Google Drive versus Dropbox and the rest: cloud storage compared

[hamba]

Google Drive versus Dropbox and the rest: cloud storage compared

Which is cheapest? Which offers the best cross-platform support? The results may surprise you

U2's Bono and the Edge with the founders of Dropbox. But how does the battle of the brands come out? Photograph: Dropbox


This week both Microsoft and Google got their acts together and released Dropbox-like applications for their online storage services, SkyDrive and Google Drive respectively.

Why has Dropbox been winning in this space? Fantastic convenience. Just save a file into the Dropbox folder on your PC or Mac, and it syncs everywhere, including iOS and Android mobiles. No official Windows Phone 7 client yet; but nothing is perfect.

Now both SkyDrive and the new Google Drive are equally convenient, though with variations in platform support. Apple iCloud is also worth a mention, since it syncs across iOS and Mac devices. So too is Box, though I doubt either Box or Dropbox enjoyed the recent launches from the big guys.

How do they compare? Here is a quick look at the pros and cons. First, pricing per month:

Service	Free storage	Cost for 25GB	Cost for 50GB
Apple iCloud	5GB	$3.33	$8.33
Box	5GB	$9.99	$19.99
Dropbox	2GB		$9.99
Google Drive	5GB	$2.49	$4.99 (100GB)
Microsoft SkyDrive	7GB	$0.83 (27GB)	$2.08 (52GB)

And now platform support:

	Web	Android	Blackberry	iOS	Linux	Mac	Windows	Windows Phone
Apple iCloud	✓	X	X	✓	X	✓	Limited	X
Box	✓	✓	✓	✓	X	✓	✓	X
Dropbox	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	X
Google Drive	✓	✓	X	✓	X	✓	✓	X
Microsoft SkyDrive	✓	X	X	✓	X	✓	✓	✓

Before you say it though, this is not really about price and it is hard to compare like with like – though it is obvious that Microsoft's SkyDrive wins on cost. Note also that existing SkyDrive users have a free upgrade to 25GB if they move quickly.

A few quick notes on the differences between these services …

Apple iCloud is not exposed as cloud storage as such. Rather, this is an API built into iOS and the latest OS X. Well behaved applications are expected to use storage in a way that supports the iCloud service. Apple's service takes care of synchronisation across devices. Apple's own apps such as iWork support iCloud. The advantage is that users barely need to think about it; synchronisation just happens – too much so for some tastes, since you may end up spraying your documents all over and trusting them to iCloud without realising it. As you might expect from Apple, cross-platform support is poor.


Box is the most expensive service, though it has a corporate focus that will appeal to businesses. For example, you can set expiration dates for shared content. Enterprise plans include Active Directory and LDAP support. There are numerous additional apps which use the Box service. With Box, as with Dropbox, there is an argument that since you are using a company dedicated to cross-platform online storage, you are less vulnerable to major changes in your service caused by a change of policy by one of the giants. Then again, will these specialists survive now that the big guns are all in?


Dropbox deserves credit for showing the others how to do it, Apple iCloud aside. Excellent integration on Mac and Windows, and excellent apps on the supported mobile platforms. It has attracted huge numbers of free users though, raising questions about its business model, and its security record is not the best. One of the problems for all these services is that 2GB of data is actually a lot, unless you get into space-devouring things like multimedia files or system backups. This means that many will never pay to upgrade.


Google Drive presents as a folder in Windows and on the Mac, but it is as much an extension of Google Apps, the online office suite, as it is a storage service. This can introduce friction. Documents in Google Apps appear there, with extensions like .gdoc and .gsheet, and if you double-click them they open in your web browser. Offline editing is not supported. Still, you do not have to use Google Apps with Google Drive. Another issue is that Google may trawl your data to personalise your advertising and so on, which is uncomfortable – though when it comes to paid-for or educational services, Google says:

Note that there is no ad-related scanning or processing in Google Apps for Education or Business with ads disabled


​

Google Drive can be upgraded to 16TB, which is a factor if you want huge capacity online; but by this stage you should be looking at specialist services such as Amazon S3 and others as well.

Microsoft SkyDrive is also to some extent an adjunct to its online applications. Save an Office 2010 document in SkyDrive, and you can edit it online using Office Web Apps. Office Web Apps have frustrations, but the advantage is that the document format is the same on the web as it is on the desktop, so you can also edit it freely offline. A snag with SkyDrive is lack of an Android client, other than the browser.

