The Cloud

[impala454]

So I've been pondering starting to use cloud storage all of my stuff. I've slowly begun putting all of my "documents" up on google docs, and am now pondering doing the same with all of my photos (I keep every raw photo I've ever taken on a digital camera). Well now google has come out with "Google Drive", their cloud storage solution. Engadget had a great article comparing the major cloud storage services today, here:

http://www.engadget.com/2012/04/24/google-drive-vs-the-competition-dropbox-skydrive-icloud/

I honestly at first glance figured I'd just go with google drive. I've pondered iCloud, as I now have an iPad and figured that might make sense, but I've also got an android phone (and don't plan on changing that). I had heard of MS Skydrive but hadn't given it much look. I must say I was pleasantly surprised with how nice MS Skydrive is. Dropbox is another good one.

Anyone used the various services and care to comment? I think I'm going to set up a free account on each one just to give them a shot, but I'm already leaning towards Skydrive with how very nice the interface is (it even includes using an online version of MS Office to edit your documents, for free).

[P-Dub]

Surprised nobody's chimed in yet.

I have been using Dropbox for just under a year. I have found the syncing between the cloud and multiple computers and mobile devices pretty handy.

We put our travel itinerary on a shared dropbox folder between my wife and I. I have a shared movie list, so we don't buy doubles. I have a simple calendar in excel, but it shows multiple months and years so I can see things at a glance.

I have other projects organized in folders and now I don't worry about did I save it to the thumb drive or what is the latest version.

I'm not a big picture taker, so don't use it much for that. I do have some photos that I upload.

Here's my referal link for Dropbox. I get some extra free space and so do you.

http://db.tt/MmLvBkOG

I have signed up for Skydrive as well as Box. But I haven't used any of those services yet.

I will probably use the Google Drive as I use Gmail a lot. I have only used a bit of Google Docs.

Once you start using one of those services to sync, you really won't go back.

Now this bit about online version of MS Office will make me look a bit closer to Skydrive.

[impala454]

Yeah that online office thing is really nice, I signed up for the skydrive and google drive and have them both running as kind of a test. The thing that's really irking me though is neither is just 100% ready with all their features for all the devices (which I now have ALL possible devices :P). Well maybe not all, but I have a desktop comp running windows 7, iPad 3, and android phone that I want to sync. Here's a summary of the two services I have tried so far (I may add dropbox as well just to do another comparison):

Microsoft SkyDrive
General
7/20/50/100GB = $0/10/25/50 per year
Max file size = 2GB

Desktop App
I haven't installed the app at home yet (Windows 7), but a ding for it is that it is not supported in windows XP (my crappy, about to be replaced, work computer is XP). I'll report on it once I get it installed. In their defense, MS says it will support it in XP, they just don't have it yet. Supposedly Windows 8 will have some very nice integration with SkyDrive, but that's a ways off.

Web Interface
Just dragging and dropping files onto the SkyDrive web UI worked very well. It will even ask if you want to resize photos (I didn't, as I like to store/keep the full sized pics I take). SkyDrive did seem sync much faster than Google Drive it seemed, even through the web interface (which works well even in Chrome). One annoying thing about the web interface though is it doesn't handle folders. Though I have a feeling I won't care much once I get the app installed at home. Viewing photo folders looks very nice on the web ui. It detects that the folder is photos and puts a nice preview slideshow of the pics on the folder front. The interface seems "smart" in the sense that it figures out it's a folder of photos and shows previews, but similar, to windows explorer you can change to a list view or icon view, etc.

The web UI's Office suite is very nice on SkyDrive and includes Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote. They look nearly identical to the 2010 desktop apps and seem to work great in Chrome, Firefox, and IE (haven't tried in Safari yet, but will). It's very snappy and feels just like using the desktop apps. Also, in IE there's a "edit in word/etc" option which will actually open up the document in the word desktop application if you have it installed. That option doesn't work in Chrome.

iPad App
The iPad app works very well for browsing and viewing (especially photos, which will be the bulk of my storage needs), although editing is nonexistent. You can easily download a file and then open it up in whatever way you'd want to, but that kind of defeats the point IMHO. This is one of the major downsides for me, although I will try the web interface on Safari and see how it fares. I'm also assuming this is an "in work" app that will improve over time. Also of note, it's really easy to view photos and download them to the device for editing/use. If MS made a kind of "light" version of the office apps, similar to what the web ui uses, and made it the editor for the iPad app, this would be hands down the best iPad app for me.

Android App
This is by far the biggest downside for SkyDrive for me, there is no android app at all currently. While I don't do heavy photo editing or anything like that, I do access my documents and edit them often on my phone (various shopping lists, recipes, etc). There are a couple of third party apps but I will wait for MS to release one. Not sure if they have plans to (they'd be silly not to).

