Cloud Storage & Sharing Options

[TVGHosting]

I have done a lot of research into cloud storage recently for two reasons: 1.) I experienced my first hard drive failure and 2.) I am a treasurer of a non profit with no physical location so we needed to find a way to store and share our documents.

FTP and simple online storage is so 3 years ago, the Cloud has invited me in! I thought I would share my findings with you.



SugarSync
Compatibility: Windows, Mac, Linux (via Wine), iPhone, Android + more
Pricing:
5.5Gb with Free Account
40Gb $4.99/month (30 day free trial)
70Gb $9.99/month (30 day free trial)
110Gb $14.99/month (30 day free trial)
Referral Bonus: 500Mb/free account, 10Gb/paid Account, No Max!
Whats different: While Linux is not natively supported there is a work around. Can easily stream videos & music, does a real nice job with photo albums, can post to Facebook with a click. Also sharing is awesome! You can post public links (think Rapid Share) except others do not need an account nor are there download limits or wait times. You can share files & folders with and without passwords with others. Great to use in a small business environment! Web based file manipulation is also a nice bonus. Can email files in to be backed up. You also can get email reports to file and folder activity that is shared.


DropBox
Compatibility: Windows, Mac, Linux, iPhone, Android + more
Pricing:
2.25Gb with Free Account
50Gb $9.99/month
100Gb $19.99/month
Referral Bonus: 250Mb/free account, 8Gb Max
Whats different: One of the most common of the group. Has a Linux client. Can share links with people to share specific files with people. 10Gb/day or 250Gb/day for paid account limit for public file downloads.


Memopal
Compatibility: Windows, Mac, Linux (beta), iPhone, iPad
Pricing:
3.5Gb with Free Account
200Gb 49€/year
Referral Bonus: 500Mb/free account (no max listed)
Whats different: Not USA based, but USA supported. Can install on 10 computers with personal account. Can share a file, it basically uploads and emails end user with link to file.


Spideroak
Compatibility: Windows, Mac, Linux
Pricing:
3Gb with Free Account
100Gb $10/month
Referral Bonus: 1Gb per referral (3Gb max bonus for free accounts, 20Gb max bonus for paid accounts)!
Whats different: Files are compressed before being uploaded and are uploaded encrypted. This saves you both bandwidth making your transfers quicker and allowing you to save more data within your plan. You can also share files & folders with exactly who you want to.


iDrive
Compatibility: Windows, Mac, Linux (ibackup - no free accounts)
Pricing:
5Gb with Free Account (1 computer limit)
150Gb $4.95/month (1 computer limit)
500Gb $14.95/month (5 computer limit)
Referral Bonus: No signup bonuses. Affiliate program, 25% of revenue from referred accounts
Whats different: 2 clicks to start backing up the most common files. Supports backing up mapped and external hard drives as well. Web access to files. iDrive can also keep up to 30 versions of a file for you.


Box.net
Compatibility: Windows, iPhone, Android, BB
Pricing:
5Gb with Free Account (25mb file size limit)
25Gb $9.99/month (1Gb file size limit)
50Gb $19.99/month (1Gb file size limit)
Referral Bonus: None found
Whats different: Personal accounts severly limited in features, Business accounts have $15/month/user fees. Google apps integration. Stats and tracking of files.


CrashPlan
Compatibility: Windows, Mac, Linux, Solaris
Pricing:
Free backup to another local computer
$54/year for 1 computer, unlimited space
$100/year for all family computers, unlimited space
Referral Bonus: None found
Whats different: Crashplan also uses smart compression to upload your files. When a file changes it only updates the changed part. If you do not need online backup, it can automate backing up to another local computer or external hard drive that is on site. Transfers are also done encrypted. Bandwidth is throttled to watch your activity, putting your computer to work when you are not working on it.


Carbonite
Compatibility: Windows, Mac
Pricing:
$54.95/year
Referral Bonus: No referral bonus (Affiliate Program managed by Commission Junction)
Whats different: Unlimited backup space! Access to files via internet. Cannot share files/folders.


Mozy.com - very similar to Carbonite, $54.45/year or $4.95/month options
Jungledisk.com/personal/ - $2/month for 5Gb - $3/month 5Gb free then $.15/Gb (rackspace cloud files)
Syncplicity.com - 2Gb Free only, 2 computers only
one.ubuntu.com - 2Gb Free. 20Gb for 2.99/month. Windows install in beta
Wuala.com - 1Gb free. Interesting option to trade storage on you machine for storage on other machines. Have an extra 100Gb disk on all the time? Use it to earn 100Gb of storage on the cloud.


In the end I favor SugarSync because of the advanced sharing options and plans available. While a linux client is not directly available, using Wine seems to work fine.

 

[Artashes]

Hi Bryan, definitely a great summary. I have been using Dropbox initially when it launched, but didn't like the way it was setup. Also, plenty of limitations.

I have been using SugarSync for the past year and love the service. 5 bucks a month provides the extra peace of mind and I don't have to remember to do backups anymore.

It actually saved me on two occasions when I had to restore a file after I modified it incorrectly.

 

[TVGHosting]

I know! I have 30Gb and it has really been nice. Use it more than I thought I would for streaming music to my Android Phone and posting pics on Facebook.

Everyone should have a little space if not a lot!

They did just extend their sign up bonus. If you are referred by an existing user you can get 10Gb extra space on any paid plan. You also get 30 days free trial when you sing up for a paid plan. PM me if you would like a referral!

 

[HostColor]

I was curious and I went to review all the websites listed in the original thread. The presentation of Sugarsync is very good! dropbox does not say what is this about on the home page, which is not good. Memopal looks fine...

 

[rocketgirl]

Thanks for the post. I checked out SugarSync and it's pretty cool! It's even good just for backing up personal items, like pictures, although I'd probably just use the free 5GB plan for something like that.

 

[aditd]

I notice you didn't include vps.net. Of course there are a lot of companies offering cloud hosting. Still from my knowledge vps.net is quite big on the market.

 

[CRServers]

This is a great post!
I'm bookmarking this information, thanks!

In regards to VPS.net, there is a good review here

Additionally, for web hosters that want to offer Cloud Services to their customers, OnApp is worth considering.

Regards, and thanks again for such a good review.

 

[kusai]

I would be very conservative about dropbox. Whenever a customer installs dropbox on their windows server, it starts to give port scan alerts. Anyone else experience the same thing