Top 6 Secure Cloud Storage Providers Comparison In 2020

Show must go on! This show business phrase is as relevant to today’s business scenario as it is for a theatrical performance. Irrespective of whatever challenges one faces, it’s necessary to perform when you are on stage, similarly the business should go on as usual, whatever challenges may come. This is even more applicable for modern business leaders – the CXOs, who burden the responsibility of keeping the cashboxes ringing with zero interruption in business operations, whatever may be the conditions. Work-related data including documents, e-mails, audio/video files, presentations, databases, graphics, spreadsheets etc. are all the lifeblood of the businesses today and for the business leaders, their 24/7 availability and accessibility is of great importance. Moreover, today’s business landscape requires leaders to work from different locations and many times on the same set of documents from different devices. Further, those working in industries like financial services, media houses, content management and development environments often face data storage and security related issues due to the large volume of data they handle on a daily basis. Subscribe to Wire19 Newsletter These changing business needs and environment necessitate the need for a safe and scalable solution for data storage and easy transfer of data and information- internally within an organization and externally, to whom it’s intended for. Here, the modern cloud storage helps you to not only process information regularly with automation, but allows you to work on different devices with real-time syncs, and also acts as a backup and recovery tool that enables you to keep your business running 24/7—the core necessity of any digitally transforming business. Save 25% on a 2-year Internet Security subscription! Why cloud storage is the best option for businesses? It is fast- Besides providing you with unlimited storage and anywhere anytime access, it helps you deploy your data securely by using the cloud provider’s infrastructure and hit go. Creating a new datacenter for your churned data may mean a huge investment in terms of time and money. It offers personalized storage options – Different cloud storage providers offer a wide range of customized offerings to differentiate themselves like security, privacy, migration, compliance and other services. This allows business leaders to send more data to the cloud and also prevent their team from using “shadow IT” solutions. It helps you work smarter– With the cloud, you can take a closer look at your data center spending, including your space and type of data to be secured and use your storage more efficiently. These insights will help you plan and spend your budget and space only where it’s actually needed. Further, it helps you reduce your bandwidth consumption as you don’t need to upload files every time you edit and empowers you with e-sharing of files and documents. There are major players that offer different cloud storage for business solutions, but choosing the right one depends solely on the kind of files you want to store, your security needs, whether you plan to collaborate and also on devices you will use to edit and access your files. We have compiled a guide of the best cloud storage providers and their services to help you pick the best one per your needs. All these offer to sync and sharing capabilities, but some like Microsoft OneDrive also offer media-playing and device syncing. Many of them specialize in a specific area like document co-editing, some also offer limited level of backup too. Read about each one in detail below. Unlimited Online Backup from $8.99 per month Best Cloud Storage Providers and Services If you are looking for the best cloud storage services, then we have done a comparison for you: 1. Microsoft OneDrive OneDrive is a storage option of Microsoft for Windows 10 and Office 365 users. It comes along with file folder syncing and online backup features. Integrated with Windows 10, it handles all common types of files – documents, music, photos, and video and does an impressive job of displaying photos and videos via a web interface. Microsoft cloud storage solution includes the feature to auto-tag images and OCR to extract text from images, EXIF camera to help view the photos as a slideshow and a map of where they were taken along. Microsoft OneDrive Pricing: 5 GB for Free 100GB for $1.99/month 2. Google Drive Another cloud-based storage and syncing service that enables you to create, edit, store and collaborate on documents with Google Drive’s companion apps- Google Docs, Sheets and Slides. But for offline edits, Microsoft OneDrive is surely the best choice. With Google cloud storage solution, you also get built-in OCR and recently added Backup and Sync feature, which helps you designate any folder on your system for syncing but this doesn’t turn your Drive into a full backup utility. Privacy is a concern with Google Drive as it gathers information from the online activity of users. Google Drive Pricing: 15 GB for Free 100GB for $1.99 200GB for $2.99 2TB for $9.99 per month 3. Dropbox Dropbox is a simple and full-featured file-syncing and storage service with apps for almost every operating system. It offers new Dropbox Paper suite of tools, file request that makes collaboration even better for teamwork. It supports file sharing. The only downside is that it is expensive. Dropbox Pricing: 2TB for $9.99/month with Dropbox Plus 3TB for $16.58/month with Dropbox Professional 4. Box Highly customizable syncing and storage tool, Box is easy to use with its rich feature set. It does offer workflow tools but it doesn’t offer built-in document editing. It lacks some collaboration features offered by the best of the competition – Google Drive and Microsoft OneDrive. Box Pricing: 100GB for $5.75 per user/month Unlimited for $16.36 (Business), $27.75 (Business Plus) per user/month 5. Amazon Drive This is secure cloud storage for your photos, files, videos, and more. It allows you to back up your files to the cloud and feel safe for your data. You can use free Amazon Drive and Prime Photos apps for computer, iPhone, and Android for sharing and access on the go. But the desktop app doesn’t work well with your file system, you can only use it to upload or download files. Amazon storage pricing: Unlimited photo storage, 5GB video storage with Amazon Prime membership 100 GB for $19.99 per year 1TB for $59.99 per year 6. Apple iCloud This service also includes productivity apps and collaboration tools like Google Drive and OneDrive but is best for Apple ecosystem users. It allows Apple users to create folders for their files and provides online storage for Apple’s productivity apps, Pages, Numbers, and Keynote. It offers very good interface but you don’t get web access to all your cloud data in Apple’s iCloud and it is difficult to centralize all files if you use Apple apps. You have to pay high prices for increased storage. Apple iCloud pricing: 50GB for $0.99/month 200GB for $2.99/month 2TB for $9.99/month Comparison of best Cloud Storage Providers There are many more cloud storage options available in the market- SugarSync, SpiderOakOne, IDrive and more in addition to the top ones above.