Dropbox vs. Google Drive vs. SkyDrive – Comparison In Clouds

Recently, Google announced another face of Google Docs, with some added features and 5 GB of storage space, Google Drive is the name. By now, you may’ve tried it. But lets carry out a comparison featuring the newly launched Google Drive, with Dropbox and SkyDrive. So, lets start the comparison between Dropbox, Google Drive, SkyDrive.

Comparison between Dropbox, Google Drive, SkyDrive

Free Storage Space Provided

Dropbox

Dropbox provides 2 GB as a free storage space, but users can extend it to a whooping 18 GB by referring a couple of friends.

Google Drive

Google Drive comes with a 5 GB free package, storage space. But provides no referral scheme to further extend the cloud storage space, other than paying to upgrade the account.

SkyDrive

SkyDrive offers 7 GB of free storage space

Platforms Supported

Dropbox

Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS, BlackBerry and Android devices are the platforms supported by Dropbox, marking its reach across the world.

Google Drive

Google Drive supports PC, Mac and Android phones /tablets, but soon users will be able to try Google Drive on iOS too. No Linux support is there, though.

SkyDrive

Windows, Mac, iPhone, iPad and Windows Phone are the devices supported by SkyDrive. Linux and Android support is missing.

Paid Storage Plans

Dropbox

Not to mention the quality service they provide, but the cost is invariantly high. A PRO50 account which offers 50GB of storage space, costs you $9.99/month or $99.00/year.

Google Drive

When it comes to paid storage plans, Google Drive is relatively cheap, offers 25GB of storage space at $2.49 / Month. Whole lot of difference it is.

SkyDrive

Where SkyDrive is allows users to extend their storage space to extra 20GB at a price of $10.00/year.

Security

Dropbox

With Dropbox, your content uploaded there, is safe and secure. Read what Dropbox has to say about this.

We encrypt the files that you store on Dropbox using the AES-256 standard, which is the same encryption standard used by banks to secure customer data. Encryption for storage is applied after files are uploaded, and we manage the encryption keys.

Your files are sent between Dropbox’s desktop clients and our servers over a secure channel using 256-bit SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) encryption, the standard for secure Internet network connections.

Dropbox employees are prohibited from viewing the content of files you store in your Dropbox account, and are only permitted to view file metadata (e.g., file names and locations). Like most online services, we have a small number of employees who must be able to access user data for the reasons stated in our privacy policy (e.g., when legally required to do so).

Google Drive

Use Google Drive, if you are comfortable sharing your data, your media content stored there on Google drive. Enjoy the enforcement, the read, what they’ve to say about Privacy Policy.

Some of our Services allow you to submit content. You retain ownership of any intellectual property rights that you hold in that content. In short, what belongs to you stays yours.

When you upload or otherwise submit content to our Services, you give Google (and those we work with) a worldwide license to use, host, store, reproduce, modify, create derivative works (such as those resulting from translations, adaptations or other changes we make so that your content works better with our Services), communicate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display and distribute such content. The rights you grant in this license are for the limited purpose of operating, promoting, and improving our Services, and to develop new ones.

SkyDrive

Same goes to the SkyDrive, another breach, if you are using SkyDrive for all your online storage purposes. Here what they say.

You hereby grant Microsoft the right, to use, modify, adapt, reproduce, distribute, and display content posted on the service solely to the extent necessary to provide the service.

Agreed!

File Formatted Supported

Dropbox

Dropbox offers users to enjoy few basic file formats including Office documents, PDFs, videos and images. So that’s pretty general in a way.

Google Drive

Google Drive wins over, when it comes to file formats war, as Google Drive along with these common file formats offers users to enjoy Photoshop (PSD), Illustrator (AI), Fonts (TTF), AutoCAD drawings (DXF) and Office 2010 documents (like DOCX, XLSX and PPTX) and few more, if I forgot to mention them here.

SkyDrive

Same as that of Dropbox, it also supports some common file formats, which users can view and edit online. These includes Office documents, PDFs, videos and images.

File History

Dropbox

Dropbox saves all your deleted files for at-least 30 days, if in case, you can recover the accidentally deleted files from Dropbox deleted within the time limit of 30 days.

Google Drive

No time limit has been specified, but deleted files are stored in Trash can, which can be restored from there, if you want it back.

SkyDrive

SkyDrive preserves a deleted file for 25 days, within that time limit, users can restore the file.

So that’s all about the comparison between Google Drive, Dropbox and Sky Drive, but wait, have a look at the bird eye of the aftermath.

The Aftermath

Google Drive, sure is a winner when it comes to price and features they provide, Dropbox being a flexible choice for newbies, offers pretty good User Interface and offers nice and features which makes sense as compared to the two. SkyDrive is good for Microsoft users, as it is only restricted to few. Platform support holds the reach of Sky Drive.

Editors Choice

SkyDrive is out of way, so no point of involving that here in the aftermath. Dropbox for sure! Why? Let me roll that for you in some points. Why Dropbox makes sense and brags features which makes perfect sense. Some facts based on experiments.

• If you edit some file on your desktop, which is uploaded to Google Drive, the whole file has to be uploaded again, just to reflect that change. Where in Dropbox just change or upload the edited part.
• 30 days is the time limit, Dropbox preserves your accidentally deleted files, where there’s no such facility is provided by Google Drive.
• Google Drive fails to identify duplicate files. If the same file is uploaded again, it’ll take twice as much space. Where in Dropbox recognizes the duplicate file.
• Last but not the least, who wants to share their content, their confidential data stored over Google Drive with Google, as you’ve read above about their privacy policy, which I think is a sole purpose of launching such a service. Just to take control of users data. Where Dropbox provides full security when it comes to data privacy and none of your data is accessed without your permission.

So what do you think is the right choice for all your data files? Do share your views about this comparison and the newly launch Google Drive.