Most services use storage space as a
carrot, enticing users to sign up to paid plans in order to get more of it. The
space offered by free accounts might be reasonably large, but it pales in
comparison to the amount you can get by paying even a nominal subscription.
There is one thing that makes Dropbox more attractive than its competitors in
terms of cost, however, and that's the referral program, which gives free users
500MB of additional storage for every friend they refer up to a maximum of
18GB.
In that respect, Dropbox instantly beats
its big-brand competitors. The genius move was offering free space increases to
users who attract other users. Where the likes of Google Drive and Microsoft
SkyDrive rely on their own names to evangelise the product, Dropbox had its
users doing the hard work for it and, as social networks have proven, the more
users you have, the easier it is to grow and maintain your lead.
However, the site with the most voluminous
free service is ADrive, which offers 50GB to all free users on an ad-supported
basis, although there are other restrictions. In particular, it's worth taking
note of the practical constraints of having that much storage space. At 768Kbps
(which is about the average upload speed for UK internet connections,
regardless of quoted speeds) it would take almost a week of constant uploading
to reach your quota. Not much use if you're after a quick backup.
Mobility & Portability
Dropbox
and Sugarsync are the most comprehensive
The ability to access your cloud storage
from a variety of devices is key to any service's success. On one hand, they
all have a web interface with similar degrees of functionality which means
users can get to their files using any web-enabled device, from Windows to web
TVs to iPads.
On the other hand, it's important to remember
that many mobile devices, such as phones and tablet PCs, don't have the screen
space, browser flexibility or file management capabilities to make the web
interface a practical point of contact. They require dedicated, simplified
apps, not overengineered web interfaces. So how does Google Drive fare in that
regard?
Dropbox and Sugarsync are the most
comprehensive, offering dedicated apps for Android, BlackBerry, iOS, Linux, Mac
OS X and Windows in addition to their web interfaces. Only Windows Phone misses
out for both, and that's probably because Microsoft is keeping the platform
stitched up to help push SkyDrive (which, not coincidentally, is the only cloud
storage service to have its own app on Windows Phones).
By comparison, Google Drive is slightly less
easy to carry around, offering apps for Android, Mac and Windows, as well as
the web interface. On one hand, it's ignoring some of the less popular
platforms, but on the other, it's a bad idea to leave any users behind,
particularly if you're courting professional adoption. If anything, you're more
likely to find BlackBerry phones and Linux PCs inside the business world than
outside it, so Google's lack of interest may cost it. Even Box and Sugarsync
run apps for every major platform other than Linux.
SugarSync
Increases Free Cloud Storage to 5GB
At least Google hasn't been as stubborn as
Microsoft, and recognises that restricting its mobile features to Android isn't
going to make its mobile platform any more materially attractive than it
currently is. An iOS app is apparently coming, though it isn't there yet
("98% done" according to the developers). In a world where consumers
are keen to mix and match brands, eschewing any one is asking for trouble, so
Google is making a smart choice to support iOS phones/tablets as well as
Android-based products.
However, the portability of files is a
problem with Google Drive, due to its tenuous integration with Google Apps,
which doesn't support offline editing by default. Nine times out of ten, it
won't be a problem, but if you find yourself wanting to edit a synced .gdoc or
.gsheet file while your internet connection is down, you're out of luck. It
really does beg the question of why Google Apps doesn't use a more conventional
file format by default. Admittedly, most other cloud storage systems don't have
their own Office-style editing suite attached, but you can get apps to cover
that functionality. If you can't access the web, you might end up with a local
folder full of synced files that you simply can't do anything with.
Pricing
Where most web services lean towards
ad-supported models, the majority of cloud storage products have adopted a
'freemium' pricing structure, where a basic free service can be augmented and
upgraded in return for reasonably small monthly or annual fees.
Dropbox has several paid tiers, including
the 'Pro 50' package ($9.99/month for 50GB, plus 1GB per referral to a maximum
of 82GB) and a slightly more expensive 'Pro 100' plan ($19.99/month for 100GB,
plus 1GB per referral to a maximum of 132GB). SkyDrive, meanwhile, offers an
additional 20GB, 50GB or 100GB of space for $10, $25, or $50 a year, making it
exceptional value.
Google Drive skews cheaper than most,
offering an extra 25GB of Google Drive storage for $2.49 a month in a package
that also increases the amount of space you have on other Google services, such
as Picasa and Google Mail. For $4.99 a month, you can get a massive 100GB for
your Google Drive and Picasa accounts, plus 25GB added onto your Google Mail
account. Not too shabby, and arguably better value than even SkyDrive's
packages, if you're already using the other Google's services.
Microsoft
SkyDrive
One area where Dropbox, Google Drive and
SkyDrive all fall short of the competition is in offering additional features
to those on a payment plan. Paid users of ADrive get extras such as file
versioning, FTP access and multi-user accounts. Granted, some of those features
are available as standard in other services, but if you're going to ask users
to pay, it makes sense to offer them a little more than just extra space as an
incentive for them to do so. In this case, the big guns have chosen a simpler
model (more cash for more space) and that appears to have paid off, so it's no
surprise Google followed that route.
Still, if pricing is a concern, then Google
Drive is certainly one of the better choices overall. Increasing your storage
space to 50GB or beyond on a monthly plan will cost you $19.99 for Box, $9.99
with Dropbox and $9.99 using Sugarsync (actually a 60GB package) but only $4.99
with Google Drive. Microsoft SkyDrive is near-unbeatable, however, with an
effective monthly rate of a little over $2, but then you can only pay annually,
so if you're only looking for a short-term storage increase it may work out
more expensive.
