There are a lot of options online to store your data, I will be going through a few of the big contenders today. We will be reviewing Dropbox, Skydrive from Microsoft, Amazon Cloud Drive, Google Drive and Box.net. This is a non biased review as I have accounts on all of these services and I use them all equally and I will note why I use one over the others in more detail further down in this article.
The biggest perk of cloud/online storage is to be able to get your important information from anywhere and any device. I usually keep my photo’s and important documents backed up on Google Drive and Dropbox as they both have apps for Android and iOS. I am a technology nut and always switch from my Android phone to Apple iOS so being able to have my information in a convenient place so I never really lose anything.
Why should you keep your data in the cloud over keeping my data on flash drives or external drives?
Cloud storage is always available and you do not have to worry about remembering to grab your flash drive or external hard drive. While it is always vital to have your important data saved in 3 places just in case of a fire or natural disaster you will always be able to retain your important data. The only issue you will run into with this method is keeping the data up to date.
The tools will only work if you save the information to the folders that you have designated to upload from. So if you save all of your important files to My Documents and your important document has been stored elsewhere and has not been updated it will not be saved with the latest information. So keep in mind if you use any back up solution to have it set up to save in all of the areas that you save your files too.
I use My Desktop, My Documents and Download folder as my primary back up sources. This ensures that I do not miss anything important to me. The only problem you may run into with using a folder like Downloads with a backup solution will be you will quickly run out of space unless you have an high amount of storage capacity. I was able to get in on a few upgraded perks from DropBox, Box.net and Skydrive by following certain tech related people on Facebook and Twitter.
The top online storage providers.
in no particular order.
DropBox – offers new users 2 gb of free space and you can earn up to 18 gb free via referring other users and connecting your DropBox to other services.
Box.net – offers new users 5 gb of free space on their system
Google Drive – offers users 5 gb of free online storage.
Skydrive from Microsoft offers 7 gb of free online storage for users. You can use your Microsoft Account from Hotmail to sign in.
Amazon Cloud Drive – offers users 7 gb of online storage.
Each one of these services have mobile apps for Android and iOS (currently Skydrive does not have a dedicated iOS app.)