GoogleDrive
General
5/25/100/200/400/1000/2000/4000/8000/16000GB = $0/30/60/120/240/600/1200/2400/4800/9600 per year
Max file size = 10GB

Desktop App
The desktop app seems to work pretty well, it leaves an app in the tray which handles the syncing. It creates a folder under My Documents called Google Drive, and it doesn't seem like that's a changeable option (which is really annoying to me because the files I want to sync at home are on a different drive). All syncing is done to this folder. There is an option to enable offline viewing which seems nice, although I don't care to try viewing google doc files on my local computer (when you "open" the file on your local computer it opens up in the web app anyways, so it seems pointless to sync google documents to your local comp). The app seems simple and does its job well, as I can just drag whatever I want into that folder and it appears in the web UI nearly instantly.

Web Interface
The web interface, like Skydrive, also doesn't seem to allow you to drop folders onto it. Although the difference with Google Drive in this case is that it somehow still thinks it actually worked even though it doesn't, so it ends up putting a file with no extension but with the name of the folder you dragged (obviously a bug). SkyDrive gives an error saying you can't drop folders onto its web ui. Viewing folders of photos doesn't seem "smart" in the sense that it automatically shows previews. It simply takes whatever list/icon/etc view that you've already chosen and uses that for everything you're viewing. To me this is rather annoying because I want to see the previews on photos, but not on documents. So if I switch to the icon/tile view or whatever to view photos, then go back to documents, it shows me document previews unless I switch back to list view. Very annoying.

The document editing on Google Drive is basically exactly what Google Docs was. If you haven't used Google Docs, it's a very simple version of what standard office apps are. There's the standard document, spreadsheet, and presentation apps, plus a few others for drawing and such (the drawing one is pretty nice for diagrams). Overall I've used Google Docs for a long time and find it adequate, however lacking in functionality in some cases and with some very annoying quirks, especially with spreadsheets. Supposedly Google Drive is kind of an open book in terms of web apps that will be available, so perhaps this will improve greatly over time.

iPad App
This is by far the biggest downside to Google Drive for me. It doesn't exist yet. Although Google claims they're working on it. The web interface looks like the crappy mobile version under Safari on iPad so it's a big minus for me until they get their app out. It's a no doubter that they will get it out though, I just hope it's nice.

Android App
The android app seems to work fine for documents (just as the google docs app did), although editing spreadsheets is very clunky and annoying. It's good for the lists I use it for though. One huge annoyance is that it's not smart with photos at all. I uploaded a large folder of photos and there's not even any previews in the android app. I have to click the filename and then it downloads the entire full resolution image. That's a huge minus in my book and needs to change. I don't want to peg my cell plan's available bandwidth for the month searching for one particular photo. Also when I click the photo it actually downloads it to my phone's local gallery. I'd much rather have the option to preview first.


That's all I have for now but I'll keep adding more as I figure these services out. Once I choose one I'll buy the upgraded storage.

[PewterTA]

Do you have a good internet connection at your home? If you want an easy and simple setup, you could get something like the Iomega NAS that is Cloud ready... just put your stuff on it and link everything to it and go. It's pretty simple to set up and use, plus you can have 8TB of space for in a year or so would have itself paid off.

[impala454]

I'd have absolutely no need for that much space though and with these services, the main bonus is the easy ways to access & manipulate the data from various platforms.

Also I should correct myself, upon installing google drive at home, I noticed you can in fact change the folder it syncs to.

[impala454]

So an update after using Google Drive and MS SkyDrive for a bit.

One major annoyance I've encountered: I have a folder for "projects" where I store various ideas for projects to work on, as well as the photos and data for projects I've actually done (such as speakers or whatever). Well in all of those folders, I document things using .txt files. Neither GDrive or SkyDrive will let me edit a stupid .txt file on their service! It makes me download to my computer or whatever. GDrive will display the .txt file but not let me edit it, and SkyDrive just prompts me to download the file. LAME! I guess I'll have to actually "convert" all of my documents to either the google documents format, or to MS Word (which sounds better to me). Very annoying though.

[impala454]

Finally made a decision and started syncing all my stuff. I went with Google Drive, simply because I already have so much stuff Google integrated, I like the simple interface, and it really wasn't too bad converting my documents and such to Google Docs (only had a couple folders full that I hadn't converted already). I figure they'll have their iOS app out soon enough and the sync application seems to work well. I only plan to actually sync the files to my desktop at home anyways. I'll use the browser or mobile app to browse remotely or from work. $5/mo for 100GB and I only really needed about 60GB to start. I seem to average about 4-6GB of photos per year so that should hold me over for a while. I saw no need to sync my 250GB of music. I'll just keep using Spotify for most of my stuff. Although I may sync all my ripped, owned CDs just for quick access.