Best Cloud Storage to Save Your Data
One of the worst nightmare a person can have, is not to actually have his or her physical laptop lost or stolen, but to have all the data in that laptop lost. Imagine your PhD thesis which you have worked on for two years, all gone. Imagine all the paperwork for your office - the total five years of documentation - gone and lost when something wrong happens. Imagine all ten years of your photos and videos collection gone when your harddisk corrupts -- and harddisks do corrupt. Probably, a lot of you have had an experience - either personally or from someone close - of the agony of losing data. So, if you're working with a lot of important documents, it's highly imperative that you make a backup - or two - of your documents. In today's connected world, one of the most convenient and reliable way to backup your documents is on cloud storage.
So, here are five of the best cloud storage services (with pricing information) that you may use to backup your documents to. This list is in no particular order, and is definitely not exhaustive. Feel free to check out these cloud storage services yourselves, and hope one of them helps you get a good night's sleep.
Disclaimer: All prices shown are in Malaysian Ringgit (MYR) and are based on a rough conversion from the US Dollar at the time this article was published. Prices may have changed from the time this article was written. Check with the respective websites for current prices.
1. Dropbox
This is one of the earliest cloud storage services around, it's quite popular and probably familiar to most of you. Here are the pricing plans for Dropbox:
2GB storage - Free 1TB storage - MYR42/mth 2TB storage - MYR84/mth
Strengths: fast sync, smart sync, good for collaboration, has online Office integration.
Weaknesses: expensive, low security, not very privacy-friendly.
2. Google Drive / Google One
When you sign up for GMail, you automatically get Google Drive - the free Google cloud storage service which gives you a generous 15GB of space. But be aware, this quota is also shared with your GMail account which means a lot of emails with lots of attachments will eat up that 15GB quota. You can get more storage space with Google One (which is actually the same thing as Google Drive, except you pay for it and get much much more storage space). The pricing plans for Google One:
15GB storage - Free 100GB storage - MYR8.49/mth 200GB storage - MYR11.99/mth 2TB storage - MYR42.99/mth 10TB storage - MYR429.99/mth 20TB storage - MYR859.99/mth 30TB storage - MYR1,289.99/mth
Strengths: Google Docs integration, good for collaboration, good security, large storage capacity, strong customer support.
Weaknesses: weak file-sharing security, no private encryption option.
[Click here to get Google One]
3. OneDrive
Your Windows 10 comes pre-installed with OneDrive, and with a Microsoft account you get a free 5GB of storage. Since most people are nowadays using Windows 10, chances are most of you already have OneDrive already installed in your computer. OneDrive doesn't offer much choice, but here's their pricing plan:
5GB storage - Free 1TB storage - MYR27/mth - with Office 365 sub 50GB storage - MYR9.49/mth - OneDrive only
Strengths: comes with Office 365, good for collaboration, fast sync.
Weaknesses: only 30 days of versioning, low encryption, no linux client.
4. pCloud
This is a cloud storage service that's probably not (yet) as popular as the others that we have mentioned above, but it's cheap and it's the first to introduce a lifetime package! It means you only pay once for a service that you can use your entire life. Here's their pricing plan:
500GB storage - MYR17/mth 2TB storage - MYR34/mth 500GB storage - MYR728 once 2TB storage - MYR1,456 once
Strengths: value for money, fast sync, shared-file security.
Weaknesses: private encryption is paid add-on, unable to edit files.
5. Sync.com
This cloud storage service is steadily growing into one of the best around. Although not the most user-friendly, it makes up for that in terms of security and control. Also, since we're only listing prices for individual users here, Sync.com doesn't offer much choice. In fact, there's only one pricing plan for individual users:
3TB storage - MYR42/mth - billed annually
Strengths: strong security, unlimited versioning, no upload limits, good security.
Weaknesses: no monthly plans, not too user-friendly.
So go ahead and give on of these services a go and have peace of mind!
