Cloud storage services: Which one to choose?
Key info:
Google Drive. https://drive.google.com- Free space: 5GB
- Premium space: $59.88/year for 100GB
- File size limit: 10GB
- Platforms: Windows, Mac, iOS, Android
- Best for: Web apps
- Free space: 5GB
- Premium space: $100/year for 50GB
- File size limit: 25MB free/250MB paid
- Platforms: Mac, iOS, Windows
- Best for: Heavy iTunes/Mac users
- Free space: 7GB
- Premium space: $50/year for 100GB
- File size limit: 2GB
- Platforms: Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, Windows Phone
- Best for: Windows/Office integrationFree space
Now that many of us use different devices (tablets, mobiles, desktops..) syncing and cloud storage services have become increasingly important.
The big three - Apple, Google and Microsoft - all have their own tools for keeping your files in sync, while Dropbox has been an independent solution that works just about everywhere.
Here, we take a look at what each solution offers in terms of features and capabilities.
Storage space:
Not only do these services keep data in sync across different devices, they provide a cloud-based backup too.
SkyDrive offers 7GB of space for free, Google Drive and iCloud provide 5GB, while free accounts on Dropbox are awarded 2GB of space (this can be easily increased to 16B through friend referrals, beta testing and a few other tricks)
There are premium options if you want to pay for more space. An extra 100GB for a year will cost you US$50 on SkyDrive, US$59.88 on Google Drive, and US$99 on Dropbox. iCloud's paid plans has a maxium of 50GB which will set you at $100 for the year.
Sycronizing:
Dropbox, SkyDrive and Google Drive provide desktop clients for Windows and Mac (with Dropbox offering an official Linux tool too).
Each app designates a hard-drive folder, and anything saved here is automatically synced to the cloud and your other devices.
There's little to choose between them, though Dropbox feels the more polished solution - it just works, which may be why Apple showed an interest in buying the company a couple of years ago.
iCloud is tightly integrated into the Mac OS and a growing number of iOS apps, and its focus is more towards being an invisible syncing and backup solution, rather than a catch-all digital locker.
On the mobile side, SkyDrive is currently the only one of these services available officially on Windows Phone.
SkyDrive, Google Drive and Dropbox are all represented on iOS and Android. iCloud is baked into iOS, and hasn't yet been made available for other platforms, though a basic Windows tool has been released that covers some syncing functionlity.
Online apps and access:
A key part of Google Drive is its online apps suite (it grew out of Google Docs, after all).
Drive includes web-based tools for creating documents, presentations and spreadsheets, and these files don't count towards your storage quota.
For its part, SkyDrive includes stripped-down versions of Word, Excel and PowerPoint that run in the browser. These are basic tools, but they will be adequate for many casual users.
While Dropbox doesn't offer browser-based apps, it does have a flexible web interface listing your folders and files. Many file types - covering PDFs, documents, video, photos and music - can be viewed in the browser, even if there are no editing features.
iCloud includes basic notes, contacts and calendar tools, but no web-based office suite, and no online file explorer to take a look at your content.
It's also worth mentioning sharing and collaboration too.
Dropbox has perfected the art of sharing files and folders on the web - it's as easy as passing along a URL, whether or not the recipient also uses Dropbox.
SkyDrive and Google Drive go further, enabling you to share files with anyone over the internet and even work on documents, spreadsheets and presentations with other users simultaneously, in the cloud.
As yet, iCloud doesn't offer web access, easy file sharing or collaboration - its focus is more on single users.
Veredict:
It's difficult to compare these products directly against each other - remember that iCloud includes access to all your iTunes purchases (and doesn't count them against your storage quota), while Google has its own Music service for storing MP3s in the cloud for free.
There are several such caveats to consider.
iCloud is a no-brainer for anyone with an i-device or a Mac, but its support for other platforms and web access is weak, at least for now.
Likewise, SkyDrive is primarily of interest to users of Microsoft products
As Google lives and breathes the web, it's no surprise that Google Drive is fast and browser-friendly, with an online office suite that's always getting better. Its desktop and mobile clients aren't as polished, but they are there, and work well enough.
This leaves Dropbox, which, right from its early days, has felt like a native operating system feature. In terms of syncing anything to anywhere, it remains the tool to beat
