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If you’re anything like us, you probably have tons of files on your computer. Word documents, pictures, videos, important files you don’t want to lose in the event of a hard drive failure or some other physical destruction of your computer. The best way to hold on to all of these files, of course, is through cloud storage.
There are a number of cloud storage software options out there, from Dropbox to OneDrive. Which one is right for you? Let’s take a close look and help you decide.
Notably, all the services we’re looking at today work on Windows, Mac, Android and iOS, making them rather universal.
Dropbox restricts you to uploading files of 10MB or less, unless you’re using their app instead of their website, on which there is no cap. You get 2 GB of free storage, with the ability to “earn” more free storage as you use the service. It’s $10 per month for 1 TB of storage.
Google Drive restricts you to uploading files of 5 TB or less, but that’s hardly a restriction; you’d be hard pressed to even find a file that big. You also get a generous 15 GB of free storage, though you can pay $2 per month for 100 GB. If you need the full terabyte, you can get that much storage for $10 per month.
Microsoft’s online cloud service is similar to Google’s, and the two are largely vying for supremacy in the space. File uploads are capped at 10 MB, and there’s not a way around this. However, you get 5 GB of free storage through OneDrive. $2 per month nets you 50 GB of storage.
Of course Amazon has a cloud service; why wouldn’t a one-time-bookstore-turned-corporate-giant have a cloud service?
Amazon Cloud Drive offers no free storage, but does give you unlimited picture storage for $12 per year. You can also get unlimited storage with no caveats for $60 per year. This makes Amazon ideal for people with a seriously large number of files that they need to store off-site indefinitely.
