says:

Over on some of the Mac forums there are people sniffing that all this is just Amazon catching up with Dropbox which they've been using on their iPhone etc. for ages, which is amusing because Dropbox runs on Amazon Web Services. There are also suggestions that Amazon won't be able to handle the load which is funny as Netflix runs on Amazon's servers.

technomom says:

Really? I didn't know that Dropbox offered a music store from which I can download songs and host them free of charge (with no extra cost over the free 5G) in the cloud? I must have missed that.

karqren says:

Yes, but I don't think they were really interested in comparing apples to apples as it were. Sour grapes maybe.

schwin97 says:

I am going to stay with free for this year, and then determine next year (after my 80 GB of Google storage runs out) where I will spend my money on cloud storage. Does anyone know, or played with, the picture storage? What does Amazon use for as their photo service?

technomom says:

Easy. 5G plan. Outside of my existing music collection, I get all my songs from Amazon mp3 anyway. So this is a no brainer. I only wish I had postponed my latest purchases so that they could have been included. I hope enough loyal Amazon mp3 users complain about that so that they can grandfather purchases. Does anyone know of a technical reason why they wouldn't do that?

doogald says:

5 GB for me, mostly because (at least for now) my phone consumes battery just doing the stuff that I already do with it to start listening to music. That's what the iPod is for, for me anyway ...

DesertSilver#AC says:

Link to 69cent album below. I confirmed that purchasing this upgraded me immediately to the 20GB plan.

http://www.amazon.com/Trouty-Mouth-Glee-Cast-Version/dp/B004SKEEM8/ref=s...

Impulses says:

20GB for me, should be enough for a few years... My collection is currently smaller than that by a few GB but even once it goes over I'll probably just leave some of my least desirable albums out

Gameboy70 says:

I understand the appeal of streaming radio, which allows you to discover new music, but where's the logic in streaming your own collection on a mobile device? MicroSD cards are cheap, consume less power, require no bandwidth, and aren't susceptible to connectivity interruptions.

Cloud Drive still sounds like a great service for desktop use, though.

dchawk81 says:

Agreed. I wouldn't stream my own content.

However, I don't even store music at all. I stream everything. It frees up my memory card for stuff that I can't stream. Heck I don't even own mp3s.

lorcha says:

For me, it's about the synchronization. Syncing my music and playlists between my work computer and my home computer, and every other device. For whatever reason, I can't seem to ever get it right.

With this service from Amazon, when you buy an MP3 it is instantly available on all of your devices, mobile or desktop. When you update a playlist, it's instantly available everywhere.

Welcome to the cloud, Gameboy70! :P

SamsungSucks says:

I don't think I would ever use this service.

The storage is nice, but I can not understand why I would want to store my 20gigs of songs on Amazon. To me it makes no sense. I can already easily copy songs to my phone and I would not want to waste the time uploading that much content.

ms_carmendiva says:

Unless, I am missing something by having the songs on Amazon, wouldn't that free up your memory card of the music to allow you more space for apps, movies etc?

lorcha says:

But what about your playlists? And how do you keep your music libraries in sync across all devices, mobile or otherwise?

It's not just the storage.

Sambo41 says:

I've been buying all my music from Amazon for a while so this is great for me. I'll still be able to download the new music I purchase to my computers and EVO, if I want to.

azari says:

Used the 'buy an album, get 20GB for a year'... Since I have approximately 18GB of stuff from my iTunes days, that will probably be my plan going forward. Plan on sticking with Amazon's MP3 stuff, since I am also a Prime member, an Affiliate, etc etc. Especially since new purchases from them won't count against the quota, I think I'll be set with the 20GB.

jbirdsf says:

It's great except that it won't allow DRM files so everything that I have purchased from itunes would never get played and that is about 1/3 of my library! I know, I know it's Apples fault....I'm just sayin'.

Gameboy70 says:

I thought iTunes stopped selling DRM songs some time around 2008, with the possible exception of content from EMI (e.g. the Beatles catalog). I could be wrong, but I don't think that all of your songs are blocked from Cloud Drive.

y2whisper says:

Sigh US only.

Wow a droid in the picture. used to seeing the N1

Sambo41 says:

"It's great except that it won't allow DRM files so everything that I have purchased from itunes would never get played and that is about 1/3 of m library! I know, I know it's Apples fault....I'must sayin'."

