More:SugarSync: Most useful sync tool ever. But youll pay for it.
More:Google Drive: Its slick, integrated… and not exactly free
Finally, a bonus tip: If you want to sync your Google Docs files to your hard disk for offline access — which Google Drive doesnt actually do — check outSocial FoldersandInsync.
The downside: Amazon Cloud Drive is not a synchronizing hard drive like the other products in this list. When youre offline, you cant access or update files youve put on your drive. Rather, you copy files from your local system to the Drive. Its a good music storage product, but not nearly as useful for working with or sharing files as the other products in this comparison.
More:LogMeIn launches Cubby: File sync and share done right
However, on a business account, theres a lot to recommend here, including the sync feature, a suite of user account management and monitoring tools, and on the high end of the scale, integration into enterprise identity services. Google Drive isnt yet available for business customers on Google Apps.
More:Apple to build more iCloud apps
Free storage: 5GB; Price per 100GB: $129/year
Prorated from published prices if no 100GB plan is quoted.
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Wuala was once an independent cloud storage provider, but it was acquired by the hard drive vendor LaCie, and the product is included with some of the companys drives now. Wuala has a unique proposition, though: Its data is all hosted in Germany, Switzerland, and France, where privacy regulations are stricter; it would be, theoretically, harder for a government to get into your files on this service. There are no Wuala servers in the U.S.
SugarSync is complex, however. While it offers a desktop sharing folder like Dropbox, its easy to get lost and confused in its options.
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And then theres Apples solution. Apple uses cloud storage strictly for its own apps: You can store your files from Keynote, Numbers, and Pages in the Apple cloud, as well as backups of your iOS devices. Its seamless to open these files from any machine running the apps. But its not a general-purpose cloud file storage product.
Best for: Syncing a lot of data between computers
Bitcasa
Microsoft SkyDrive
Free storage: 5GB; Price per 100GB: $60/year
Live Mesh is acredible competitor to Dropbox(Ars Technica story), although its a bit of a mess to figure out whats what; Microsoft only recently announced its paid storage tiers for the service, which remain separate from the storage allocated to Microsoft Office files.
Free storage: TBD; Price per 100GB: Kind of missing the point
Best for: Moziers.
A new entry from LogMeIn, Cubby has taken the best ideas from existing sync and share products. Its like Dropbox, allows you to sync any folder like SugarSync, and it offers a computer-to-computer sync feature that lets you share folders between two computers without storing them in the cloud; this helps keep the price down if youre using the system to keep a lot of data synced between computers.
Free storage: 2GB; Price per 100GB: $144/year
CX
SugarSync is the old-shioned, super-feature-rich, ultra-flexible store and sync service. For individual users, it has a feature set that puts Dropbox to shame, and it allows very fine-grained control of what is synced, and to where. You dont have to sync just the systems own folder — you can sync anything. SugarSync has highly evolved iOS apps, as well.
For flexibility (syncing any folders), I likeSugarSync, but only because LogMeInsCubbyis still in beta and we dont know what it will cost. Its one to watch.
Microsoft is finally revealing the additional storage tiers for SkyDrive.
Best for: The paranoid.
Box is the file-sharing service designed for businesses. You can get a plan as an individual user, but this company makes its money from, and does it best work for, the business team. Desktop sync isnt even available on individual accounts.
Microsofts cloud storage initiative (I hesitate to call it a single product) is the closest competitor to Google Drive. It combines access to SkyDrive, which is storage for the cloud versions of theMicrosoft Officeproducts, with Live Mesh, its hard disk in the sky. It also has the rare, but valuable to some, capability to sync files computer-to-computer, bypassing cloud storage.
Free storage: 7GB (for files); Price per 100GB (on top of free storage): $50/year
Best for: Most free storage, sharing files with groups.
Best for: Businesses
New!Amazon has gotten into the Cloud Drive business with a new app. The Cloud Drive itself is not new, just the desktop software. You can store up to 5GB of files for free on Amazons respected cloud servers. You can access your files from anywhere, of course. The big draw is that music files purchased from Amazon and stored on the drive dont count toward your storage allocation. As a promotion, in ct, any music files uploaded to the Amazon Cloud are stored for free. Amazon wants to push its Cloud Player online music app.
Or will it? Google has not conquered every market its entered. See social networking, or photo sharing, or blogging. In the consumer cloud storage market, there are serious, well-established, and highly valued companies already up and running. Can Google compete? Is it right for you? Lets compare it to the existing grid of storage providersteam fortress 2 servers.
