Needing more online storage?
The use of online storage services is becoming more and more popular as people realize the benefits involved. The obvious reason is as a backup to one’s home computer for valuable and irreplaceable files such as photos and personal videos. Anyone that has lost precious memories can attest to the benefit of having photos stored on servers in remote locations. Integration abilities now offered with most online storage services are the second most popular use, allowing users to sync files between multiple devices including PC, tablet and mobile phones. The third most popular option is the ability to share files with others. This is useful for families sharing photos and also for sharing work between associates or classmates. As more online storage services have entered the arena, the prices have dropped considerably with many even offering a free service for a limited amount of storage. Here are ten online storage services that have great Alexa traffic count ratings indicating their popularity among users.
1. DropBox: https://www.dropbox.com/
Global Alexa Rating: 118
Although not the first cloud-based storage service, it did have such great marketing that it got many people to look into storage more seriously. An advantage of DropBox is that it runs natively on almost any computer and is used as if it was any other network drive. They offer three plans: Basic which is free and allows for 2 GB of storage, Pro which is $9.99/month ($99/year) which includes 100 GB of storage (enough for over 20,000 photos!) although you can upgrade to up to 500 GB, and Business which is $12/month per user (minimum 5 users) which gives as much space as needed. All plans include sync and file sharing, 256-bit AES and SSL encryption and a two-step verification and mobile passcode. Pro and Business offer enhanced security, although there is an additional fee under the Pro plan. A couple downsides of the basic plan are that it does not include priority email or phone support, and if the account has been inactive for 90 days they may delete your files without notice. The business plan can be tested using a free trial option.
2. MediaFire: http://www.mediafire.com/
Global Alexa Rating: 153
MediaFire stores all your media and makes it available to you across any device with MediaFire for the Web, MediaFire Desktop and MediaFire Mobile. Users can share, view and listen to over 200 different file formats. This online storage service has a social aspect included so you can invite friends to connect with you, through Facebook, Google, Twitter or email. This means you can collaborate on projects while controlling you can edit and who can just view. Their free plan includes up to 50 GB of space which is far more than some other services. They are also rather reasonable for larger plans. Their Pro plan is just $4.99 (on sale at the time of this review for $2.49!) per month for 100 GB of space. Their Business plan is $49.99 (on sale at the time of this review for $24.99) per month for 1 TB of space. Besides having the benefit of more space with the paid plans, users enjoy ad-free sharing and downloads and priority support. All plans also offer other storage amounts as well as a discount for annual plans (those are on sale too right now!) One thing to note is that the lowest storage Pro plan must be purchased in 3-month increment instead of monthly. The Business plan has many different levels all the way up to 100 TB so is suitable for large businesses.
Global Alexa Rating: 871
Box offers four different plan levels – personal, starter, business, enterprise and elite. The personal plan offers 10 GB of online storage with a 250 MB file size limit, but can be upgraded to 100 GB of storage and 5 GB file size limit for $10/month. It is limited to one user. The starter plan costs $5 per user per month and is suitable for up to 10 users. It includes 100 GB storage with a 2 GB file size limit. The business plan is $15 per user per month with a 3-user minimum and includes 1000 GB storage with a 5 GB file size limit. The enterprise plan begins at $35 per user per month and can be customized to accommodate any business. The elite plan has all the features of the enterprise plan, but is designed for unlimited users and unlimited internal apps along with test environments. A box appears to be primarily designed as a business-collaboration and workflow solution, so users for personal storage may find it less than optimal.
4. Hightail: https://www.hightail.com/
Global Alexa Rating: 3,101
Hightail is a reliable way to send files and sign documents using e-signatures. They offer four different plans: Lite, Professional, Teams and Enterprise. The Lite plan is a free plan that lets users share files up to 250MB and allows 2GB of storage and 5 e-signatures. It allows for verifying recipients and includes both mobile and desktop app access. The Professional plan is $15.99/month ($159.99/year) and allows users to share files up to 10GB and has unlimited storage and unlimited e-signatures. It also includes a Microsoft Office plugin and allows for receiving large files from anyone. The Teams plan is for those with multiple users as it is designed for 2 to 100 users and costs $24.99/month per user ($249.99/year). It adds custom branding and the ability to add and remove users along with all the Professional plan offers. The Enterprise plan can be custom designed with customized pricing options and adds tons of administrative and integration features. All paid plans offer a free trial period.
5. Just Cloud: http://www.justcloud.com/
Global Alexa Rating: 4,416
The website for this online storage service is a bit difficult to follow when it comes to figuring out what they have to offer. They give all the wonderful reasons to go with them, but you have to go searching in the FAQ’s to find out about the costs. So, to save you that hassle, here’s what it says under ‘How much does JustCloud cost?’: “JustCloud offers different plans depending on how much space is required. We offer 2 year, 1 year, semi-annual and monthly pricing plans. The longer you sign up for though the cheaper it works out in the long run. Home 75GB plan – 4.49 per month for 2 years (total charge 107.71); Premium 250GB plan – 4.95 per month for 2 years (total charge 118.85); and Unlimited Plan – 6.95 per month for 2 years (total charge 166.85). Clearly the unlimited plan purchased for two years is a really good deal. They do offer monthly plans as well, but the prices are not shown on the website. They also have business plans available. They also run an affiliate program so you may also find other places on the Internet that look just like JustCloud. (MyPCBackup.com is an example.) Just Cloud is a well-loved service that shows up on nearly every top review list.
