Cloud Storage platforms

Cloud Storage platforms

Today we are going to explain the options you have to upload your data to the cloud. There are a lot of different cloud storage services available, some work better for photos while others are better for storing videos.  Depending on your needs will determine what type of cloud service you will need.

All cloud storage services will allow you to upload a few gigabytes of files and let you access them wherever you have internet access.

Needing something cheap but effective?

Consider Amazon Drive, $50 will get you 10TB of storage space. Amazon Drive remains a bargain for people with loads of data. As usual, Prime members get the best deals: unlimited photo storage in this case. However, it doesn’t include videos, but it does make the service more tempting if you have a Prime Membership already. You can only stream videos under 20 minutes in length using Amazon, so be sure to take this into consideration if you have longer videos you need to upload.  Basically, it’s a simple cloud storage system it stores your files in the cloud for safekeeping.

Need to manage Your photos?

Think Google Drive. The new Backup and Sync tool is probably the easiest to use. Google Drive handles everything from documents to videos on the web. Google Photos is the best photo organizing and syncing tool out there.  It allows you to tag each photo for easily locating them in the future using their search function, Oh, and did I Mention it has unlimited free storage?  As long as you don’t mind a 16-megapixel maximum size for your photos and a 1080p maximum resolution for your videos this is a great way to go. Google Play Music allows you to store 50,000 of your music tracks free of charge and will stream and sync them anywhere you like.

Need to sync files across multiple platforms?

Consider Dropbox. Dropbox has been around for a very long time and has this cloud storage thing down pat. Dropbox is easy to use and the ability of File and folder sharing with other people is fantastic, they don’t have to have Dropbox in order for you to share folders.  Just send a link, you can even set up an expiration date for the link.

The free service for Dropbox only offers 2GB of storage, if you need more space pricing and storage plans vary, visit www.dropbox.com to view the pricing.

Dropbox is great if your focus is on saving, syncing and sharing files across multiple platforms.

Apple users

iCloud

iCloud is fine if you don’t mind not being able to view most files on the web unless they’re from Apple apps. PDFs and videos, have to be downloaded rather than streamed or viewed. In the iCloud Music Library, you are able to upload 100,000 tracks without it counting against your storage and they allow you to get those tunes on Android devices if you pay $9.99 extra for Apple Music.

Windows users

One Drive

If you only use Windows and are not interested in trying anything else, One Drive is already installed and ready to go on your PC. It works just fine syncing files between Windows computers and keeping copies in the cloud.  Microsoft offers a bundle service; for $70 a year you can have 1TB of cloud storage and get Office 365 as well. Not bad if you don’t have the need to share files with anyone.

If you have any questions about this subject don’t hesitate to ask.

Until next time,

Megabite

 

Categorised in: Technology Information

This post was written by Karen