That's why I stopped buying my mp3s from iTunes. I wish Amazon would start streaming their Video on Demand shows for android devices since we can't get any Netflix love!

smccloud says:

I wish the free song of the day counted as a "purchase". That said, I think I have enough on my Verizon rebate card to buy the Glee album.

SamsungSucks says:

Must not like me. I tried the album purchase and I can't get the 20gb.

rippley05 says:

So does this require a specific music player to play your music "from the cloud"?

Sean Brunett says:

Amazon has a built-on music player that is quite good. It came with the update today. It's easy to navigate, create playlists and search for music.

tblack2#CB says:

Got it going. Trying to play on Evo. 3g and 3-4 bars, buffering real bad.

vicw926a4 says:

I have all of my music on my Droid X, and copies on my NAS drive, so I don't know that I REALLY need this new service, but I'm really impressed with the way everything ties together in the music player, with easy selection of local or Cloud Drive music, and how it smoothly links to the store for browsing, and purchases and back.

The fact that I can also download new purchases to my local storage made the choice a no-brainer for me. There's no reason not to use it that I can see, and even if I don't use it for streaming, it provides one more off-site storage of my precious albums.

It's browsing the MP3 store on my mobile, uploading my music from my PC and playing on my Google TV right now, with no problems so far. I bought one new album, and it bumped me up to the 20gb capacity, for a year, and notified me via email, within a few minutes. Amazingly clean start for a newly released service.

nfkraemer says:

Nice Tip!
I just purchased Pinback - Nothing to Nowhere for $0.84 and have my 20 gig year trial!

nfkraemer says:

I think I might drop Mspot...
Let's see what Google does; I am guessing, nothing.

bbalak says:

This is all fun now when there are unlimited data plans. Sooner or later, mobile companies will get greedy and the unlimited plans will go bye-bye.

dharrisonrand says:

You need to add an option for 20GB - Free. New PBJ album is out today, nice timing for Cloud Drive.

wowser says:

There is no sync capabilities are there?

Sean Brunett says:

What do you mean?

lorcha says:

You're kidding, right? The sync is the whole point! :P Did you think that this was just a glorified, remote MicroSD card?

wowser says:

Actually yeah. I read up on it on Amazon's site but didn't really see a mention of sync capability. If it does do it then it is a great service and i'll be trying it out.

bbalz says:

Just buy an album for cheap and you get 20GB. WINNING.

Urbanerosion says:

Why would you use this Amazon Cloud stuff when you could use Grooveshark Anywhere ($30/year) on your Android/Iphone/Computer. You can stream music, upload music, and even download music to your device if you're going to be in an area without network access. Grooveshark has a system that allows you to follow people that have similar musical inclinations. If you don't feel like listening to the playlists that you have created, click the radio button, choose a genre, and see where that takes you. I think the big advantage Grooveshark has over Amazon is the fact that you don't have to buy the music, it is all included with your subscription. Someone tell me if I am missing something.

Spideralex90 says:

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but grooveshark is streaming and not cloud based, so your computer has to be on constantly to stream to your mobile. I believe.

Urbanerosion says:

There is an offline mode in Grooveshark mobile. You don't even need to have a computer. I got the price wrong though ($9/month)

http://help.grooveshark.com/customer/portal/articles/3421-android-how-to...

Spideralex90 says:

I'll actually use it when they add last.fm scrobbling.

dmenglert says:

I love the concept, and I did buy an album to get the 20GB, and I also look forward to what Google comes up with, worse comes to worse, I will have to re-upload my songs, that will be 9-14 hours of my computers life.

gtg465x says:

Amazon is kicking a** lately. Looked up my favorite band and bought a 99 cent single album to get the 20GB upgrade. Now I have access to my entire music collection without having to buy a $90 microSD card or leave my computer on all the time.

vaocmo70 says:

Can't see paying money to access my own music. I use Audiogalaxy on my android phone. All you have to do is download the program to your phone and also to your computer and access your entire music collection from anywhere. I have quite an extensive collection of music, over 7K albums (no kidding) and can listen to them anytime I want on my phone without installing a single song on my memory card. It's free and I love it!

titaniumwombat says:

Yup! +1 for Audiogalaxy! Very active developers too, constantly getting better!

JohnBPrice says:

Hmmm, First thing I did after rooting my phone was to remove the Amazon MP3 store, now I have to put it back?