6. SugarSync: https://www.sugarsync.com/
Global Alexa Rating: 9,799
SugarSync has 3 different individual plans as well as two business plans. All plans include a 30-day free trial. The individual plans range from $7.49/month ($74.99/year) to $24.99/month ($249.99/year) and range from 60 GB of storage to 250GB of storage. This service includes continuous automatic file backup services, folders and file sharing, syncing with multiple devices including Macs, TLS file transfer and 256-bit AES encryption storage and even mobile access for iPad, iPhone, iPod touch and Android devices. Two advantages they have over Dropbox and Box is that users can backup and sync ANY folder on their computer and a Microsoft Outlook for Windows plugin is included. Other advantages over Dropbox include the ability to share folders with permissions and upload/sync via email. The two business plans give options for 1-3 users or a custom plan for more than 3 users. The basic business plan is $55/month ($550/year) for 1000GB of storage. Other than the basic plan, users can call for setting up a tailored, custom plan. This company was launched in 2008 and is based in San Mateo, California. They have a number of Fortune 500 companies using their services including BestBuy and Lenovo. They also offer an affiliate program.
7. Carbonite: http://www.carbonite.com/
Global Alexa Rating: 15,422
Carbonite is another online storage service that offers unlimited cloud space. The difference is that ALL their personal plans are unlimited. The difference in plans has to do more with additional features instead. There are personal plans for individual computers, pro plans for workstations and server plans for databases and live applications. There are three levels of personal plans: basic, plus and prime which cost $59.99, $99.99 and $149.99 per year/per computer, respectively. All three include unlimited cloud space, U.S.-based customer support daily and the ability to sync, share and access files remotely with free apps. The plus plan adds external hard-drive backup and mirror image backup. The prime plan also adds automatic video backup and courier recovery service. All plans have a 15-day free trial. There are also three pro plans and three server plans and all are outlined nicely on the website, including features, storage limits and options as well as pricing.
8. Egnyte: http://www.egnyte.com/
Global Alexa Rating: 19,029
Egnyte is strictly a business online storage service solution and does not offer any personal plans whatsoever. They offer three plans: Office for 5 to 24 employees, Business for 25 to 100 employees and Enterprise for an unlimited number of employees. The Office plan costs $8 per employee per month with annual billing ($9 if monthly billing). The Business plan is $15 per employee per month with annual billing ($16 for monthly billing). The Enterprise plan is scalable and pricing thus varies. The storage amounts allowed are 1 TB for Office and 2 TB for Business. Max file size for Office is 2.5 GB and 5 GB for Business. Both plans do offer the ability to add on storage amounts. Egynte offers cloud file sharing, private file sharing, local file access and cross-office collaboration that is critical for growing businesses. The Enterprise plan allows enterprises to store files in the right place, including cloud only, on-premises only or synchronized between cloud and on-premises storage.
9. Livedrive: http://www.livedrive.com/
Global Alexa Rating: 22,464
Livedrive offers automatic online backup for all your computers, from just $6 per month. They offer home options as well as business options. The advantage of Livedrive is that you can purchase just the services you need. If you only need storage, why pay for syncing? The Home plans include Backup, Briefcase and Pro Suite. The Backup plan is an easy to use online backup for PC and Mac. It has unlimited online backup and you can view files anywhere. It installs in minutes and automatically backs up your files while you work. It costs just $6 per month and you can add additional computers for just $1.50 per month. For those that do want personal could storage space and the ability to sync files between computers, then Briefcase or Pro Suite should be selected. Briefcase offers 2TB of cloud storage and the ability to edit files in your web browser as well as send files to your favorite social networks. It does not allow for unlimited online backup however. It costs just $12/month. The Pro Suite option includes unlimited online backup for up to 5 PCs and includes 5TB of cloud storage space. Both Briefcase and Pro Suite plans can add TB at the rate of $8/month per TB. The Pro Suite option costs just $19 per month. All plans have a 14-day free trial option that does not even need a credit card. They also have two business plans, Express and Standard that are $37/month and $125/month depending on the number of users and cloud storage space needed. Additional users and storage space can be added to the Standard plan.
10. Mozy by EMC: http://mozy.com/#slide-5
Global Alexa Rating: 25,729
Mozy has a number of plans to make it easy to select the right one for your business. They offer MozyPro for business, MozyEnterprise for Enterprise IT and MozyHome for personal use. They have backup software, file sync software and mobile apps. MozyHome starts at just $5.99/month for 1 computer and 50 GB of storage. Annual plans get 1 month free and 2-year plans get 3 months free. Users can add additional computers for $2 per month per computer and 20 GB increments of additional space for $2/month. They also have a 125 GB plan for 3 computers for $9.99/month with the same discounts for annual and 2-year plans. The home plan includes online backup, file sync capabilities, web and mobile apps with anywhere access and security standards that go beyond the norm. For those that like the idea of free, they offer a 2 GB plan for free with the ability to get more space by referring friends. For each person you refer, you both get an additional 256 MB of storage, which equates to an extra GB for every 4 friends.
There are two ways to go about using an online storage service. One is to choose one for all your storage needs and buy into the plan that offers enough space for your needs and all the features needed. The other is to use various options and split your files across them to be able to stay within the storage limit offered for free or lowest cost. This second way will save some money, but it means keeping good records about what is stored where so that it can be retrieved and is not a viable option if you want to take advantage of syncing and sharing options. It could, however, serve as secondary backups. For those into affiliate and referral marketing, note that there are a few options given that can feed your desire to earn money or additional storage.
