google-drive

Many of us own multiple data storage devices today. Syncing between these devices has become important and so cloud storage has risen in importance. Apple offers the iCloud storage solution and Google offers Google Drive. Dropbox is another popular storage solution. All these storage solutions have their pros and cons. Let us dissect these offerings one by one to learn the basic elements of these offerings.

Primary Information

Dropbox offers 2 GB of free space while Google Drive and iCloud offer 5 GB free. Premium space on Dropbox costs $99/year for 100 GB. Google Drive offers 100 GB for just $59.88 per year. iCloud charges $100 for 50 GB. So Google Drive is a winner in this department. Dropbox offers unlimited file size while Google Drive limits file size to 10 GB. iCloud offers a file size of 25 MB for the free version and 250 MB for the paid version. So Dropbox comes out on top in the file size area.

Dropbox is offered on iOS, Blackberry, Linux, Android, Mac and Windows. Google Drive is offered on all these except Linux and Blackberry. iCloud is offered on Mac, iOS and Windows. Dropbox works well for seamless syncing, while Drive works best for Web apps and ICloud is great if you are a big iTunes or Mac user.

Syncing

Google Drive and Dropbox offer desktop clients for Mac and Windows. Dropbox also offers a Linux tool. There is a hard drive folder on your machine. If you save something here, it gets saved on the cloud as well as your other synced devices. Dropbox is the more professional device here. That is one reason Steve Jobs was interested in buying this company.

iCloud is well integrated with the Mac OS and an ever increasing number of iOS apps. It is focused at invisible backup and syncing. iCloud is made for the iOS and a functional version has been released for Windows. Dropbox and Google drive are available on iOS and Android.

Online Apps and Access

The online apps suite is a very integral part of Google Drive. You can create spreadsheets, presentations and documents using Drive’s web based tools. These files aren’t included in your total storage. Dropbox lists your folders and files in a flexible web interface. You can view several file types in the browser even in the absence of editing.

iCloud does not offer an online file explorer or a web based office suite but has calendar tools, contacts and basic notes. Dropbox is perfect for sharing files and folders all around the internet. iCloud focuses more on single users and as yet doesn’t offer easy collaboration and file sharing. Google drive allows for file sharing and simultaneous working on projects by more than one user.

To Sum Up

If you have a Mac or iDevice, it makes sense to go with iCloud. Google Drive is prompt and browser friendly. Its online office suite is continually improving. When it comes to syncing though, Dropbox is numero uno. The hosting of each of these offering reminds one of dedicated server hosting.

This is a guest-post by Ashley Williamson. Ashley is an occasional blogger interested in reading and writing about tech related topics. Whenever she has time she likes to try out new things that the internet offers for the World in order to use it in her everyday life.