Bitcasa Drive to Be Discontinued

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Bitcasa Drive will be discontinued, according to an email sent to users and in a post on their company blog. Current users will have until 11:59 p.m. PST on May 20 to download their files, before they are permanently deleted.

The decision comes less than a month after the company announced the 10 GB free account would no longer be offered. They moved to a 5 GB, 60-day free trial model.

The full text of the email is below:

This message is to inform you that the Bitcasa Drive service will no longer be supported. You will need to take action to avoid losing your files.

All data must be downloaded by 11:59pm PST on May 20, 2016, after which time all accounts and stored data on Bitcasa Drive will be permanently deleted.

To learn why this is happening, please click here.

Thank you for being a Bitcasa user. We have appreciated all of your support.

Bitcasa has had a troubled history, ever since the company discontinued their unlimited storage plan in 2014. A former customer launched a class-action lawsuit on the grounds users weren’t given enough time to download and migrate files from the service. The lawsuit ended in Bitcasa’s favor, but the damage was already done.

Over time, Bitcasa’s popularity dwindled as the allure of infinite storage was no longer there. The $10/month pricing for 1 TB meant the service was on par with Dropbox, Google Drive, and OneDrive.

There were some privacy benefits to Bitcasa, however. Their use of convergent encryption meant users had “zero knowledge privacy” in contrast to the major cloud storage services which offered no such protection.

What’s Next for Bitcasa

This announcement means the end of consumer cloud storage for Bitcasa. They will solely focus on business and enterprise solutions, such as CloudFS and Turn-key Drive.

The decision will no doubt be a disappointment to former Bitcasa Drive customers. Many of them helped bug test Bitcasa’s software and service over the years. They will have to seek out another cloud storage solution.

How do you feel about Bitcasa Drive being discontinued? Sound off in the comments below.

Geoff Akerlund

Geoff Akerlund

Geoff Akerlund is the founder and editor-in-chief of BackupReview.com. He enjoys attending music festivals, whitewater kayaking on the American River, and board game nights in his free time.

Geoff Akerlund

@backupsoftware