Cloud storage services: the big four compared

Dropbox is arguably the archetypal cloud storage service, and one of the first services to demonstrate the potential of cloud computing to the mainstream user. Despite concerns about security, it has become a popular tool in enterprise.

End users who used it and loved it within their personal computing bought it to work, and now many companies – officially or unofficially – use it as a quick and dirty system for sharing files between multiple users, perhaps across multiple companies and locations. What’s more, with its easy sync capabilities it’s a fine means of keeping key files up to date and accessible across desktop and laptop PCs and mobile devices.

However, Dropbox has never been the only option. From the start, Microsoft took its own approach to cloud storage with its Live Mesh and SkyDrive services, and now that Microsoft has rolled Live Mesh’s synchronisation features into a Windows 8-ready SkyDrive, it’s an extremely compelling alternative.

Box.Net has been providing online storage since 2005, and now offers synchronisation in its Box for Business product, while Google Drive now incorporates online storage and synchronisation features along with integrated online office apps. All four services have advantages that might suit the way you do business.

Box.net


Price: 5GB Free, 1TB for £11 per user per month

Internet: www.box.net

Like Dropbox, SkyDrive and Google Drive, Box.Net has a free option with 5GB of storage space, but this comes with limitations, including a 100MB limit for individual files and a lack of synchronisation features. Step up to the premium Box for Business plan, however, and it becomes a much more attractive proposition. Your company gets a generous 1TB of storage space that can be shared between three and 500 users, the 100MB limit goes up to 2GB, and the Box Sync applet enables synchronisation between a My Box Files folder across multiple PCs.

However, Box.net is more than a me-too product. The Business Plan comes with a comprehensive admin panel that allows you to add and remove users, assign rights to specific folders and monitor file uploads, downloads and changes. Files and folders can be shared with other Box users by inviting them to collaborate, or with non-Box users through an email link. Once you have collaborators, it’s easy for everyone to comment on files, and even assign tasks and deadlines to their colleagues. In a way, Box.net is becoming less a cloud storage service and more a cloud-based workflow tool.

Other useful features include versioning with a full version history, the ability to lock files against further versions or editing, and mobile apps for iOS, Android, Windows Phone and Blackberry, allowing you to view and comment on files while on the move. What’s more, plug-in apps mean Box can integrate with Microsoft Office or Google Apps, so that you can save files to and from Box.net from within the relevant Office suites. You won’t find the integration quite as slick as with SkyDrive and Google Drive, respectively, but at least you’re not tied into one system. Beyond this, a wide array of third-party applications can be configured to work direct with Box.net.

With the Business plan, Box.net is a strong cloud storage service. The Web-based interface is easy to use, there are plenty of security options, including SSL encrypted transfers, and – unlike rival services – files are encrypted while at rest. In our tests the sync and sharing features worked seamlessly. Speeds are also good with 511MB of files uploading within two hours and downloading to a second PC in just 18 minutes and 36 seconds. Files edited on one machine synced between the two in under 1 minute and 18 seconds.

The biggest issue is the price. Box.net for Business costs £11.99 per user per month, which is expensive in comparison to the Microsoft, Dropbox and Google options. The file preview features also don’t work quite as well as Microsoft or Google’s, with some Office documents refusing to display in Firefox but showing up fine in Internet Explorer. Box.net is well worth considering for its advanced administration and collaboration features, but it’s not as quick and intuitive as Dropbox or as effectively tied into Windows and Office as SkyDrive – nor as easily affordable.

Features: 6

Ease of Use: 4

Value for Money: 4

Overall: 5

Dropbox

Price: 2GB Free, 100GB Dropbox Pro from $9.95 per month, Dropbox for Teams, from $795 per year for 1TB/5 users.

Internet: www.dropbox.com

Dropbox has always been a popular service with consumers, not least because it offers a fully-featured 2GB service absolutely free. Since the Dropbox for Teams service was launched last year, it now scales up for Business use too. Plans start at $795 per year for 5 users with a pooled 1TB of space, and scale up at $125 per additional user, with each one bringing in an extra 200GB of capacity. Usage can be monitored and managed from a central console.

