Jungle Disk Reviews - Jungle disk cloud hosting reviews

Jungle Disk Review: Alfredo

Pros:

ok response time for suport (generic responses). very stable. easy to use

Cons:

I have been using Jungle Disk for over a year. Good until you need to restore.
Restored every file / folder ever deleted or renamed, huge MESS! Awful Support

By default restores every file and every folder ever deleted or renamed. Jungle Disk simply does not have the option to age deletions so they get purged out eventually. Instead either restore way more files than actually got deleted by mistake, or never get the chance to recover from deletions. Strangely they do handle versioning, so it baffles me why they could not implement deletion aging. You should also know that files restored lose their creation date, which is reset to the restore date, so it’s harder to recuperate from the problem. Support was just awful and since I did not loose data, so they were very insensitive to the hours lost and major mess caused. 8 people without files for one month. Took 3 weeks to diagnose problem and some 30 back and forths over 4 weeks for resolution. Did give $20 software price refund.

Other Thoughts:

my full review:
I have been using Jungle Disk for over a year. When it came time to restore, it turned out to be messy.

Jungle Disk brought back every file ever deleted, plus any file or folder with a name changed, in the form of the old name or the old folder, full of the old files. The result? 25% more files over a 47 gig backup (with over 5,000 files). Massive cleanup, a day's work.

Awful support experience, as you will see.

It turns out my problem was due to a default setting, a safety feature which does not allow the backup set to delete anything. Really a great idea, the problem is that they don't tag the date of deletion so it all comes back, and you can’t imagine the mess. Companies delete / rename much more than they realize, it all comes back. They do have the option to not go down this road and avoid this mess, but its not the default and the drawbacks of each option are very poorly disclosed at the time of backup setup, unless you read the manual and draw your own conclusion. The real consequences are not pointed out, even in the manual. Their policy to not delete is there for safety reasons, which I do commend.

The problem with doing the backups the non default way is that files deleted stay deleted. Jungle Disk simply does not have the option to age deletions so they get purged out eventually. Jungle Disk is aware of the concept but basically you only get an either or choice, and they err on the side of caution. Either restore way more files than actually got deleted by mistake, or never get the chance to recover from deletions. Strangely they do handle versioning, so it baffles me why they could not implement deletion aging. You should also know that files restored lose their creation date, which is reset to the restore date, so it’s harder to recuperate from the problem. These dates are important for some people.

Support was terrible. Short generic answers at first, refusing to accept the facts second, followed by basic denial and not accepting of responsibility. The senior support tech finally nailed the problem after 3 weeks later of over 20 back and forth frustrating communication. My support specialist was the support manager and took what seems a long time to diagnose a problem caused by a default setting that was never changed. You would imagine that problem would come up often since most people trust defaults.

Their position was that they saved all the data, and since that’s their mandate they would not compensate my aggravation beyond the cost of the software itself. I explained that I have spent easily 3 hours directly trying to figure out the problem, another 3 dealing with the mess caused by such a large restore, and another 2 writing emails. Going directory by
directory on a 5,000 file structure will take me pretty much a day. My company also endure a much more costly productivity mess. A team of 8 haven’t had access to a shared drive, for LITERALLY one month minus one day. Still, even after talking to the CEO on the phone, they would not refund beyond $20, the cost of the software.

Great concept and what seems like impeccable execution, but upon having to actually restore I am fully disappointed by the lack of ownership of the problem. It’s a product that could be perfect. I will say their response time was quick, just inappropriate at first and completely devoid of accepting responsibility.