Storage Wars by Chris Baker…Lakeside Title Company’s Resident Techy
May the war for online storage begin!
Google last week announced Google Drive, the search giant’s brand new cloud utility. However, the good old boys are not just sitting around. Here’s how the competition stacks up:
GOOGLE DRIVE:
A one-stop destination for all your photos, documents and media. This essentially replaces the already successful Google Docs.
PRICING: Pretty good. 5 gig’s of FREE storage with paid plan starting at $2.49 per month for 25 GB.
DROPBOX:
The best-known cloud service currently available. It’s available on multiple platforms and is one of the most user-friendly options out there. However, backing up everything to a single dropbox
folder can be cumbersome. PRICING: Expensive! While it remains popular by being so accessible, it offers only 2 GB of free storage. Paid options start at $9.99 per month for 50GB. Sheesh!
SkyDrive by Microsoft:
This is a new foray into cloud storage for Microsoft. It is now available on both Windows and Macs. Plugged directly into the office suite, SkyDrive lets users collaborate on Documents and share files
between devices with relative ease. PRICING: Cheap!!!! New users get 7 GB of free storage and can get an additional 20GB for just $10 a year! Wow……
iCloud by Apple:
Seamless integration with iOS and Mac OS X, and soon with Lion, offering access to photos and documents created in the iWork suite. Pretty limited. PRICING: Too MUCH!! You only get the
standard 5 GB of storage for free, but access to the 25 GB will run you $40 a year. Let’s hope Apple will make this less expensive as their new data centers come on live.
SugarSync:
This is the cloud utility of power users. It gives you very specific controls for items you want synced to the cloud. It’s offered on multiple platforms and even offers password protection for files.
PRICING: Reasonable. Starting at 5GB for free, users can upgrade to 30 GB for just $4.99 a month.
Remember, there are plenty of choices out there. Try them all to see what works for you. The more competition, the better will it benefit us, the consumer. Eventually cloud storage will be as outdated
as email is becoming. This is why the prevalence of mobile technology is blossoming along with tablet computing. You no longer have to carry around a laptop with all of your files and data
anymore. Everything is available to you instantly via the internet no matter what device your are using.
Happy storing!
