Online Storage Solutions

Online storage was briefly mentioned during my Google Experiment series. But the reality is that online storage has so many offerings that it can become difficult to choose a solution. I personally use 3 different services; the obvious Google Drive, Dropbox and One Drive from Microsoft. One may ask why I would need three products that essentially offer the same thing; online storage.

I initially started with Dropbox as it allowed me to sync pictures and videos taken from my various smart devices to it. You can do the same with Google Drive, but since my wife and I both have our own Google account it would meant that our family pictures and videos would not be centralized. I use a single Dropbox account for my phone, my tablet and my wife’s phone. This way, every time someone takes a picture it gets backed up. And no, you will not find any scandalous content there. Another advantage is that I can share a folder on Dropbox with my family members who live far away so they can download the kids’ exploits as they wish without having to nag about getting emails with pictures. And unlike Picasa, I do not have to send a link for them to access the photos and videos.

Then came One Drive, which I got simply to use Office Mobile from the Android App Store. Since the microsoft solution was the only one that I could access the Free Office suite, it was a logical choice. However I no longer use this since I write predominantly using Google Docs. Given the fact that it is free online storage I will keep my account with Microsoft especially that I use it for work purposes.

Google Drive was the online storage solution that I started using last, during my Google Experiment. What started as a tryout has become a regular feature for me as I now write with Google Docs and the work gets saved to Google Drive automatically. I know that the camera sync feature is also good, but as I explained earlier I find it impractical since you cannot centralize your data.

So what about iCloud? Quite frankly I never used it and I do not intend to. As with many of Apple’s offerings I find it to be too Apple centred in the way it functions. In assisting a friend to migrate from an iPhone to Samsung Android phone, I got to see the drawbacks of using iCloud as a data store and recovery service. But that will be a post of its own in the days to come.

In the end, given the fact that most online storage, or cloud, solutions are free it is best to find the one(s) that suit your needs. Just don’t forget that you are storing your content online which exposes it to potentially unwanted exposure and access. So don’t store compromising pictures and videos or confidential documents on these online storage sites unless you feel comfortable with taking the risk, regardless how minimal, that they may fall in the wrong hands.