Over the years I've collected up some cloud storage services. I began with Dropbox as a sort of experiment, a universal tool for whatever I thought I might need stored online, accessible from any other Internet-connected computer. Then, in a more recent year, Box.net (now just Box) had an offer to sign up with an iOS device, so I did. SkyDrive was sort of adopted as Microsoft melded it into their other products like Live, MS Office, and even Windows 8. Last year I began to use Google Docs for school a lot, and that transitioned into Google Drive. Then there's iCloud, which came a few iOS updates ago (I'm not even sure that can be considered a cloud storage service). I have all these services, with most of them nowhere near at their potential. Now that you have the history, let's dig a bit deeper.
Dropbox
Dropbox is probably my most used service of everything listed above. There's so many apps and websites that use it. It also does the one thing that no other service I've used has been able to: give you a direct link to a file (photos especially) with great ease. I tend to upload and post lots of photos online, and having a direct link quickly accessible is very important. In addition to photo sharing, I use it to move miscellaneous files from one computer to another, be it at home from my computer to an iOS device, or from my computer to a computer at school. I have amassed 4.13 GB in free space (4.9% of which I'm using), which you'll see doesn't compare too well with other services.
iCloud
As I mentioned before, iCloud probably shouldn't be counted as cloud storage, more like cloud syncing. I didn't really have a choice in using iCloud; Apple just integrated it into iOS and iTunes, so there it was. I'm certainly a fan, so there's no hard feelings. It syncs a lot of important data from my iPhone to my iPad, vis versa, and it's especially helpful after restoring one of my devices. It also serves as a syncing medium for apps and their data/save games/etc. It just doesn't give you as much freedom with uploading and downloading raw files. I currently have the standard 5.0 GB plan and haven't used even 1% of it yet.
Box
Box (formerly Box.net) caught my attention because of a promotion it held awhile ago: sign up using the iOS app and get 50 GB (!!!) of free storage. To put that into perspective, that's
25 times more than Dropbox offers to sign up, and 10 times more than the basic iCloud account. That number alone convinced me to sign up, and my account has been untouched ever since, except for the Notability app for iPad, which I have set up to back up to Box.
Google Drive
Google Drive is what became of Google Docs, sorta. With Google Docs, you had online storage for Google Docs-compatible documents that you could edit. With the update to Drive, you could just upload any sort of file you wanted, more-or-less like Box or Dropbox. It seemed like a great idea since I already used so many Google services. The photo sharing, however, underwhelmed me. I do still use it for editing and storing documents, however. It's the only cloud client that I have running on my computer. I have the free 5 GB plan, and I haven't even used .01% of it yet. It's nice that Google Docs documents don't count against your usage.
SkyDrive
I'm not even sure why I'm considering this one. It's Microsoft's half-attempt at cloud storage, which basically turned into something that got in the way in MS Office, Windows 8, etc. Sure, you can upload and download files like any other service, but then there's a whole bunch of programs that save application data into it. For example, I use it to sync my OneNotes (when I use OneNote) from my computer to my iPhone and iPad. I have 25 GB of space in SkyDrive, and again haven't used even 1% of it.
SugarSync
SugarSync was a service I very recently heard about, and decided to sign up. I downloaded the apps on my iPhone and iPad. The free account provides 5 GB free, and like almost every other cloud service, it let you upload and download files in a filesystem. However, they throw in so many other places to upload to ("magic briefcase, web archive) that it becomes blurred where your files actually are. One feature I thought was great is uploading directly to devices. Meaning, I could upload a file to my iPad, and it would appear in a folder that's only on my iPad. And every time a file was uploaded to a device, the app would pop up a notification. The notifications don't work on the iOS app, though, so I was disappointed with that as well. I don't think I'll be using SugarSync too much more.
Collectively, I have about 94 GB of cloud storage between all these different services, and it's just sitting unused. I have no idea what to do with it all, especially 50 GB in Box. If you have any ideas, I'd love to hear them in the comments below. It seems like not too long ago cloud storage was a cool new idea. Now it just seems like another online commodity.
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