Saturday, July 25, 2015
Free Cloud Storage, How I Use Them
There are a ton of cloud storage services out there and many different ways people use them. As a more advanced user with computers, the way I utilize these services will be sufficient for the average user to have your data backed up, reasonably, secure, and FREE.Have Redundancy
Cloud services are a great thing, but redundancy is your friend and without it, your files are in danger. You should always store your files in two locations. I recommend one on your personal computer in case your Internet goes down, while the other should be on the Internet or a "cloud" drive. Having two copies in the same building or even in the same city doesn't help you in case of a fire or natural disaster. Always remember that no service is guaranteed and cloud drives could fail or vanish at any moment, always have your own copy.
Physical Backup Drives Are A Gamble
As a computer specialist fixing computers for clients and friends, I run into far too many people with a "backup drive" which is simply an external harddrive with data on it is not stored anywhere else. This is NOT a backup drive, simply an external harddrive which can fail and loose your files.
Of the many out there, there are certain ones I "trust" and others I feel are simply a waste of time as far as free accounts go. One I won't be going into here that I'm sure is fine, even though I am not an Apple fan in any way, is the iCloud service, even though they give a typical 5GB free, most large companies (Google, Microsoft etc) give at least 15GB, especially for what they charge for hardware and software although maybe that's just the reason.
Google Drive
Storage wise, like most, gives you a combined storage size of 15GB for free while upgrades are pretty cheap. The word "combined" is used because Google Drive's 15GB is shared between Drive, Gmail and Photos. My favorite part of Google Photos is the Android app that automatically backs up my photos and even tells me when photos and videos are taking up too much space on my phone and deletes ones that have already backed up upon my allowing.
The downsides... The first, of course, is that the data is shared amongst the three services, a feat I've overcome due to using multiple cloud services. Another is trash and while this can be overcome with light effort, deleted items remain for 60 days and count against your storage limit. The last is when uploading too many photos at once without putting them in a folder on upload, as this can make organization difficult. Google really needs a "Show images not in an album" option. [A temporary solution to this is to put every photo in a generic folder and use the "Move" option to make sure they are all in a folder. Putting the same picture in an album multiple times does not cause two copies to be shown.]
Personally, I use Google Drive for client data I create such as logos, websites, business cards, documents and the like. I was paying $1.99 for 100GB of space but after going through all my data I realized most of it was in photos and proceeded to move my photos to the photos section and I dropped below the 15GB mark (after I found all my photos deleted from Drive in the trash).
Mega
Mega is my personal favorite with the largest capacity for free accounts and sharing is extremely easy with other users. The sync app gives you a choice between on large synced folder or the ability pick and choose folders.
The interface on their website is very clean, and although you can do everything through the sync app for a basic user wanting the free 50GB of space, an advanced user will really like the customization you can do through the web interface.
While there is controversy with it's predecessor being Megaupload (**read my small blurb at the bottom of this article) I really don't find it an issue as I've known the owner, Kim Dotcom since he invented the Megacar, the first broadband enabled car, and running "Kimble Special Agent" flash videos that mocked Microsoft.
Storage wise, you get a generous 50GB for free, currently the largest amount without any strings attached or time restricted. There is not a lot of transfer bandwidth for free in regards to sharing but as long as you share a folder with another mega user, it won't use the bandwidth. Syncing between your devices also doesn't use any bandwidth and with security in mind, files you store will not be viewable if the servers are ever compromised without directly knowing your password. Quite a few options on upgrading but because it's a New Zealand based company, they only accept Euros (which your credit card will process just fine).
The Downsides... For most users there won't be any, unless you have a large collection of files to be downloaded by a non-registered user within one month. Other hosts like Google have a limit but more on quantity, so sharing a file too many times in a day will get the file suspended for a time (really depends on how many times and the size of the file).
Personally, I use it for my personal windows discs for recovery, programs I use for technical support when I'm at a client's house and backup of the average user's files I've recovered so they can download them to a new device at their leisure. I always try to convince them to create an account while I'm on site, then configure the folder for my account to have access to a folder of theirs so I'll get the full 50GB to fill for them without clogging my own drive.
The interface on their website is very clean, and although you can do everything through the sync app for a basic user wanting the free 50GB of space, an advanced user will really like the customization you can do through the web interface.
While there is controversy with it's predecessor being Megaupload (**read my small blurb at the bottom of this article) I really don't find it an issue as I've known the owner, Kim Dotcom since he invented the Megacar, the first broadband enabled car, and running "Kimble Special Agent" flash videos that mocked Microsoft.