Simplicity has always been Dropbox’s biggest strength. An easy-to-setup client is installed on every PC, Mac or Linux desktop being used by one of your end users – the license is per-user, not per system – and a special ‘dropbox’ folder is placed on each hard drive. Files saved or dropped in the dropbox are automatically synchronised across all systems connected to the same account, not to mention a folder, accessible through a Web browser, stored on Dropbox’s own servers.

A system tray applet gives you status updates and quick access to preferences and the Dropbox website, but most things you need to do with Dropbox can be done just by right-clicking on files and sub-folders within the Dropbox folder. Right-click on a file, for instance, and select Dropbox > View Previous Versions, and you can easily restore older versions. It’s possible to delete files from your dropbox by dragging them to the recycle bin, but if you do so by mistake it’s not an issue. The browser-based interface allows for rapid restorations.

Dropbox’s other key advantage is the ease and efficiency of sharing. Files and folders can be shared with other Dropbox users through email invitations, and once shared the files will synchronise automatically, with notifications when another user adds or changes the file. Files will synchronise across a LAN as well as the Internet, helping to keep business bandwidth costs low. Non Dropbox users can also be given access to files through a Web link.

All these features make Dropbox incredibly useful, and for many smaller businesses the free 2GB option could be enough. You can access files from tablets and phones using iOS, Android, Blackberry and Kindle Fire apps, and even upload photos and videos direct. However, there are limitations. For instance, there are no built-in apps to preview or edit office documents, either, though many mobile apps, including QuickOffice and Documents 2 Go, will open and save documents directly to and from a Dropbox account.

One big concern may be security. Files are stored using 256-bit AES encryption and the service uses SSL for data transfer, while the actual data is held on Amazon’s S3 servers, with high security and multiple levels of redundancy. However, after embarrassing security lapses in 2011 and the theft of customer email addresses this year, confidence has been shaken. To fix this, Dropbox has improved its internal monitoring and is beta-testing two-factor authentication.

Dropbox won’t leave you hanging around. Our test files took only 42 minutes to upload and 39 minutes to download, while edited files had changes copies across in one minute and 25 seconds. It might not have the features of Box.net or the clever integration of SkyDrive and Google Drive, but it’s simple and extremely effective. For many small business, the Teams option will be an expensive form of overkill, but the lower cost versions are excellent value.

Features: 4

Ease of Use: 6

Value for Money: 4

Overall: 5

Google Drive


Price: 5GB Free, 25GB $2.50 per month, 100GB $4.99 per month. As part of Google Apps for Business from £3.30 per user per month.

Internet: www.google.com

Google Drive is both an expansion of Google’s Docs online office suite and a move into Dropbox territory. The primarily browser based interface will be familiar to users of Gmail and Google Docs, but the service now comes with 5GB of free, general purpose storage space per user, which can be increased to 25GB, 100GB or more through upgrades. More crucially, a downloadable Google Drive applet creates a Google Drive folder on your PC, and then enables synchronisation of that folder across multiple PCs and even Macs, in the vein of Dropbox’s dropbox.

The user interface is a matter of taste. There are good points about the stripped-back look and simple presentation, and Google’s strong search facilities make it easier to find files in a crowded folder. However, Google Drive doesn’t have as much of the easy one-click functionality of Dropbox or the Windows/Office integration of SkyDrive, and it’s frustrating that to, say, share a folder, you have to go to Google Drive in your browser and right-click on the folder sitting there. Google Drive can feel slightly clunky.

Google Drive’s biggest advantage is its integration with Google Docs and Gmail. Whether you use Chrome or another standards-compliant browser, it’s quick and easy to preview office documents, PDFs and most common photo and video file formats, whether you have any specific software installed or not. What’s more, the built-in Google Docs applications can be used to edit documents, on your own or in real-time collaboration with other Google Docs users.

No-one sensible could argue that Google Docs rivals Microsoft Office for formatting power or ease-of-use, but it’s a great tool for, say, laying down the foundations of a report, and in a way Google’s document sharing and collaboration features are better tied together than those of Microsoft. However, while you can edit Microsoft Office docs from your desktop Google Drive using the standard Microsoft Office applications, doing so within the browser requires importing them in a Google Docs format then exporting the changed version later – not exactly streamlined process. Google Docs can also struggle to maintain the fidelity of complex documents.

