Top List: Free Cloud Storage Solutions
Amazon Cloud Drive is provided by online shopping giant Amazon and is accessible off the left side bar when you are logged into your Amazon account. The service offers two types of free cloud storage:
- 5 GB of cloud storage for general files
- unlimited storage of Songs purchased from Amazon MP3. These never count toward your Amazon Cloud Drive storage limit.
Beyond the free storage allotment, Amazon's Cloud Drive pricing is currently:
|
20 GB
|
$20.00 / year | |
|
50 GB
|
$50.00 / year | |
|
100 GB
|
$100.00 / year | |
|
200 GB
|
$200.00 / year | |
|
500 GB
|
$500.00 / year | |
|
1000 GB
|
$1,000.00 / year |
Files are accessible in folders that can be accessed from up to 8 of your devices - not from anywhere like competing products. This is actually a serious limitation defeating many of the benefits of Cloud Storage. because the site FAQs say:
Amazon Cloud Drive allows access from up to eight devices. This includes mobile devices, different computers, and different browsers on the same computer. This device limit can be reached if your Web browser cookies are deleted or if your browser is set to automatically delete cookies.
If you try to access your music files using Amazon Cloud Drive from more than eight devices, you'll see a message "Cloud Drive Device Limit Reached." You can still access your Cloud Drive files and music using Amazon Cloud Player through the eight devices you've previously used.
Another limitation is that, while the free storage is available to everyone, the paid upgrades are not available in many (mostly European) countries.
Also, Amazon Cloud Drive and Amazon Cloud Player are only for individual use and therefore not for business. That space is where Amazon S3 competes.
If you have an Amazon account, you have an Amazon Cloud Drive account whether you use it or not. Check for more details here.
Dropbox is another cloud storage solution that offers free accounts. Users start out with 2 GB of free space and the site promises that they will always offer free space.
With 45 million users and growing quickly, Dropbox is redefining the cloud storage space. One of the main reasons that Dropbox is growing so quickly its that they reward users with free space for inviting new users - 1/4 GB up to a maximum of 8 GB of free space (so 10 GB total free space).
Beyond the free space, additional space is currently priced at:
50 GB for $ 99 a year
100 GB for $199 a year
1 TB+ For Teams - pricing varies.
Always a storage solution designed around easy sharing of files between different people, Dropbox introduced Dropbox for Teams in Oct 2011. Businesses can now experience the same ease-of-use along with new administrative controls, centralized billing, phone support, and plenty of space for everyone on the team.
You can join Dropbox free and help the author out with extra free space while you get free space as a bonus too.
ADrive is another cloud storage service that starts individual users off with 50 GB of free storage (for personal use only) and offers premium services of 100GB, 250GB, 500GB, 750GB,
1TB to 10TB on subscriptions. These services start at $39.50 a month/$139.50 a year. The free service is supported by on site ads, while the premium services are ad free.
Sharing files is easy on ADrive. Either generate a link from within the interface to share or just email the file to your contact. There is also a support forum and the company supports paid users via email.
Symform uses a very different approach to offer free cloud storage. Signing up give you 10 GB of free cloud storage but users can earn up to 200 GB of free space by referring others and contributing local hard drive space to the Symform network on a 1.5 to 1 basis (which helps provide redundancy in the system). Kind of a co-op plan for cloud storage where all participants are contributing space on their servers to get space on other people's servers. This facilitates off site backups for everyone involved
It works like this:
How To Get 200GB of Free Cloud Storage
Going from 10GB to 200GB of free cloud storage is as easy as Register, Set Up and Refer!| Free Cloud Storage | What you Need to Do | Helpful Tips | |
| REGISTER | 10GB | Register and join the Symform Cloud Storage Network | You need to have a valid email address confirmed and successfully set up your account and device! |
| SET UP | 100GB | Pledge to contribute 150GB to the Symform Network | The usage to contribution ratio is 1.5x, so to receive 100GB free you need to pledge 150GB contribution. |
| 120GB | Your contribution device successfully accepts a data fragment within 24 hours of Symform installation and set-up. | As your free storage increases, your contribution needs to increase respectively. So, to move to 120GB of free storage, your contribution needs to increase to 180GB | |
| REFER | Up to 200GB | Refer Symform to friends and colleagues. They get free storage and you get 10GB additional free storage for every referral that registers a new account. | Remember to increase your contribution as you increase your usage! |
SugarSync offers a basic 5 GB of storage totally free with no credit card required. Paid personal and business plans are available.
30 GB for $4.99 a month/$49.99 a year
60 GB for $9,99 a month/$99.99 a year
100 GB for $14.99 a month/$149.99 a year
250 GB for $24.99 a month/$249.99 a year
The site offers a 30 day free trial to get to know the service.
Google docs is a free service linked to Google (mainly Gmail) accounts. It facilitates storage and sharing on documents on the cloud. The system is designed for online collaboration in either a closed or public format.
Price: Free for now.
Yes
No
Flag
Comments
Great compilation of information. I will definitely try some of these storage solutions.
awesome!
Symform is has an interesting approach, just not how sure I'd about giving them access to my hard drive.
Ya Symform was one of the earlier companies in the cloud storage space and their approach is more like a co-op. Maybe suitable for someone running their own servers but not for your average internet user.
This is certainly a growing trend. Thanks for doing the research for us! Congratulations on the Featured Article.
Egnyte.com is another cloud storage service I've seen advertised.
I use Google Docs and Box.net - congrats on your feature :)
I love Dropbox but am certainly glad to see someone has done the "shopping" for us on other possibilities! Congrats on the article.
Yes I'm also a big dropbox fan. I like how they spread the service without much advertising by giving bonus space to people who share (and those who accept the invite).
Congrats on being featured! Nice article as usual.
Cloud storage is getting handy since most everyone are using mobile devices even while on the go. Great piece of work!
Great article. The thing I like about dropbox is it's integration with the local folder structure. So you just save items to a Dropbox folder on your computer and it takes care of posting to the cloud. Do the others offer this as well or would you have to post to webpage?
I'm most familiar with Dropbox and you correctly point out the ease of use with the folder structure. Amazon Cloud seems to involve saving to the site directly. Other sites, I don't know.
Very nice information. And a useful guide for sure, there are a lot of options for cloud storage these days,
There are many more cloud storage solutions too. These are just some of the better ones, but new services launch all the time.
Definitely appreciate the compilation of sources and reviews!
wow
Holy moly. Thanks a lot. I was just complaining about my USB drive being almost full. Serendipity on IB.
Hopefully one or more of these services will meet your cloud storage needs.
You must be logged in and verified to post a comment. Please log in or sign up to comment.