Conclusions

There are many more differences between these services than I have described. Simply though, if you use a particular platform or application such as Apple, Google Apps or Microsoft Office, it makes sense to choose the service that aligns with it. If you want generic storage and do not care who provides it, SkyDrive is best value and I am surprised this has not been more widely observed in reports on the new launches.

One of Microsoft's problems is that is perceived as an old-model company wedded to the desktop, and lacks the cool factor associated with Apple, Google and more recent arrivals such as Dropbox.

• This article first appeared on Tim Anderson's Gadget Writing blog. It's used with permission.



Tim Anderson
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 25 April 2012 14.54 BST
© 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved
Google Drive versus Dropbox and the rest: cloud storage compared | Technology | guardian.co.uk

 

[reni]

Below is the Terms and conditions for Google and Sky Drive
Source :Comparing Skydrive and Google Drive's privacy policy - Neowin


Two new cloud storage services were unveiled this week and when you store your information in the cloud, one issue comes to mind, privacy.

Google Drive and Skydrive are both backed by massive corporations who would love to have you store your information on their platters. If you are already in one ecosystem such as Gmail, Google Docs, Android, and Google+, it would make sense to then use Google Drive. Likewise, if you use Hotmail/Live, Windows Phone, Xbox and have a Windows PC, Skydrive would seem like a natural choice as well.

But, no matter which service you choose, make sure to check them out completely, including their TOS. There is a notable difference between the two services and we have posted below a critical component of each platforms stance regarding your content.

Here is Microsoft’s stance on your content:

5. Your content

Except for material that we license to you, we don't claim ownership of the content you provide on the service. Your content remains your content. We also don't control, verify, or endorse the content that you and others make available on the service.

You control who may access your content. If you share content in public areas of the service or in shared areas available to others you've chosen, then you agree that anyone you've shared content with may use that content. When you give others access to your content on the service, you grant them free, nonexclusive permission to use, reproduce, distribute, display, transmit, and communicate to the public the content solely in connection with the service and other products and services made available by Microsoft. If you don't want others to have those rights, don't use the service to share your content.

You understand that Microsoft may need, and you hereby grant Microsoft the right, to use, modify, adapt, reproduce, distribute, and display content posted on the service solely to the extent necessary to provide the service.

Please respect the rights of artists, inventors, and creators. Content may be protected by copyright. People appearing in content may have a right to control the use of their image. If you share content on the service in a way that infringes others' copyrights, other intellectual property rights, or privacy rights, you're breaching this contract. You represent and warrant that you have all the rights necessary for you to grant the rights in this section and the use of the content doesn't violate any law. We won't pay you for your content. We may refuse to publish your content for any or no reason. We may remove your content from the service at any time if you breach this contract or if we cancel or suspend the service.
Posted below are Google’s terms of service for its Cloud storage:

Your Content in our Services

Some of our Services allow you to submit content. You retain ownership of any intellectual property rights that you hold in that content. In short, what belongs to you stays yours.

When you upload or otherwise submit content to our Services, you give Google (and those we work with) a worldwide license to use, host, store, reproduce, modify, create derivative works (such as those resulting from translations, adaptations or other changes we make so that your content works better with our Services), communicate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute such content. The rights you grant in this license are for the limited purpose of operating, promoting, and improving our Services, and to develop new ones. This license continues even if you stop using our Services (for example, for a business listing you have added to Google Maps). Some Services may offer you ways to access and remove content that has been provided to that Service. Also, in some of our Services, there are terms or settings that narrow the scope of our use of the content submitted in those Services. Make sure you have the necessary rights to grant us this license for any content that you submit to our Services.
There is one notable difference, with Skydrive, Microsoft will only use your content "solely to the extent necessary to provide the service" which means that it is used to maintain the product, not for advertising purposes. When you upload your content to Google, you are giving them access to use your work however they see fit. It should be noted that neither service is claiming ownership of your content.

It is a small but notable difference. Google already uses your content in many ways to deliver targeted advertising and Microsoft has a position of letting you decide what to do with your content. Which is best for you? That's a personal decision.

Skydrive TOS | Google Drive TOS

 

[hamba]

I've got to say that I find Skydrive more appealing and for people who already use it the free 25gb makes it much more useful - especially for storing and sharing photos.

 

[Mick]

I agree.

It is nice to have files on the go too.

Those google and sky drive terms look a little nasty, in the fact that everything you upload they can basically do what they want with lol.

Regards
Mick