There’s Box, DropBox, Drive and iCloud, but which is right for you?
By Brandon Butler
Network World|Jun 9, 2015 8:47 AM
PT
The cloud is full of free storage, if you know where to look.
From
relatively new companies such as Box and DropBox, to heavyweights
Google, Apple and Microsoft, many vendors use free cloud storage as a
way to entice users into their clouds in hopes that they will pay more
for additional volumes and services.
Below, in
alphabetical order, are 19 free cloud services – but a word of caution:
The cloud is a volatile place and offers from these vendors change
frequently. ADrive The deal: 50GB of free cloud storage.
Details: ADrive may not be very well known, but it
offers a compelling deal. The catch is it’s an advertiser-supported
platform, so you get a lot of storage space, but a lot of ads too. For
100GB, plans start at $2.50 per month or $25 per year. ADrive has some
basic features, such as sharing and backup, but its business and
enterprise account offer encryption and multi-user access.
More information: ADrive Amazon Cloud Drive The deal: 5GB free in S3; free unlimited photo storage for Amazon Prime customers.
Details: Amazon
Cloud Drive no longer offers a completely free consumer-oriented cloud
storage service, but Amazon Prime members get free unlimited cloud
storage for photos with their subscription, which costs $99 per year and
includes free two-day shipping on eligible Amazon.com products. For non
Amazon-prime members, unlimited photos can be stored for $12 per year
after a free three-month trial. For $60 per year, Amazon offers an
“Unlimited Everything” plan, which allows any file or document to be
stored.
Amazon’s business-oriented cloud storage service named the Simple Storage Service (S3) has a free tier of up to 5GB.
Details:
Apple iCloud Drive comes with 5GB of free storage. Users looking to
bump up their storage can do so for 99 cents month for 20GB, $4 per
month for 200GB and $20 per month for 1TB. ICloud is meant for Apple
users, but there is an iCloud app for the Windows. Android users would
have to use a third-party app to access their iCloud storage. More information: Apple iCloud.
Bitcasa
The deal: 5GB of free cloud storage.
Details:
Beyond the 5GB of free cloud storage, Bitcasa offers 1TB of storage for
$10 per month or 10TB for $99 per month or $999 per year.
Details:
Box offers a number of plans, but the basic, single-user free plan
comes with 10GB of storage, with a 250MB file upload size limit. The
company’s other plans are targeted at teams and businesses and include
more stringent security measures. A “starter” package for $5 per month
comes with 100GB of storage and a 2GB file size limit for up to 10
users. A Business account for $15 per month includes unlimited storage
with a 5GB file size limit. Custom-priced enterprise plans are also
available.
Details:
Copy is a cloud service by Barracuda Networks, an IT company
specializing in security and storage. For $5 per month or $49 per year
users can get 250GB of storage. There’s also an EFSS product named Copy
for Companies that starts at $699 for 500GB on a dedicated virtual
appliance.
Details:
Made by LogMeIn, Cubby offers additional plans starting at $4 for 100GB
of storage. Users can choose many other amounts, including more than
2TBs for $100 per month. There are also business plans that come with
additional security and sharing capabilities.
Dropbox
The deal: 2GB of free storage.
Details:
One of the original and most popular cloud storage products, DropBox
used to offer 5GB free, now it only offers 2GB. For $10 per month users
can upgrade to.
DropBox Pro, which comes with 1TB of space. DropBox for business, for $15 per user/month provides unlimited storage.
Details:
Users can get up to 21GB by referring friends to Dump Truck – beyond
that additional storage starts at $5 per 50GBs or $50 per month for
500GB (there are other options of plans in between those). VPN provider
Golden Frog hosts it.
Details:
If you need more than the 15GB, for $2 per month customers get 100GB of
storage, and for $10 per month customers receive 1TB of storage. Any
data associated with your Google email account counts against your Drive
storage limit, but anything stored in Google Docs, Sheets or Slides
does not count against the 15GB limit. Small photos are stored for free
in Google, but those larger than 2048x2048 count against your storage.
Details:
Beyond the 5GB of free storage, up to 100GB cost $6.30 month and 500GB
costs 12.50 per month. HiDrive is hosted by Starto AG, a Germany
technology company.
Details:
It’s free and unlimited, but it does come with catches. First, it’s
ad-supported. Second, there are no desktop or mobile apps, so users have
to access Hive directly through the website and while sharing is
allowed, users must pay for HD stream sharing and customers can only
share with other Hive users. Paid plans start at $8 per month, which
allows for HD streaming and removes ads.
Details:
Users can get additional storage by referring friends; or a 1TB plan is
available for $44 per year. There is also a business service with
additional granular security controls.
Details: Founded
by Internet provocateur Kim Dotcom, Mega offers one of the more
enticing deals in the cloud: 50GB of free storage. Users can get 4TB for
about $9 per month (the company uses Euros). A word of caution: Mega
does not store users’ passwords, so the company recommends you keep a
secondary backup of files stored in the service. Basically this means
that if you lose your password, Mega can’t help you recover it.
Details: Microsoft OneDrive (formerly
SkyDrive) now comes with 15GB of free storage, with 100GB for $2 per
month, while up to 1TB costs $7 per month. Microsoft offers other
goodies too, including an extra 15GB of storage when you backup your
camera roll to OneDrive, and customers can get an extra 5GB by referring
friends (refer up to 10 friends at 500MB free for each friend).
Microsoft Office, which gives access to Microsoft apps such as Word,
Excell and Outlook, costs $7 per month (or $70 per year) and comes with
1TB of storage.
Details:
pCloud offers initial customers 10GB of free storage and users can get
up to an additional 10GB by inviting friends to the service. For even
more space, pCloud offers 500GB for $4 per month or $8 per month for
1TB. PCloud started in 2013 and is based in Switzerland.
Details:
SpiderOak markets itself as a secure cloud storage service with its
“Zero-Knowledge” promise, which means it encrypts customer data and does
not store it in plain text. Other plans include: 30GB for $7 per month
or 1TB for $12 per month ($129 annually).
Details:
StreamNation is meant to store photos, videos and long-form movies. It
comes with sharing privileges and paid accounts give offline access to
the media (so you can watch it on an airplane, for example). The service
comes with a basic package of 20GB free, although users may have to
refer friends or follow the company on social media sites to get that
full amount. Additional storage runs $4 for 100GB, and $14 per month for
1TB. Those prices increase by $1 each if customers pay month-to-month
instead of commit to a full year of service.
Details:
Syncplicity is EMC’s enterprise file synch and share service (EFSS),
which is meant to compete with Box. It offers a personal plan that comes
with 10GB free per month and has other business-oriented plans starting
at $60 per month, which comes with 300GB, plus 5GB for each user.
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ADrive 
The deal: 5GB free in S3; free unlimited photo storage for Amazon Prime customers.
Apple iCloud Drive
Box 
Copy
Cubby
Google Drive
Hive 
Microsoft OneDrive
SpiderOak 
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