A question that we hear a lot here is “What’s the best cloud storage?” That’s a difficult one to answer, since what’s best for you, may not be best for the next person. And truthfully, most of the major cloud storage providers are pretty darn good, though they each have their high and low points.
I found a pretty extensive review of four major cloud services on Reviews.com and they graciously allowed me to share some of their research with you. In their study, they compared 45 different cloud storage options and narrowed the field down to 4.
It’s not a surprise that to find Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive and Box at the top of the list. Each service offers free storage for users. Dropbox 2 GB, Google Drive 15 GB, OneDrive 5 GB and Box 10 GB.
Each service works well with Android and iOS apps in addition to your PC. After 126 hours of research comparing things like speed, the price of premium options, ratings of the mobile apps and user satisfaction, they found what I often say to be true, the best app depends on your needs.
Here’s how they ranked them.
For lightweight users, DropBox in a good choice. It worked well on all systems, it’s simple and there’s no file-size limit. However, they only offer 2GB of free space.
Google Drive offers the largest amount of free storage space and also includes its own office suite plus it’s great for collaborating with others online. You will need a Google account to use it.
OneDrive from Microsoft had the fastest upload times and it’s already part of Windows 10 and Windows 8. Along with OneDrive, you get access to online versions of Office and also free Office mobile apps.
Box was the favorite cloud storage for business users. It has a lot of business oriented apps and built-in FTP support, though it doesn’t work with very large files.
If you’d like to read more about how they came up with these ratings, you can check it out here.
But you should be fine trying any of these services. There’s also no reason you can’t try ALL of them. Not only to see which you prefer, but to also give yourself even more cloud storage.
~ Cynthia
Hi,
What do these places charge for the storage?
Most of them offer free storage options and then paid options for those who want additional storage.
You can also get extra storage on Dropbox by various means such as recommending it to a friend who subsequently takes it up, and other ways.
How do you sync up the drives? I find that I upload a file on one computer and can’t find it with my laptop. What am I missing?