Cloud storage is all the rage these days. The concept is simple: store your personal or corporate data in the Cloud. For all intensive purposes, Cloud storage providers like Dropbox, Sugar Sync and Box.net have made a business model from capitalizing on faulty local storage devices – external hard drives – and easily lost mobile storage devices – USB storage devices.
While Dropbox, Sugar Sync and Box.net are arguably the three most popular Cloud storage solutions in operation, they are utilizing by consumers and businesses for different purposes. In this space, we will discuss the difference between the mentioned providers and how those providers aim to shape the Cloud Computing storage market in the years to come.
Personal Cloud Storage: Dropbox
Arguably the single most popular and well-known Cloud storage provider in the world, Dropbox began a few years back in a bus station in California. The idea was simple: create a service which would allow people to work on documents using different machines without having to physically load the same document on across different devices without having to constantly load said data into each physical device.
Growing from a few lines of code to over 225 million users worldwide, Dropbox is known as the Cloud storage provider who supplies, “a place for your stuff.” Offering various tiers of storage, Dropbox prides itself on a pretty and simple easy to use interface, free Cloud storage capacity and the ability to share data to other users via email.
All in all, Dropbox is the number one most used Cloud storage application for personal consumers. It carries this distinction because the majority of the Dropbox user base utilizes the free version of the application to store and share personal data.
Business Cloud Storage: Box.net
Although they don’t have the publicity or name recognition of Dropbox, Box.net has quietly positioned itself as the business Cloud storage provider. Aiming to provide high quality and high capacity Cloud storage for businesses around the world, Box.net features a more straightforward interface custom built for the enterprise.
Like Dropbox, Box.net offers its users the ability to upload and download files to/from the Cloud and the ability to share files to other users via email or via an internal account connection. Unlike Dropbox, Box.net specializes in offering enterprise size corporations with Cloud storage solutions via team wide and company wide Cloud storage allotments. This is to say Box.net offers businesses the ability to upload as much data as they need to the Cloud in order to keep it secure and accessible.
Personal and Business Cloud Storage: Sugar Sync
A subtle mix between Dropbox and Box.net, Sugar Sync offers clients the ability to easily upload and download data from the Cloud via a dead simple interface and it also offers businesses the Cloud storage space they need to upload massive quantities of data to their servers.
Sugar Sync is a great solution for small businesses and personal consumers looking for a Cloud storage solution that offers great scalability and an easy to use interface.
At the end of the day, your use or non use of Cloud storage services like Dropbox, Sugar Sync and Box.net will fully depend on your need, how much money you want to spend on a monthly basis (depending on storage capacity, Cloud storage can prove to be expensive) and how willing you are to part with your sensitive data. Like most Cloud services, the number one concern of consumers when contemplating utilizing a Cloud storage provider is security.
It should be noted, although Cloud storage solutions do what they can to secure content held within their servers, most providers make no promise of true Cloud storage security. For that to occur, your company needs to invest in a Private Cloud service.