Given the multitude of cloud storage providers out there, you must take care in choosing a provider who will offer the maximum amount of low-cost storage and bandwidth, while still keeping your data safe. Here are five of the best providers.
Google Drive is a natural choice for owners of Android devices as it’s already integrated, but users of other platforms may appreciate the generous free storage too. You can also store high definition photos on your mobile phone with companion app Google Photos, and make use of Google’s own office suite (now known as G Suite).
Price: 15GB free. 100GB for £1.59 a month. 1TB for £8 a month.
Dropbox only offers 2GB of free storage, but this can be increased up to 16GB free of charge by linking your Dropbox to social media and referring friends to join the service. Business subscriptions allow users to collaborate on work as well as giving each person unlimited space in a personal Dropbox account. There are also enhanced features for file recovery and versioning.
Price: 2GB free. 1TB for £6.58 a month with Dropbox Plus.
With an extremely generous free tier and a simple drag-and-drop interface, Mega is one of the cloud storage heavyweights. There’s a handy mobile app to allow you to upload files and photos as well as sync clients with desktop machines. Mega claims that all data stored in its cloud is encrypted on your device before it reaches the firm’s servers. As the company has released the source code to its sync client, experts are able to check that there are no vulnerabilities.
Price: 50GB free. 200GB for £4.50 a month.
OneDrive is integrated into Windows 10’s file explorer. You don’t have to download an additional app which is very convenient for those who have made the jump to Microsoft’s newest operating system. Microsoft’s Photos app can also use OneDrive to sync pictures across all your devices. There’s an app for Android and iOS devices, and there’s even one in the App Store for Mac users.
Price: 5GB free. 50GB for £1.99 a month.
If you want to back up your iPhone to iCloud, you’ll need more than the free 5GB allowance Apple gives you, but compared to rivals iCloud prices are very reasonable. The Mac Finder app integrates iCloud Drive, where you can store any files you wish. Documents created in the iWork office suite are also saved to iCloud and can sync across your devices. Windows users can also sync their files with iCloud Drive and access the iWork apps on the iCloud website.
Price: 5GB free. 50GB for £0.79 a month. 200GB for £2.49 a month.
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