Tech Lover 9

Dropbox (not to be confused with Box) and Google Drive are two of the big names in cloud backup. Which of these two will best suite your style?
First, a bit about how each product works. Both Google Drive and Drop Box work by creating a cloud-based folder to drop your files into, which can be stored on your local drive as well. In both cases, you can access and share files and have files shared with you, which is great for collaborative projects. Both have mobile apps, can work with your favorite tablet/smartphone.

While both Google Drive and Dropbox work on the web, only Dropbox works in Linux or Blackberry. They both work on Windows, OSX, iOS and Android. It should come as no surprise that Drive works on Google’s Chrome OS.

Dropbox Free starts at 2GB for free, but you can get more by space for free by testing features or referring other members, up to 18GB total. You can get more with monthly or yearly pricing: Pro is (monthly/yearly): 100GB for $9.99/$99.00, 200GB for $19.99/$199, and 500 GB for $49.99/$499. Dropbox has a business service called Dropbox for Teams, which includes 1TB of storage and is $795 per year for five users. Additional users are $125 per year and add 200GB per storage each, with no limit.

Google Drive is available as a free service, as well as on a paid month to month subscription: 25 GB for $2.49; 100GB for $4.99; 200GB for $9.99; 400GB for $19.99; 1TB for $49.99; $2TB for $99.99; 8TB for $399.99; and 16TB for $799.99 Even with the yearly contract, Google is a better value for the personal user.

Google Drive has the advantage of being, well, Google. All of your Google Docs are stored on Google Drive. When you check your Gmail, you’re one click away from your drive. It also keeps forever. I’ve checked my Google Drive and found files I haven’t thought about since 2009. You can also quick search your Drive, using Google’s handy search functionality.

Dropbox has the advantage of being able to play well with others. As I mentioned, you can use Dropbox on Linux, which you can’t do at all with Google Drive. Dropbox also has no limit on the size of an individual file being uploaded; Google has a limit of 10GB each.

When it comes down to the user experience, I preferred Dropbox. Dropbox has a GUI that I personally found more pleasing to the eye and easy to understand. Google appeared boxy and functional, but in comparison, Dropbox looked more like a native application that happened to be in the cloud.

On March 15th, 2013, Dropbox acquired Mailbox, an email management software app for iOS that was so well-reviewed it was massively popular even before it launched. It hints that Dropbox is ready to expand, and even ready to match Google on all fronts. For the time being, Mailbox is only available on iOS.

Google is the first name in cloud-based applications for the basic consumer, and the biggest name in free or freemium services. Users can purchase up to 16TB of storage. It’s easy to share files or folders with a single button click of the “share” icon, tucked away in the “more” folder. You can also use Google Groups. For the user that prefers Google’s ecosystem, there’s no reason to leave. Google has Play for MP3 storage, or you can use Drive as well. You have the option of automatically converting Docs and PDFs into Google Docs files.

Which brings us to the important question of which service is right for me? The larger your storage needs, and the more you work as a team, the more I’d recommend Dropbox. While 16TB is large, Dropbox currently offers unlimited storage. It may be pricey, but you can’t beat unlimited. Businesses that want to collaborate have a number of features on Dropbox, including read only sharing and version history. For the personal user who doesn’t need such a deep well, I’d go with Google, which is a great value, like other Google products. Google also has an ecosystem all its own, and if you’re already using it, there’s no reason to leave.