Friday, June 15, 2012

Best Cloud Storage Reviews - Comparisons


Best Cloud Storage Services reviewed and compared

This article reviews the most popular Cloud Storage services - Dropbox, Google Drive, Microsoft SkyDrive, Apple iCloud and Box.

Dropbox has been the favorite for many. The reasons are obvious. Simplisity and usability. You save a file to your folder and voila.. its accessible from around the globe and its there as part of your folder structure on any machines that has your Dropbox account configured.  Moreover its naturality is something that pulls any users into it in no time. You don't use a separate client software to manage your dropbox files. Its part of your windows or mac folder structure and the small indicators on the corner of the folder icon is pretty handy to know the state of the sync. Also it has got client softwares on all popular platforms. PC/MAC/iOS/Android. Hopefully we can expect a client for windows mobile soon. Apple iCloud is also worth mentioning, but the drawback is the platform dependancy. Its only supported on Mac and iOS and the features are less as the purpose is kind of specific. Dropbox are the ones who showed the others how to do it.


Google Drive has made entry into the cloud storage service prepared to compete with Dropbox, Skydrive, Sugar Sync, Box and other online/cloud storage services. It is a replacement for Google docs. Yes its a replacement, so for many of you who already have been using Google Docs, its an extended version of Google Docs. The service lets you store your files online and access it from anywhere and everywhere you are. You can access it from your computer or phone or tablet.

Microsoft SkyDrive by far offers the cheapest service. SkyDrive is integrated with Office Web Apps. It has a desktop client and works similar to Dropbox.


Apple iCloud cannot be compared to other online file storage services because iCloud is intended for some specific purposes. It is rather for the developers and the service is exposed and accessible via APIs. This enables iOS and OSx developers to use iCloud to store application data on the cloud. Apple's service will take care of the synchronization across devices. The main drawback of icloud is it lacks cross-platform support.

Box is popular within corporates rather than among the public. Box has some features exclusive to it. Box's enterprise plans support Active Directory / LDAP. It is also the most expensive service when compared to its counterparts.


Cloud Storage Platform Support Comparison
Web
Android
Black berry
iOS
Linux
Mac
Windows
Windows Phone
Apple iCloud X X X Limited X
Box X X
Dropbox X
Google Drive X X X
Microsoft SkyDrive X X X

Cloud Storage Price Comparison
Service
Free storage
Cost for 25GB
Cost for 50GB
Apple iCloud 5GB $3.33 $8.33
Box 5GB $9.99 $19.99
Dropbox 2GB $9.99
Google Drive 5GB $2.49 $4.99 (100GB)
Microsoft SkyDrive 7GB $0.83 (27GB) $2.08 (52GB)

No comments:

Post a Comment