Storage wise, you get a generous 50GB for free, currently the largest amount without any strings attached or time restricted. There is not a lot of transfer bandwidth for free in regards to sharing but as long as you share a folder with another mega user, it won't use the bandwidth. Syncing between your devices also doesn't use any bandwidth and with security in mind, files you store will not be viewable if the servers are ever compromised without directly knowing your password. Quite a few options on upgrading but because it's a New Zealand based company, they only accept Euros (which your credit card will process just fine).
The Downsides... For most users there won't be any, unless you have a large collection of files to be downloaded by a non-registered user within one month. Other hosts like Google have a limit but more on quantity, so sharing a file too many times in a day will get the file suspended for a time (really depends on how many times and the size of the file).
Personally, I use it for my personal windows discs for recovery, programs I use for technical support when I'm at a client's house and backup of the average user's files I've recovered so they can download them to a new device at their leisure. I always try to convince them to create an account while I'm on site, then configure the folder for my account to have access to a folder of theirs so I'll get the full 50GB to fill for them without clogging my own drive.
OneDrive
If you have a Microsoft account, you have a OneDrive account. Previously SkyDrive, OneDrive is a cloud drive storage with no special tricks to get more storage without a paid account but because it is by Microsoft it's setup to backup your "My Documents" folder and files on your Desktop within Microsoft Windows.
Storage wise, OneDrive gives the typical 15GB of data, although buying an Office 365 subscription will get you 1TB of data and then some. While you can't have multiple OneDrives connected to your computer at one time, a $10 dollar subscription gives you 1TB for 5 "family accounts" (how would they know) and Office 365 on up to five computers and five tablets. If you have a family, this deal is really amazing as far as storage and office goes.
Personally, I use it for my font collection, document backup along with the images I've purchased and created for media use. If you have a small family, check with them to see if any of them have Office 365 as I out found my parents actually had a subscription which ended up upgrading my account to 1TB for free.
Personally, I use it for my font collection, document backup along with the images I've purchased and created for media use. If you have a small family, check with them to see if any of them have Office 365 as I out found my parents actually had a subscription which ended up upgrading my account to 1TB for free.
Dropbox is one of the lowest storage amount for free but seems to be the most used with corporations so I usually have it in case I get a file shared with me. It seems to be the standard for multi user file sharing in the workplace with revision history. The application has popup alerts informing you of recent changes along with a timestamp and who made the change making it really handy if you're working on an urgent project.
Storage wise, Dropbox only gives you 2GB for free but you can increase it a few different ways with their "get space" page. The easiest is to get another 1GB by linking to their Mailbox app (works great if you have multiple gmail accounts so you can have both on your phone) and while there are many "micro" space additions (125MB - 250MB) the largest possible addition is in referrals which can add 16GB.
The Downsides, besides the initial 2GB of space, the possibility of getting the additional 16GB from referrals would be quite a task since each referral only adds 500MB (meaning 32 referrals) and each referral has to actually create and install dropbox to count. If someone was diligent enough to go through each space addition, the maximum space can reach 19.75GB.
Personally, I use dropbox for my screencaptures within Windows as it's a non-invasive program to take screencaptures and I can easily share them with people I'm helping. As a technical contractor, I frequently run into companies that use dropbox to send me files so I keep it installed. Luckily, I was able to get a two year promotion from my Samsung Galaxy S5 (there are a lot of devices which give you this promotion) which gave me an additional 48GB.
**Megaupload, from the same person who brings us Mega, was a different type of service than those listed here. There is a lot of controversy over the Mega service going down like the last one but they are so different it's hard to believe people even worry. Megaupload was a file sharing system that did not limit the amount of public downloads and anyone, even without an account, could upload these files. Files were not monitored, similar to most anonymous, large file sharing sites, making it a prime target for abuse. While files shared "publicly" or with non-account users, there is a bandwidth limit on Mega, while with your own files, there is no limit on syncing your data.
While many people abused the openness of the service for sharing copyrighted materials, plenty of legitimate users (even myself distributing TV commercial edits to clients) utilized the service at a time when it was difficult to send large files. The US seized equipment in an attempt to bring up copyright charges and was ultimately unsuccessful as secondary copyright infringement isn't illegal. The biggest issue people had was once everything was dismissed, Megaupload had lost their servers and the users' data was gone (expressly displayed near the upload button was that files could be removed at any time).
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