Storage Wars? -Google dtive is here. So what next? There is a war going on in the clouds. With the advent of Google in the Cloud Storage scene, the already established players like Dropbox and Box in the field are feeling the heat.
There is already a great debate going on which storage synching service is the best and more importantly will Google’s Drive out shadow the already established brands viz. Dropbox and Box. And if you are planning to move to cloud computing, be sure that you know important things about it before moving.
Let us check in more details about the various storage options available and how they stand against each other.
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Details About The Various Storage Options
Dropbox Cloud Storage
Dropbox is the present leader in cloud storage and has received great reviews from users for the storage option, usability and low learning curve. Also Dropbox’s solid API is one of the main reasons for its popularity as it is developer friendly and numerous applications have been created which utilize Dropbox, for instance- Evernote.
Dropbox is available across many mediums including PC, Mac, iPhone, iPad and Android phones and provides seem-less data access across these applications. Dropbox provides 2GB FREE for signups and an additional 500 MB for every referral (Upto 18 GB).
Also there is no limit on the maximum file size, so you can upload your HD movies quite easily on Dropbox. For more storage requirements, one can get 50 GB storage option at $9.99 per month and 100 GB at $19.99 per month. Dropbox supports version tracking, media streaming, public API and public share option.
Box Cloud Storage
Box is another cloud data storage option and has been providing good competition to Dropbox for some time. Box is also quite renowned for its great API and development capabilities. It comes with 5GB FREE data storage and presently is giving out 50 GB data storage for all android users.
It however doesn’t provide a desktop client for the FREE users and one has to go with the paid service for the same. It is relatively costlier as compared to Dropbox with 25 GB available for $9.99 and 50 GB available for $19.99. Also it allows a maximum file size of 25 MB for the FREE services and 1GB for the paid service.
Box also supports all major Computer and mobile platforms including PC, Mac, iPhone, Android etc. Like Dropbox it also comes with version tracking, public API and public share option, but lacks media streaming capabilities.
Google Drive Cloud Storage
Google Drive is the latest entrant in the arena; however it has already created a buzz in the market as it comes from one of the most reputed companies in the web world. Google documents are incorporated in the Google Drive and hence one can use the documents and spreadsheets with quite ease.
Also Google Drive supports 30 types of files right in your browser without the need to install the software which even includes photo shop files. The main advantage of Google Drive over other storage services is that you can easily store and access various files quite fast and easily.
It comes with the OCR (Optical Character Recognition) technique which can search through even scanned text or images in text and make it available for searching.
Google drive offers 5 GigaBytes of FREE space with a maximum file upload limit of 10 GB. For more storage options you can go with 25 GB for $2.49 a month, 100 GB for $4.99 per month and a whooping 1TB for 49.99 per month. Also upgrading to paid version will expand your Gmail account to 25GB.
The Google drive also comes with Version tracking, Public API, Public folder share option and does not have media streaming capabilities.
Clearly Google Drive beats all other storage options with the cheap tariffs.