I tried Sia about 2 years ago. It worked "ok" for half a GB files, However, for 4-5 GB my upload got stuck while the help forum couldn't provide answers besides "wait for the next release".
There were also unclear issues back then. Are the files encrypted on my computer before being uploaded? are they sharded between many hosts? or are they stored in one host? How long will they be stored.
Most of these issues seem like they could be improved. Not an inherent faults of the technology or something. I like Sia's idea and tech in general; I'll give it a try again now.
Sia has come a long way in the past two years. Uploads, downloads, and repairs are both much more stable and also a lot faster. Sia can effortlessly sustain 100mbps upload and download if your connection is that fast.
Sia is happy with files that are hundreds of GBs in size today, and with a filesystem that that gets up to about 20 TB. Beyond that it starts to struggle, but we're continuously working to expand its capabilities.
Data has always been encrypted client-side, even in very early releases. Data today is sharded between hosts in a 10-of-30 Reed-Solomon scheme.
I think you will find that the experience is much smoother and more complete compared to the experience from 2 years ago. And, a critical feature is now available as of the latest release: seed based file recovery. After you upload your files, it's possible to create a snapshot of your data that you can recover later on a different machine using nothing more than your wallet seed. This makes Sia a practical and cost effective solution for secondary or tertiary backup.
There were also unclear issues back then. Are the files encrypted on my computer before being uploaded? are they sharded between many hosts? or are they stored in one host? How long will they be stored.
Most of these issues seem like they could be improved. Not an inherent faults of the technology or something. I like Sia's idea and tech in general; I'll give it a try again now.