Dropbox, SkyDrive & Google Drive: Let The Competition Begin

cloud storage image

by Aryeh Powers

So Google Drive has officially taken over Google Doc’s as the latest dominant platform for Google Docs and now any Google user that has taken advantage of Google Docs feature, like me, is now automatically a Google Drive user. Not sure about you, but the idea of having 5GB of free cloud space is pretty attractive. Although Google’s seamless cloud storage integration through Google Drive is new and fresh, other prevalent platforms have been around for quite some time and have captured a huge chunk of the cloud storage market. In particular, I’d like to talk about Dropbox and Microsoft’s SkyDrive, which are the leading competitors of Google Drive.

At the current moment, I am personally using the free accounts for all 3 services: Skydrive, Dropbox and Google Drive. From a user interface and a convenience perspective, I have a couple thoughts.

Pros and Cons:

I find that Dropbox is the easiest to use, but not so convenient for sharing your information and files with others. When it comes to uploading and filing information in the cloud, Dropbox is my favorite option, because when I upload my information, it is seamless and is exactly how I would expect it to look on a PC, instead of the cloud aspect confusing me.

For me, the Google Drive interface is the most user friendly for sharing information. I can simply choose a person to share my docs with and that person can edit my doc, put comments there and in turn share it with other people.

My least used cloud based storage service is SkyDrive; but that’s not to say that it isn’t a great service; because it is. For starters, SkyDrive offers the most storage for free – 7GB. Now although I have not utilized the SkyDrive capabilities across my devices – my PC and my cell phone – I have read that this is where the pure genius of SkyDrive lies. According to an article recently written on techradar.com, all 3 platforms have a downloadable client that makes syncing information on various platforms seamless. However, the impression that I have been getting from recent articles is that the SkyDrive syncing options are the most user friendly. I have yet to confirm.

Pricing:

Dropbox: 2GB FREE, 100GB – 99.00 yearly, 200GB – 199.00 yearly, 500GB – 499 yearly

SkyDrive: 7GB FREE, 20GB – $10 yearly, 50GB 25.00 yearly, 100GB for 50 yearly

Google Drive: 5GB FREE, 25GB 2.49 monthly, 100GB 4.99 monthly, 1TB 49.99 monthly

One thing that I am curious to see is whether or not there will be advertisements cropping up across any of these platforms in the near future. I hope not, but you never know.

 

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