{"id":286,"date":"2014-08-27T12:18:28","date_gmt":"2014-08-27T12:18:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/felhoszolgaltatas-blog.hu\/en\/?page_id=286"},"modified":"2016-05-04T11:33:39","modified_gmt":"2016-05-04T11:33:39","slug":"cloud-storage-which-service-to-choose","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/felhoszolgaltatas-blog.hu\/en\/ez-egy-minta-oldal\/cloud-storage-which-service-to-choose\/","title":{"rendered":"Cloud storage \u2013 which service to choose?"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you are unhappy with your current cloud service or have never dabbled in keeping your files in the cloud, this primer will help you get acquainted with the players out there.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"It looks like Google<\/strong> wants to have the cloud to itself. In March, the company decreased prices for Google Drive and it is hoping to annihilate its main competitors, namely Dropbox and Microsoft OneDrive.<\/p>\n

What started as just a handful of helpful online office tools called Google Docs, has transformed into Google Drive, a complete office suite with cloud storage. We get a little bit of everything with this service, including a word processor, spreadsheet application, and presentation builder, plus 15GB of free storage space.<\/p>\n

If we already have a Google account, you can already access Google Drive, where we can upload photos, videos, documents, Photoshop files and more. As mentioned we get 15GB of storage, but we have to share that 15GB with our Gmail account, photos we upload to Google+, and any documents we create in Google Drive.<\/p>\n

Drive is built into Google’s Web-based operating system Chromium, so if we have a Chromebook, Google Drive is our best cloud storage option. Like other cloud storage services, Drive has apps for iOS and Android, so we can manage our files from our phone. Google Drive has the benefit of a built-in office suite, where we can edit documents, spreadsheets, and presentations, even if we created the document in another program. The service also a large collection of extras, such as third-party apps that can send faxes or sign documents.<\/p>\n

While we can organize our files and photos in Google Drive, there’s no way to automatically upload photos from our phone directly to the service. Instead, Google has an Auto Backup feature in the Google+ mobile apps, which sends our photos to our Google+ profile.<\/p>\n

The battle for cloud supremacy has just started, and Google has once again turned the market upside down. The company slashed prices by 80%, users have 15 GB at their disposal in Google Drive Cloud Storage, which they can use for free. If we subscribe for 100 GB, we will be paying $1.99 rather than $4.99, and for 1 TB the price is $9.99\/month instead of $49.99.<\/p>\n

If we are a the type of user who doesn\u2019t need much space in the cloud, Google is offering 15 GB for free, while on Dropbox we only get 2 GB. OneDrive has recently raised their offering to 15 GB free to match Google.<\/p>\n

For many years, people have been complaining that it\u2019s too expensive to switch to cloud storage, and to some extent that may have been true. Fortunately, Google is listening to the voice of its users. The platform comes with some other added benefits such as Android devices, Chromeboxes, and Chromebooks; all these have Google apps already installed. Many will opt for Google Drive because the market keeps growing and the company keeps improving its services. Now, these reduced prices are definitely drawing in even more users looking for convenient cloud storage solutions.<\/p>\n

Both Dropbox and OneDrive are out of the equation now that Google has dropped prices by 80%. New Google users will certainly opt for Google Drive, and not just because it\u2019s cheap, but also because it comes packed with a wealth of other services and solutions.<\/p>\n

Microsoft<\/strong> wants to stay in the game, so they recently announced that they\u2019re offering 15 GB for free on OneDrive. Unfortunately, Google Drive had already implemented this feature, so let\u2019s just say Microsoft\u2019s offer was somewhat outdated. What\u2019s truly amazing it that Microsoft copied Google, and they too dropped prices for cloud storage services by 800%. Microsoft\u2019s offer is fairly decent; however, in a 2013 report created by Strategy Analytics, the company didn\u2019t make it the top 10. In terms of cloud storage services, other corporations were in the lead such as Dropbox, Apple, Google Drive, and Amazon Cloud.<\/p>\n

OneDrive may not be that popular, but it does have one advantage \u2013 integration with Windows 8.1 and Office365. Basically, if we are a fan of Microsoft Office, using the OneDrive cloud storage services is exactly what we need. We can store any kind of file in the service, including photos, video, and documents, and then access them from any of our Windows PCs or mobile devices. The service organizes our files by type for us, so it’s easy to find what we need.<\/p>\n

OneDrive\u2019s marketing director says that every Office user should opt for the cloud storage services of Microsoft OneDrive. We\u2019re not in the 90s anymore and as savvy computer operators, we can choose products and solutions that best match with our necessities. Microsoft is well-aware that its product is not the only one available in the market, and people can easily decide on other cloud storage solutions.<\/p>\n

