Choosing an Online Storage Vendor
August 28th, 2008 (2:00pm) Mike Gunderloy 9 Comments
With the tremendous number of ways to get your files online – from Dropbox to FolderShare to Box.net to SugarSync – there’s one big issue for consumers: how do you choose? Over at our parent blog GigaOM, Om Malik things Sugar Sync has a new edge in this market due to their announcement of an iPhone interface. But is that enough to tilt the balance in their favor?
Part of the issues is that the market is so fragmented: there are backup solutions, replacements for email attachments, synchronization solutions, and more. Trying to pick one “best” provider from the confusing variety out there is tough, at best. If you’ve had to choose a way to get your own files online – who did you choose? And why?
9 Comments Post your own comment
Ferdinand says: August 28th, 2008 3:18pm
I use Sugarsync for syncing two PCs. It is working quietely in the background. Also SS gives me some peace in mind, because if my collegue deletes a file accidentally I can still recover from Sugarsync, because SS keeps all deleted files. Also since a few weeks you can send large files by email via Sugarsync.
Khürt Williams says: August 28th, 2008 3:25pm
I don’t like pay upfront type services such as SugarSync and Box.net. I don’t want to have to guess about how much storage I might need. I prefer the Amazon S3 pay as you go pricing. With the JungleDisk frontend most of my needs ( except for iPhone sync ) are met.
Allan says: August 28th, 2008 3:40pm
I tried SugarSync…but ended up with Syncplicity. The developers have been very responsive and I haven’t had any problems.
Von Heidel-Johnston says: August 29th, 2008 1:31am
S3 is surely the best model. I have used Jungle and its OK for backup but crap for access I feel although a tad better with their recent subscription service.
I’m currently doing the beta of the OpenS3 programme from SMEStorage.com which opens up their whole platform and access channels to any S3 user. Trust me this is seriously cool., Right now I am able to sync my S3 account with SMEStorage so that I can then access my S3 files from an Iphone Web app, mobile web app, Facebook, iGoogle etc – its really slick and when they eventually launch this I think more S3 users will use it as a way of getting to their files.
Nick says: August 29th, 2008 5:58am
While I think S3 is the best solution for the money. I tried JungleDisk and Mozy and while both were an adequate solutions I settled for Sugarsync for it’s ease of use. Rather than have a long backup going every night I would rather backup my files as I work. It would be nice if someone would build OS functionality that would do this to an external drive, perhaps it exists and I just don’t know about it.
Khürt Williams says: August 29th, 2008 8:43am
@Von Heidel-Johnston: SMEStorage does not appear to allow the use of an existing AmazonS3 storage account.
Miguel says: August 29th, 2008 11:13am
@ Nick -
I think the service you are looking for is ElephantDrive. They have the online backup system, but they also have a mapped drive straight to the account so you can just save as you go.
The big problem I found in looking for a solution is that there are a zillion recommendations but very few have done there homework and actually tried everything out. Some bloggers have actually gone through the process and reported in detail, which is really useful. Check out this guys: http://timhoeck.com/. Serious review with screenshots. He gives SugarSync a thumbs up too.
Miguel says: August 29th, 2008 11:17am
Apologies for typos: “there” = “their”.
Also, can anyone point me to a detailed review of Syncplicity or Dropbox?
Von Heidel-Johnston says: August 30th, 2008 10:05am
Khurt,
I am an existing user of SMEStorage and I was invite to participate in their OpenS3 beta by email. I think they have asked a few of their subscribers, but I got an email saying they were going to open it up as a beta for the 1st 1,000 new subscribers who want to make use of their S3 keys with the service.
Von