Cloud Storage Service Providers At A Glance
3 min read
Consumer market for cloud storage is at its peak because many service providers across the range are looking for consumer data so that they can have the required scale to introduce many new value added facilities. This review discusses the seven market leaders that have the maximum, share of the market so that you can better understand what is best.
The four factors considered include;
- Amount of free storage
- Third party assimilation
- How easily various podiums can be accessed
- Value-added Services
Services under consideration are;
- Dropbox
- Google Drive
- Apple iCloud
- Box
- Amazon Cloud Drive
- Sugar Sync
- Microsoft Skydrive
Amount of free storage provided
At one end, Dropbox offers 2 GB of free space while on the other side is Skydrive, which provides 7 GB of free space. All other service providers are offering a middle figure amount, 5 GB. Nevertheless, Apple and Amazon, come with added facility of free music storage that is bought from their outlets, and it is not included in their storage capacity. Although all service providers are playing closely in this regard, SkyDrive, with the maximum storage capacity takes the lead.
The extent of ease with which more than one platform can be accessed
Web access and Mac OSX facility is offered by all the seven providers. Further, apart from iCloud, all the other service providers have a Windows client. But, Dropbox is ahead of all others when it comes to providing Linux client; rest doesn’t have a good Linux client. And in Windows, Skydrive is the best one; moreover, they are also introducing improved incorporation for Windows 8. Likewise, iCloud is best when it comes to Mac and iOS apps, while Amazon has the top Kindle Fire integration. However, because Dropbox offers clients for various basic desktop and mobile platforms, as well as the facility to share files with non-users, it takes the lead in this stricture.
Third-party assimilation
Cloud storage should have a linked and integrated function with other cloud applications so that all the data can be put in one place. In this regard, Google Drive is good if you are to work with Google Office Documents. For MS Office, SkyDrive is the leader. On the other hand, Dropbox has the largest range of third party upkeep and the most accessible APIs. It also supports Evernote.
Value-added Services
People have started to note what value added services are being provided along with the basic stuff and keeping in view this rising demand, Google drive provides OCR Tools which lets you read the images on your drive. Further, it also has outstanding search capacity which lets you find data conveniently and quickly. Dropbox, on the other hand, has offered the facility to upload photos from mobile instantly after they are snapped. However, GoogleDrive is the leading one in this parameter.
With consumer trends shifting radically towards cloud computing, competition is getting intense and as a result, people have more and more options to choose from. On the other hand, service providers are striving hard to make themselves stand out from the rest of the market players. Overall, Dropbox is the most promising and effective one in the market.