If your company uses Gmail then being able to share files and folders quickly with contacts in your address book, or sending documents as Google Drive links rather than attachments works well. Sadly, Google Drive has some catching up to do with Dropbox, Box.net and SkyDrive when it comes to mobile support. While Android gets a fully-featured app, the iOS app is missing edit functionality and there’s no way to upload files from an iPhone or iPad. Don’t even ask about Windows Phone 7. There are also some concerns about security. Google Drive’s contents are stored unencrypted on Google’s servers.

Google Drive’s performance is fine when it comes to uploads and downloads, with just under two hours to upload our test data and 33 minutes to download it to a second PC. However, sync happens at a blistering rate, with edited files syncing from one PC to the next in under 40 seconds.

All in all, Google Drive makes most sense as part of Google Apps, where it can play the role of hub in document management and collaboration, or in smaller businesses where Gmail and Google Docs are already deployed. Otherwise, Dropbox is more efficient and easier to use, while SkyDrive’s seamless office integration can’t be dismissed. However, Google Drive is extremely cheap for what you get, so if your focus is on the bottom line, it’s a viable choice.

Features: 4

Ease of Use: 3

Value for Money: 5

Overall: 5

SkyDrive

Price: 7GB Free, 27GB £6 per year per user, 57GB £16 per year per user, 100GB £32 per year per user

Internet: www.skydrive.live.com

While Microsoft’s cloud-based business solutions focus on Office 365 and SharePoint, the integration of SkyDrive with Office 2010, Office 2013 and Windows 8 can be a real boon for smaller companies. 7GB is available free as part of a Windows Live account, and this can easily be upgraded by 20, 50 or 100GB at a surprisingly low annual price.

SkyDrive has been revamped to mirror the new interface of Windows 8, but it still works perfectly well on Windows 7 and Windows Vista. In the past, it was just a browser-based service with no sync facilities whatsoever – these were tied into LiveMesh. Now, however, a SkyDrive desktop app gives you a specific SkyDrive folder which works in much the same way as Dropbox’s dropbox.

Even used in isolation, SkyDrive is an impressive service. Office files stored on SkyDrive can be viewed and even edited from within the browser, with the appropriate Office Web Apps loading to let you make simple edits. You can save files straight back out to SkyDrive, and there’s no need to mess around with importing and exporting files as you have to do with Google Drive.

Features for sharing media are just as exemplary, with built-in photo, video and audio playback facilities. Images can be viewed as slideshows, Versioning is supported, and the Version History feature means you can browse through earlier versions if you need to return a file to an earlier form. Files and folders can be shared with other users by right-clicking on them, selecting Share and emailing a link. Alternatively, you can post the link to Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn, or even generate code to embed the file on a Web page. It’s all very convenient, though perhaps too convenient if you’re concerned about security.

The real benefit of using SkyDrive is that it’s now so heavily tied into both Windows 8 and Office. Windows 8 has its own SkyDrive app as standard, while Office 2013 makes a user’s SkyDrive account the default place for saving new documents. In Office 2010, saving to SkyDrive was always a bit of a faff, but in Office 2013 it’s actually easier than saving a file to local storage. Provided you’re happy with SkyDrive’s security, there’s no reason not to do it, keeping your Office documents synced across multiple PCs and backed up in the cloud.

SkyDrive uses SSL to encrypt files during transport, but files are unencrypted once at rest on Microsoft’s servers. Given that Microsoft’s servers are themselves heavily secured this might not be a concern, but it leaves SkyDrive behind Box.net in this respect. SkyDrive was very slow to upload files, taking over three hours with our test folders, but download speeds were more acceptable, at 35 minutes, while changed files synced from PC to PC in less than eighty seconds.

If your business plans to move to Windows 8 and Office 2013 then using SkyDrive is an absolute no-brainer. Even if it doesn’t, then the strong feature set, simple interface and affordable pricing make it a strong contender – particularly when many users won’t need more than the free 7GB allowance. Box.net has it beaten for management and advanced features, while Dropbox has it licked for sheer simplicity, but if you’re looking for the best balance between price, capacity, features and ease-of-use, then SkyDrive comes out on top.

Features: 5

Ease of Use: 5 

Value for Money: 6

Overall: 5