Options for Personal and Small Business Cloud Hosting Drives

I guess my intro post doesn't really count as a "first" real blog post, so next up, following the launch of the Google Drive project, I've decided to look at the various cloud "drive" hosting options that are available at the moment.

Dropbox

An established player in the market, dropbox is a really simple to use cloud backup system, allowing you access to your files wherever you are.

With desktop, mac, smartphones and tablets all supported with its own software, coupled with browser access to your files, you'll never be unable to reach them wherever you are in the world.

Here is a video introduction to Dropbox:

You can get up to 18GB free based on how many people you invite, or can monthly fees based on the amount you require, with discounts for purchasing annually. You do however, only start with 2GB for free.

One of the most useful aspects of Dropbox is its ease for sharing between individuals and groups. With a large user base installed already and more people signing up via referrals all the time, if you need sharing of these backups amongst many users, Dropbox has historically been the best option.

Dropbox is probably the market leader in this space at the moment, so the reviews of the remaining options will be comparing against this benchmark.

SkyDrive

Brought to you by the IT behemoth that is Microsoft, SkyDrive has very similar features to DropBox, with access to files across PC's and Mac's, mobile access and simple sharing options via web browsers without any need for signing in.

There are also really simple options to share with social media websites.

You also get a whopping 7GB on a free account - 5GB more than you start with on Dropbox!

Here is a video introduction to SkyDrive:

Google Drive

Only launched this week, Google Drive has been making waves, not only just in its name.

There has been plenty of chatter of some fairly controversial terms of service, which imply that Google can do anything with anything you upload, in all likelihood, this was just poorly written, and isn't likely to be too great a concern.

Particularly useful for those users who are tied up in the Google ecosystem with Android, GMail and the like, Google Drive starts you off with 5GB of storage and has aims to integrate with all of the mobile devices in the near future (iOS wasn't supported at the time of writing for iPad or iPhone).

It also ties in with the Google Docs system allowing huge amounts of collaboration.

My main fear about using this is the combined level of information Google would have about everything I do... Lord knows they have enough already!

Here is a video introduction to Google Drive:

SugarSync

Another service giving you 5GB for starters, this outsider in the market is full of the features used by the others. Again you have support across multiple devices, mobile and sharing facilities (I guess this is the point of them all though).

Some of the unique features of SugarSync are that you can sync any folders on your machines, it interacts with Outlook, SugarSync is one of the most flexible cloud storage options available.

Here is a video introduction to SugarSync:

Conclusions:

I've been using Dropbox for a long time now and have built up a good amount of storage, but in the shorter term many of these allow for much greater volumes of storage initially without going through the referral process. That said, I wouldn't be without the sharing features built in to Dropbox for how I use it.

I'd love to hear any experiences you have with working with any of these, or any other comparable tools? 

Over and out...