Existing users, 
I really appreciate all the feedback given here about the download charges, etc... The main thing to remember is that huge 750mb file downloads cost money. If we let registed customers download at will, as many times as they want, well, then you can see where that gets us... We wouldn't be around to support the product for too long... Prosoft is a great company to work for and we strive to make it a great company to be a customer of. I wish there were a download service that'd let us serve terabytes of downloads for free, but we've yet to find such a provider..
This week we'll be adding some details to our site. Most likely we'll offer licensed customers of Drive Genius to get 1 free download boot CD (we'll try to make it as simple as possible, with folks being able to fax or email their proof of owning Drive Genius (pic of box, receipt, pic of CD, whatever..). We'll also offer a CD to be sent out for free for the first time... Anything after that and it's "just" $5 (for either the CD to be shipped or have a boot CD download... Quite simply, we have to cover the costs associated with this..
I'm wondering if anyone on VT knows of any other companies that offer full boot CD downloads (over 700mb in size) for free, unlimited times... If so, please do let me know directly or here on VT.. gbell<at> prosofteng.com
I hope those on this board see how many times Prosoft posts on this site and sees that we really are trying to listen to our customers and their voices.. We want to provide the best that we can, and I think that we make a strong case for that.. Some of our competitors charge between $10 to $25 for a CD to be shipped out, we only charge $5... Nontheless, I'd love to hear more feedback on this subject so please do shoot me an email if you can---
cheers
gordon from prosoft
1-877-4-PROSOFT
Drive Genius
Storage management: maintain, manage, optimize.
Version: 2.2.1
Still working out the best options for all
Feedback Type: Commentary
Contributed by: Prosoft Sunday, January 22 2006 @ 09:58 PM PST
Product Platform: MacOSX
Used Product For: Over One Year
Comments
Bandwidth solution for boot CD download -
- There are many software projects which offer free downloads of CD images; most Linux distros, for instance, are available as free downloads and often span several CDs. The Linux distro I run (CentOS) I downloaded as a DVD image - all for free (See http://www.linuxiso.org/ for examples, and www.centos.org) So even free software projects seem to be able to afford bandwidth for thousands of CD-image downloads.
- A perfect solution to your bandwidth cost problem might be BitTorrent. If you're not familiar with it, it's a P2P technology that lets people download large files by grabbing little bits of it from many people, rather than all of it from you. All downloaders must also share in uploading, so it's cooperative. More information here: http://www.bittorrent.com/introduction.html
Wednesday, February 01 2006 @ 09:37 PM PST
Still working out the best options for all - Prosoft
Hi there--I definitely want to thank you for posting some of those options. We are indeed looking into the feasibility for that and are interested in providing a low or no cost way for our customers to get the downloaded CD Image..
Thursday, February 02 2006 @ 10:32 AM PST
Still working out the best options for all - afterhours
I'd like to chime in that I appreciate both your product, and that your bandwidth is not free. The days of 'free' bandwidth will come to a close some day. ISPs pay for their bandwidth in some capacity, and those that offer unlimited or unmetered service will someday have to slap their customers with an ugly surprise. BitTorrent is one option, 'though I'm not keen on downloading from an unknown source anything I need to do my job. That's simply asking for trouble.I'd rather you simply post detailed instructions on how we can use your existing product CD and the updates to burn our own bootable updated disc. This is how diskwarrior functions, and it makes a lot of sense. You can provide top-notch small download bug fixes, no one wastes bandwidth, and the paying customer can keep his stuff updated properly.
Monday, March 20 2006 @ 11:25 AM PST
Still working out the best options for all - afterhours
I'd like to chime in that I appreciate both your product, and that your bandwidth is not free. The days of 'free' bandwidth will come to a close some day. ISPs pay for their bandwidth in some capacity, and those that offer unlimited or unmetered service will someday have to slap their customers with an ugly surprise. BitTorrent is one option, 'though I'm not keen on downloading from an unknown source anything I need to do my job. That's simply asking for trouble.I'd rather you simply post detailed instructions on how we can use your existing product CD and the updates to burn our own bootable updated disc. This is how diskwarrior functions, and it makes a lot of sense. You can provide top-notch small download bug fixes, no one wastes bandwidth, and the paying customer can keep his stuff updated properly.
Monday, March 20 2006 @ 11:30 AM PST
Still working out the best options for all - Vanderdecker
Rather than downloading a full CD, why not create an updater that will utilize an existing Drive Genius CD to burn an updated one? That's what Alsoft does with Diskwarrior. So long as your DW CD can boot on your system (otherwise, you'll need to order a full updated CD), then you just download a <3MB file which creates a new CD using the original DW disk for the boot components.Monday, May 15 2006 @ 12:59 PM PDT
Still working out the best options for all - JamesRS
I understand your download problem, and think you are perfectly entitled to make a charge for a sizeable download, but you are overstating it a tad. If the dmg file is compressed, it should be quite a lot smaller than 750 Mb.Reply to This
Monday, January 30 2006 @ 03:57 AM PST