For most of us,
online storage is the best place to save the huge quantities of photos, videos,
and documents we’ve all now acquired.
When those files
are stored in the cloud, you don’t have to worry about which machine they’re on
or whether they’re properly backed up: They’re available to any device from
almost anywhere, and you don’t have to worry about losing them if one of those
devices goes down.
The only trick
has been to figure out which of the many cloud services — from Microsoft,
Google, Apple, and others — and which of their ever-changing offerings is right
for you.
Microsoft made
those calculations a bit trickier this week, by killing its most compelling
deal: It had been offering subscribers to its Office 365 suite an unlimited
amount of online storage for just $7 per month — and that included the
software.
But according to
Microsoft, some people were abusing its generosity by saving upwards of 75
TB of data on their OneDrive accounts, which presumably put a strain on the
company’s resources. Turns out some people got the crazy notion that, when
you’re offered unlimited storage, it’s actually unlimited.
So Microsoft has
pulled back on that deal (as we’ll detail below). Where does that leave you?
Here’s how we see the online-storage landscape now, in the wake of Microsoft’s
decision.
Microsoft OneDrive
After offering
limitless cloud storage to every Office 365 subscriber, and then finding that
some customers took that literally, Microsoft is now offering 1 TB storage
space with each Office 365 subscription for the same $7 monthly fee. That’s
still a pretty decent deal when you consider that you’re getting Word, Excel,
PowerPoint, and OneNote as well as a lot of storage room for your photos,
videos, and music.
(It’s worth
pointing out that even the base version of OneDrive gives you free access to
Microsoft’s Office Online. But Office Online is relatively barebones compared
to Office 365.)
If 1 TB option
is a too much storage for you — and chances are that,
realistically, it will be for many, many people — Microsoft also offers a 50 GB
storage plan for $2 per month. That, however, doesn’t include Office 365.
Unfortunately, the company is no longer offering 100 GB or 200 GB plans, which
means your options are either 50 GB or 1 TB. That’s not a lot of choice.
If you don’t
want to pay for cloud storage at all, Microsoft also provides 5 GB of free
space, though, that’s a step down from the 15 GB it used to provide OneDrive
users for free, though, again, that doesn’t come with Office 365.
Microsoft does
offer a OneDrive app that lets you access your OneDrive folder directly from
your computer’s file explorer, as though it’s just another drive, making
it easier to transfer files to and from the cloud.
Microsoft also
offers mobile apps for iOS and Android, so you can access your data from any of
your devices.
Google Drive
Got a Gmail
account? Then you’ve already got Google Drive. And with that, you’ve also got
15 GB of free cloud storage. That’s the largest amount of free space you can
get from any of the major cloud-storage providers. In fact, Google also offers
the most storage plan options.
If you’re like
me, though, and you save a lot of photos and videos online, then 15 GB probably
isn’t going to cut it for you. In that case, you can opt for Google’s 100 GB
plan, which costs $2 per month.
For folks in
need of more storage than that, Google also offers a 1 TB plan for $10
per month. And it goes on from there: There is a 10 TB plan for $100 per month,
a 20 TB plan for $200 per month, and a 30 TB plan for $300 per month.
Most people will
never need anything close to 10 TB, let alone 30. Still the fact that Google
offers such options could be helpful for small business owners and the like.
It goes without
saying that Google Drive also includes its own productivity suite — in the form
of Google Docs, Google Sheets, and Google Slides — for free. This isn’t the
place to do a comprehensive comparison between Office 365 and Google’s online
apps. Suffice it to say that Office is the more fully featured of the two.
Like Microsoft,
Google also offers a Google Drive app that you gives you access to your files
from your computer’s desktop.
Of course Google
offers Drive apps for both Android and iOS.
Apple iCloud
Apple’s iCloud,
like Microsoft OneDrive and Google Drive, is a one-stop shop for all of your
storage and productivity needs.
Every iCloud
subscriber starts with 5 GB of free storage — similar to what Microsoft offers
with OneDrive, but less than Google Drive’s 15 GB. From there you can pay $1
for a 50 GB storage plan, $3 for a 200 GB plan, or $10 for a 1 TB plan.
It’s strange
that Apple doesn’t offer a storage option between 50 GB and 200 GB. Sure it’s
only a dollar a month more than Google’s $2 per month 100 GB plan, but I’d
prefer the option of a 100 GB plan, as most people will probably never need 200
GB of storage. After all, a dollar is still a dollar.
Apple’s iCloud
also features a desktop component that lets you quickly drag and drop your
files into your iCloud account, as well as free access to Apple’s Pages,
Numbers, and Keynote productivity apps.
The company
doesn’t, however, offer a mobile app for competing platforms like Android,
which means if you have a MacBook and Android phone, you won’t be able to sync
the two via iCloud.
Dropbox
While Microsoft,
Google, and Apple provide you with both storage and productivity apps, Dropbox
is all about the storage, but also offers some excellent third-party
integration with services like Microsoft Office and Hipchat.
Dropbox is also
working on its own built-in productivity app called Paper, though it’s still in
beta and you can only use it by applying for an invitation.
As for storage
space, Dropbox provides you with 2 GB free, with the ability to increase that
amount by 500 MB every time you recommend the service to a friend or run
through Dropbox’s tutorial, up to a total of 16 GB. And like its competitors,
Dropbox also has a desktop app.
Unfortunately,
Dropbox doesn’t offer much in the way of storage plans: Once you’ve outgrown
your free allotment, you have to move up to the company’s 1 TB plan, which
costs $10 per month.
Or you could opt
for Dropbox Business, which costs $12.50 per user per month, with a minimum of
5 users. The latter is a lot of money compared to some of these other plans,
though it does come with some added, business-friendly benefits.
Dropbox also
includes a desktop app that integrates it directly into your computer’s file
explorer, so you can use it like any other folder.
Naturally,
Dropbox offers mobile apps for both Android and iOS.
Box
Another
storage-first option, Box doesn’t offer much in the way of productivity tools
beyond its Note app. The latter is not on the same level as Google Docs or Word
Online, but it gets the job done when you need to jot something down in a
pinch.
Like the above
services, Box has a desktop for syncing files from your computer without having
to visit the Box website.
Box starts you
out with a relatively generous 10 GB of free storage. You can then upgrade to
the company’s 100 GB option for $10 per month. That’s pretty pricey when you
consider that Google offers the same amount of storage space for $2 per month.
Outside of its
100 GB option, Box doesn’t provide any other options for individuals looking
for cloud storage.
Box, like its
competitors, also includes desktop and mobile apps.
The bottom line
Here’s the
thing, if you’re an Android or iOS user, you’re probably going to stick with
Google Drive or iCloud, because those services are so directly integrated into
your phone’s operating system.
But if you aren’t satisfied with either of those services, or if you’re more
platform-agnostic, your best deal overall is still Microsoft’s OneDrive. For $7
per month you get a whopping 1 TB of storage space — $3 less than comparable
deals from the competition — and access to Microsoft’s Office 365.
So while
Microsoft may have been in hot water with users upset about losing that unlimited
storage option, it still has the best cloud-storage deal.