With the launch of OneDrive, Microsoft updated its Android app to add automatic photo uploads, meaning that when we shoot a photo with our phone, it’s automatically saved to OneDrive. That same feature has been available on iOS and Windows Phone for a while. OneDrive’s biggest strength is that it works closely with Microsoft Office apps, such as Word or PowerPoint, so when we launch one of those applications we will see a list of recent documents, including those saved to OneDrive. If we have an Office 365 subscription and open a document saved in OneDrive, we can collaborate on it in real time with other people. We will even be able to see the changes they make as they make them.<\/p>\n

Microsoft is hoping that OneDrive will be the<\/em> place where we store our photos, and the company is working on technology that will eventually sort all of the photos we take based on how important and meaningful they are. For instance, if we take a photo of our kids, a picture of a special meal, and a shot of our parking space so we can find our car later, OneDrive would be able to understand the importance of each picture, save the ones it thinks are the most useful, and trash the rest.<\/p>\n

In order to use OneDrive, we must sign up for a Microsoft account, which gives us access to Outlook, Xbox Live, and other Microsoft services.<\/p>\n

One last note: Microsoft has a stricter code of conduct for the files we upload to OneDrive than any other cloud service. We may not store any file that depicts any kind of nudity, or that incites, advocates, or expresses pornography or racism, to name a few. It’s tough to say how vigorously Microsoft enforces these restrictions, but they are nonetheless part of the Terms of Service we agree to when we sign up to use OneDrive.<\/p>\n

Anyone can sign up for a free individual account on Box<\/strong>, but the service’s endless list of sharing and privacy features were built specifically for business and IT users. Beyond the basic cloud storage setup, where we can store just about any kind of file, Box lets us share files with colleagues, assign tasks, leave comments on someone’s work, and get notifications when a file changes.<\/p>\n

Box also gives us a lot of control over the privacy of your files. For example, we can decide who in our business can view and open specific folders and files, as well as who can edit and upload documents. We can even password-protect individual files and set expiration dates for shared folders.<\/p>\n

While anyone can sign up for a free individual account on Box, the service’s endless list of sharing and privacy features can be lost on someone who’s just using the service for personal storage. Because of all those features, it can feel overwhelming to navigate the Box Web site if we are only trying to manage a few files and folders.<\/p>\n

Dropbox<\/strong> is a favorite in the cloud storage world, because it’s reliable, easy to use, and a breeze to set up. We can store any kind of file in Dropbox, by either uploading to the Web site or adding it with the desktop apps. Those apps live in our file system so that we can easily move files from our computer to the cloud and vice versa. The service automatically and quickly syncs our files across all of our devices, so we can access everything, everywhere. There is no size limit on files we upload to Dropbox with the desktop or mobile apps, but larger files can take several hours to upload, depending on our connection speed.<\/p>\n

Dropbox gets a lot of praise for its clean design, and rightfully so. The design is very basic and it doesn’t give us many options to view and organize our files, its mobile apps and desktop apps are beautiful and easy to navigate.<\/p>\n

Dropbox gives its users plenty of opportunities to get extra storage to beef up the paltry 2GB we get when we sign up. If we participate in the quick Getting Started tutorial, we get 250MB. Turn on the automatic photo upload feature on any of the mobile apps to get 3GB of extra space (we can get only 3GB total, not per device). We can earn 500MB for each friend we refer to Dropbox who actually signs up for the service, up to 16 GB total.<\/p>\n

Dropbox’s greatest strength is that it works equally well on PCs and Macs, Android and iOS. The service is so simple and elegantly designed, that it’s easy for anyone to master. Its desktop applications seamlessly blend with our computer’s file system.<\/p>\n

Of course, the outlined cloud computing services aren’t our only options for cloud storage. Cloud storage providers are fighting for supremacy this 2014. They\u2019re constantly battling to provide excellent services at affordable prices, and to gather more users they\u2019ve decided to give more GB for free.<\/p>\n

Source: www.encryptedfilestorage.com<\/span><\/a><\/span>, www.cnet.com<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you are unhappy with your current cloud service or have never dabbled in keeping your files in the cloud, this primer will help you get acquainted with the players out there. It looks like Google wants to have the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"parent":2,"menu_order":65,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"spay_email":""},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/P79beE-4C","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/felhoszolgaltatas-blog.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/286"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/felhoszolgaltatas-blog.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/felhoszolgaltatas-blog.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/felhoszolgaltatas-blog.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/felhoszolgaltatas-blog.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=286"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/felhoszolgaltatas-blog.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/286\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":609,"href":"http:\/\/felhoszolgaltatas-blog.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/286\/revisions\/609"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/felhoszolgaltatas-blog.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/felhoszolgaltatas-blog.hu\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}