The Cloud Storage Thread Sky Drive, GDrive, Dropbox (Merged)

Microsoft is revamping SkyDrive, presumably to compete with Dropbox and with Google's (rumoured) upcoming Cloud service.

Previously, there were two things: SkyDrive for cloud storage, Live Mesh for file syncing. Now there will just be one unified service for both, with desktop and mobile apps: SkyDrive.

MS is adding paid storage options, with tiers giving an additional 20GB, 50GB, and 100GB of storage.

New users get 7GB for free.

Existing users? They currently get 25GB, and can continue to do so for free if they hurry up and opt in.


There is a new desktop client, for synching (like Dropbox), to bring the Live Mesh side into the fold.

The mobile apps are also getting updates.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-10805_3-57419130-75/microsoft-adds-paid-storage-tiers-to-skydrive-cloud-service/

[Phlashman]

It looks like everyone's rushing into this space, Google Drive seems right around the corner too.

To be fair I use google for most of my cloud based stuff, I use Google Docs a fair bit and Gmail to sync my email and calendars across my devices (obviously mainly Apple devices).

As for cloud stuff, I don't really need loads of space. Just a small amount for documents really. For sharing/sending files to people I actually use cloudapp on my mac, and would highly recommend it to anyone on a mac. Dead simple.

As for this from MS, it's decent, but I'm not sure if the market is there for windows users? The geeks have already signed up to dropbox or have gone Apple, the masses have no clue what the cloud really is.

I'll use this simply because I've got 25GB for free - more than Dropbox or Google Drive. Handy for photos and other stuff.

I will use Google Drive, though. Ideally I'd like to ditch Dropbox completely - I trust Google & MS with my data far more than Dropbox.

If Apple would make iCloud a full-on Drive/SkyDrive/Dropbox competitor I'd probably use that exclusively, but as it is it's still just really cloud-based sync & backup for iDevices.

Google Drive is Google's answer to Dropbox and SkyDrive.

http://googleblog.blogspot.co.uk/2012/0 ... eally.html

https://drive.google.com/start#home

5GB storage for free, with the option to pay for higher tiers.

There's a PC/Mac app for desktop syncing, and the Android app is already out on the Android Market...sorry, "Google Play". There will be an iOS app, but at the moment it's "coming soon".

I got the update for Google docs haven't used it yet.

[Pug]

Yeah, I'll be using Skydrive too due to the 25GB.

[ApocalypseCow]

I trust Google & MS with my data far more than Dropbox.

Speaking of which

Dropbox

“Your Stuff & Your Privacy: By using our Services you provide us with information, files, and folders that you submit to Dropbox (together, “your stuff”). You retain full ownership to your stuff. We don’t claim any ownership to any of it. These Terms do not grant us any rights to your stuff or intellectual property except for the limited rights that are needed to run the Services, as explained below.”

Microsoft’s SkyDrive

“5. Your Content: Except for material that we license to you, we don’t claim ownership of the content you provide on the service. Your content remains your content. We also don’t control, verify, or endorse the content that you and others make available on the service.”

Google Drive

“Your Content in our Services: When you upload or otherwise submit content to our Services, you give Google (and those we work with) a worldwide licence to use, host, store, reproduce, modify, create derivative works (such as those resulting from translations, adaptations or other changes that we make so that your content works better with our Services), communicate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute such content.

The rights that you grant in this licence are for the limited purpose of operating, promoting and improving our Services, and to develop new ones. This licence continues even if you stop using our Services (for example, for a business listing that you have added to Google Maps).”

[Phlashman]

Whoa, those are some pretty silly conditions.

What weirds me out a little about all these "Cloud" services being revolutionary etc. etc. I've mounted a FTP account as a drive on my machines for years, like proper decades. It's one of the first things I do when I get a new machine.

[ApocalypseCow]

That's the thing with all cloud services, you're putting a lot of trust into the people you use.
Would you trust an advertising company to have access to all of your documents, photos, files especially when their T's & C's say they can do what they want with them?

Thanks for posting about this. I have now opted in to keep my free 25gb. I don't use anywhere near that now but can see myself doing so as they add more features to it.
I think at the minute its great. I love that every photo I take on my phone automatically uploads to it. It is also very handy for carrying round larger documents and not having to use space on my phone. Think they just need to allow uploading of music which i can access and play on my phone and I'll be very happy.

Google's Terms are unified - applying to all Google products, not just Drive. Google changed to a unified set of Terms a couple of months ago. It caused a bit of a fuss...

You still retain ownership to everything you upload to Google ("You retain ownership of any intellectual property rights that you hold in that content. In short, what belongs to you stays yours").

This article at The Verge takes a look at the Terms and Policies of each cloud-service company: Is Google Drive worse for privacy than iCloud, Skydrive, and Dropbox?


I'd still prefer Google (& MS) over Dropbox... at least Google & MS haven't ever (AFAIK) left the door wide open...

On the subject of passwords... I wish more companies followed Google with the use of 2 step verification. Dropbox does at least support long passwords like Google does, but no 2 step. MS Live? No 2 step, plus passwords are limited to 16 characters.

[Phlashman]

Just merged the Sky drive and google drive threads as they seemed to be covering the same sort of thing.

So I've got Google drive now, all installed on my work (PC) and home (iMac) computers, works just as you'd think. Dead simple, dropbox clone basically. Login with your google account, including 2-step verification and you're done.

Anything created in google docs opens in google docs in your browser rather than your local office type app. But normal files open like normal.

I'm interested to see what the iOS app will bring. It'd be nice if they update the google docs mobile web versions to look and work better.

As for privacy etc. I do trust google to an extent, reliability & security with out a doubt. Them going through my stuff... not cool, but I have personal ads from google turned off, I don't know if that stops them but they aren't using my data. And if you've got data that sensitive you really shouldn't be putting it online anyway.

If you do have anything overly sensitive, you can always encrypt it first with something like TrueCrypt.

got my google drive all setup on my phone can't say I'll use it much though as the photos I take and generally any videos I've captured already auto sync with my google account through google+

Google on the Terms and Conditions:

http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_ ... rty-rights