Bitcasa is the crazy one. The idea here is that you pay $10 a month for unlimited cloud-based storage that is synchronized to you computers hard drives. In the Bitcasa vision, there is no real difference between the cloud and your hard disk. Your hard disk looks infinite because its, technically speaking, just a really big cache for your unlimited cloud drive.
More:CX: Good sync product, doomed market
More:Box trying to unify cloud storage for business apps
Free storage: 5GB; Price per 100GB: $40/year
Cubby
Google Driveis a very strong cloud store and sync product. Its easy enough to set up, offers a good free tier of service, and the best prices if you need more than that. If you work in Google Docs and use an Android device, this may become the ultimate file management product for you — over time.
Dropbox is the darling of the tech set for file synchronization and sharing, and for very good reasons: Setup is st; The free service gives you a usable if limited 2GB of storage; and sharing files with other people is beautifully for both the sender and the receiver. If youre a Dropbox user and accustomed to the system, theres no need to move off of it. If you need a st way to share a file with another user, or you want to park a file in the cloud to access it from anywhere or from other computers you own, its still a ntastic experience — better than Google Drive.
SugarSync, until todays Google Drive announcement, offered the largest available online storage locker for users, 500GB.
Google Drive
The upstart product from Google is not quite as or clear, but it does offer more free storage (5GB to Dropboxs 2GB) as well as better deals on paid storage.
Apple iCloud
Free storage: 5GB; Price per 100GB: $150/year
Dropbox
SugarSync
Mozy Stash
Cubby is in invite-only beta and pricing has yet to be determined beyond the 5GB free tier.
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Best for: Beautifully sharing.
Best for: Microsoft true believers.
Best for: People in the Apple ecosystem
Google Drive is relatively easy to get started with on a PC,Mac, andAndroiddevice. Its a very strong product. We havent even seen its iOS mobile app, nor the planned integration into Gmail and the Chrome OS operating system. These are coming.
More:How to navigate the Dropbox redesign
CX has another differentiator: 10GB of free storage. But its among the most expensive solutions on a per-gigabyte basis beyond that.
More:LaCie merges with online-storage start-up Wuala
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Best for: Storing a lot of music for free.
Free storage: 10GB; Price per 100GB: $240/year
Best for: People who live in the Googlesphere.
Best for: The dreamers
More:Bitcasa moves your hard drive to the cloud
From the backup company Mozy (itself a part of EMC), theres a sync product called Stash. It should be a good solution for people who want to integrate their cloud backup accounts with the sync accounts, except it likely requires too much awareness of whats where to be used effectively. As a free service its got the same 2GB limit as Dropbox, and its features arent ncy either. But if you are a Mozy user, its a nice add-on service.
Free storage: 5GB; Price per 100GB (on top of free storage): $200/year
Best for: Flexibility of what you sync and share
Box
More:Microsoft adds paid storage tiers to SkyDrive cloud service
If you want areallyelegant and solution for sharing, storing, and syncing,Dropboxis still tops.
More:Amazon Cloud Drive gains desktop app
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Free storage: 2GB; Price per 100GB: $199/year
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Recommendations
Amazon Cloud Drive
SugarSync offers a lot of flexibility, but it can also be a lot to manage.
Free storage: 5GB; Price per 100GB: $100/year
Google is finally launching its general-purpose cloud storage service. Its late to market, but it doesnt matter. Googles the juggernaut. It will easily steamroll the pesky small-fry, like Dropbox.
Google Drive files show on a computer&39;s regular file system, where people can copy, move, delete, or modify them. Google Docs files are opened in a browser.
The service is still in beta. It may be that way for a while.
Wuala
More:Mozy blends file sync into its backup service
Free storage: 5GB; Price per 100GB: TBD
Want the st cloud storage solution? The most flexible? The best free service? Heres which is what.
To review: Google Drive offers 5GB of free storage, almost the best prices beyond the free tier in a consumer product (Microsoft is better), and the biggest available online lockers. Its integrated into Google Docs so you can put your files from local apps alongside your Web files, which is pretty handy.
Rafe NeedlemanRafe reviews mobile apps and products for fun, and picks startups apart when he gets bored. He has evaluated thousands of new companies, most of which have since gone out of business. Feeling lucky? Send pitches torafe@cnet.com. And watch Rafes tech issues podcast,Reporters Roundtable.
This is another flexible sync product. Like SugarSync and Cubby, it lets you share any folder on your computer. The CX team is focused on collaboration, and the product lets you create groups of users for sharing files. It gives groups collaboration tools, too, like discussion threads.
