The Cloud Wars

A couple of years ago I reviewed some online backup solutions. The main contenders were Dropbox, iDisk and DriveHQ. Fast forward two years and Google Drive, Apple iCloud, Microsoft Skydrive, Box and Dropbox are battling to provide your online storage.

I have used all 5 services (free accounts) and have detailed the unique features, pricing and sharing capabilities of each here in helping you decide which product would be best for you. In most cases a combination of two or more services is the best option.

Google Drive

This year Google launched their long awaited cloud storage service, Drive. Their online office suite Google Docs is now part of Google Drive and with desktop clients available for Windows, Mac and Linux (soon) it has become a serious player in the cloud storage game. An Android app is also available with an iOS app coming soon.

Google Drive offers users 5GB of online space for free. Currently it is priced at $2.49/month for 25GB, $4.99/month for 100GB … and all the way up to 16TB for $799.99/month. I wonder how many accounts have 16TB :O

Sharing documents and folders is easy with Drive. Simply select the document and click the share button to allow access to another with an email address. You can even see changes as they happen if two or more people are working on the same document. Collaborators can add comments and there is version tracking so you can go back up to 30 days if you need to see a prior revision.

I rate Google Drive as a solid and flexible solution for cloud storage and online document editing. It is not limited to traditional document file types and provides real time changes to be seen by people working on the same document.

Microsoft Skydrive

Skydrive has been around since 2007 (known then as Windows Live Folders). In 2011 it was overhauled to be HTML5 compatible and now allows users to create word, powerpoint and excel documents from within a browser. It can also be synchronized with the 2010 Office software, allowing users to change a document at the same time.

Skydrive offers users 7GB of online space for free. If you had an account prior to April 20th 2012 you were offered a free upgrade to 25GB. If 5GB is not enough the pricing as it stands now for Skydrive is 20GB for $10/year, 50GB for $25/year and 100GB for $50/year.

There is currently an iOS and a Windows Phone app but no official Android app. Desktop programs are available for Windows and Mac operating systems. Sharing is can be done from the web browser and across social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

Apple iCloud

iCloud consists of a few more features than file syncing. In addition, you will have access to Photo Stream, iTunes in the Cloud, Calendar, Contacts and Email and Find My iPhone/Friends.

This article will mainly focus on the file sharing side – Documents in the Cloud. Once you have Pages, Numbers or Keynote on your iOS 5.0 device or Mac you will be able to save your iWork, MS Office, and PDF documents to iCloud. As far as I know these are the only types of documents that can be saved to iCloud and this I feel puts Documents in the Cloud at a massive disadvantage compared to the competition. Sharing is limited to sending via email.

Every account comes with 5GB worth of storage for free. If you need more online storage from Apple it will cost (at time of writing) $20/year for 10GB, $40/year for 20GB and $100/year for 50GB. It is a lot pricier than the rest however the extra storage may be useful for backing up an entire mobile device or for storing photos in Photo Stream.

iCloud desktop programs are available for OS X 10.7 + and Windows Vista +. Personally I don’t like the fact Apple has now forced users to upgrade from Snow Leopard if they want to use iCloud on their Mac desktop.

Box

Box is another solution, which behaves much like DropBox. I signed up for Box a while back when I came across an article saying they were giving away 50GB free storage if you downloaded their app for iOS. Their free account now will provide you with 5GB of online storage.

One thing you cannot do with a free account is download multiple files. This was enough for me to stop using Box. Looking past that, Box can integrate with Microsoft 2010’s Office Suite, Google Apps, and a few other CRM software packages out there. It also has an app for Android and iOS and programs for Windows and Mac (Premium account required).

A lot of Box’s functionality is reserved for premium accounts. Currently a premium account costs $15/user/month and that will get you 1000GB of web storage and access to those documents offline on a computer.

Dropbox

Last but not least I am going to mention Dropbox again. Like two years ago I thought the way Dropbox seamlessly integrates with any computer or mobile device is perfect. Sharing a document or folder could not be easier and now you can even right click a file and get a public link to share it with another person.

I find being able to share files via Dropbox the easiest way to get them from my mobile to a computer and vice versa. The free account will give you 2GB of storage but referring friends and allowing automatic camera uploads can increase this up to 16GB. Paid accounts can get you 50GB for $9.99/month and 100GB for $19.99/month with referrals getting you 1GB per referral (500mb for free account).

I currently use all these services except Box and iCloud. I think for a business Box would be a good solution, however since there is no standalone desktop program and there are limitations on multiple file downloads for free accounts I have steered clear.

Out of all the services mentioned I think Dropbox is still the best despite not having as much free storage as Drive or Skydrive. By inviting a few friends you both can receive boosts to the data storage and I find their file synchronization flawless across all devices and computers I have used it on. I would use this in combination with Google Drive for times when collaboration on a document is needed.

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