Top Cloud Storage Providers in 2016
At CompareOnlineStorage.com we compare and review online storage providers. While the most famous storage company might be Dropbox there are now dozens of high quality cloud services available that can help you store and backup your files in a safe manner.
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| Company | Product | TOTAL | CNET | TrustPilot | PCmag | iTunes | Play |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Google Drive Website | 100 GB for $1.99 (15 GB Free) Review | 9.0 | 8 | 10 | 9 | 8 | |
| DropBox Website | 1,000 GB for $9.99 (2 GB Free) Review | 8.0 | 9 | 7 | 8 | 7 | 9 |
| OneDrive Website | 50 GB for $2.00 (5 GB Free) Review | 8.0 | 6 | 9 | 8 | 9 | |
| Box.com Website | 100 GB for $ 8.00 (10 GB Free) Review | 7.5 | 4 | 9 | 9 | 8 | |
| SOS Backup Website | Infinite for $7.99 Review | 7.4 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 5 | 8 |
| Amazon Website | Unlimited for $5.00 Review | 7.3 | 5 | 6 | 9 | 9 | |
| SugarSync Website | 100 GB for 7.49 Review | 6.8 | 5 | 5 | 9 | 6 | 7 |
| Crashplan Website | Infinite for $5.00 Review | 6.6 | 6 | 5 | 9 | 6 | 7 |
| Carbonite Website | Infinite for $4.99 Review | 6.4 | 6 | 6 | 7 | 5 | 8 |
| SpiderOak Website | 1,000 GB for $12.00 Review | 6.3 | 7 | 5 | 7 | ||
| Mozy Website | 50 GB for $5.99 Review | 6.0 | 7 | 5 | 6 | 4 | 8 |
| Livedrive Website | 2 TB $9.00 Review | 5.3 | 4 | 5 | 5 | 7 | |
| JustCloud Website | 75 GB for $6.95 Review | 5.0 | 2 | 4 | 7 | 7 | |
| ZipCloud Website | 75 GB for $4.49 Review | 4.0 | 2 | 4 | 3 | 7 |
* This list is created and last updated in March 2016, information that is used was found on provider websites and ratings were retrieved from the following websites:
** The following companies/services are mentioned on our website but are not included in our list, see: NomaDesk, iCloud, Diino
Plan how to use it
Before you select a service to store your files we recommend to think and plan how you will be using this online storage. This will help you with a couple things one being the necessary amount of storage that is actually needed, the other is the required functionality.
At the same time you can think about combining services. This way you not only have more storage you also have two locations where your files are stored which enables you to keep two copies of the most important data.
Don’t go overboard trying to combine too many cloud services, this will prevent you from keeping good order in your filing system. We recommend using one cloud storage service like OneDrive (review) or Google Drive (review) in combination with one backup system like Carbonite or Mozy. This way you have an extra drive to manually store important files and at the same time you have an automated backup service making a copy of your entire computer.
Free or Paid storage Provider?
Multiple services offer online storage for free, but we all know there’s no such thing as a free lunch. Often these companies provide a fremium model where the first bit you use is free, if you want to use more there is a price. To continue the example of Dropbox, this is a free service for anyone not using more than 2GB online storage. If you like to use more you will be charged $9.99 a month.
A competitor like Google might offer a bit more storage for free but makes a living by analyzing customer data. They analyze what you do (and what you store) to serve relevant ads. This is also not free but just another way of paying.
Pros & Cons of Cloud Storage
PROS:
- Access from everywhere
Working in the cloud means you can access your files everywhere as long as there is an internet connection. You can have multiple offices or work from home and never have to worry if you have the latest files to your disposal. - Professional backup
Any professional online storage company is better at making backups than you and I are on our own. They have a professional team working on updates, fixing errors and preventing hacks or downtime. - Synchronization
Being able to synchronize all your files between devices and also with colleagues will improve your effectiveness by a long shot.
CONS:
- Internet connection required
You can’t access and update files in the cloud when you have no connection to the internet. Part of the cloud storage is that a copy of the files will be on your laptop or PC as well but when you would like to download the latest versions you will need to be online. - Delay in syncing
When you are working on big files, perhaps Photoshop images, you will notice that your laptop is working hard to synchronize the updated files to the cloud. You can see if settings can be modified in a way that this happens less frequently.
How we compare services
We have developed CompareOnlineStorage.com as an independent comparison website. We will not take compensation for writing our reviews and allow anyone to place a user review regarding the specific online storage providers. This also means that we don’t use affiliate links anywhere on our website. When we will place an advertisement on www.compareonlinestorage.com it will always be clearly marked as advertising.
We have chose this approach to provide an alternative where many of our competitors are working through the affiliate model based on commission. This means they are getting paid when referring customers, interesting enough the higher the commission the higher they rank the storage providers. We have analysed some of these competitors in this article here.
We have created this website based on personal views and have used multiple sources to ground our beliefs.