Cloud backup is not the same as social media or email. Most users don’t have the time to actively follow Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest and tons of other social networking and sharing sites. Instead, we pick one or two where most of our friends and contacts are active. With email, it’s inconvenient to juggle between multiple inboxes so we stick with one. But with cloud storage, nobody is forcing you to be on Dropbox or on Google Drive alone. You can combine these services together to get lots of free storage.
You get 7GB from SkyDrive (25GB for old users), 2GB from Dropbox (upgradeable to 16GB through referrals), 5GB from Google Drive, 2GB from SpiderOak, 5GB from SugarSync, 5GB from Box, 5GB from AVG Livekive and on and on. If you do the math, there is 40GB~50GB of free storage right there.
You can keep videos on SkyDrive, documents on Google Drive, and pictures on Dropbox. However, if your requirements aren’t big, instead of spreading your files across different services you can use just one service for storage and the rest for mirror backup. If one service goes down or loses your files you can retrieve them from the others.
The easiest way to do this is to keep the sync folder of one service inside the sync folder of another service. SkyDrive with 25GB of storage can easily gobble both your Google Drive folder and Dropbox folder together. Or you can keep the Dropbox folder inside the Google Drive folder inside the SkyDrive folder. Anything you want to backup or sync goes into the Dropbox folder, which is automatically synced with Google Drive which in turn goes to your Skydrive storage. In one swoop, you created three backup copies of your files in three different locations. Backups can’t get any more secure.
How to change the sync folder
Dropbox: It’s under the Advanced section in Dropbox Preference.
Google Drive: You have to setup the sync folder when you sign in to your account. If you are already signed in, disconnect your account and reconfigure the sync folder.
SkyDrive: The sync folder is configured during installation of SkyDrive. To change the location of the folder, you have to uninstall SkyDrive and start afresh.
I do use Dropbox on my laptop, and had also installed the SkyDrive client today to try it (as a long-time Hotmail user I got the 25GB allowance). I was going to separate some things, but actually putting "one inside the other" like you suggest really intruded me, I think I will give it a try. Thanks for the idea!
ReplyDeleteHow about being able to amalgamate all the free services into one big online drive?
ReplyDeleteAdd box as a network drive and drop them all in there. I post this in theory. I've not tried
ReplyDeleteIf you're simply looking to move files between these services (and not nest them) it would be great if you checked out our service, Backup Box. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated. https://mybackupbox.com
ReplyDeleteBackup Box already covered.
ReplyDeleteI just wish that you could "sync" shortcuts, rather than being forced to keep your folders/files in one specific main folder (i.e. Drive, SkyDrive, etc.) But I was searching for a viable option to be able to sync to both Drive and SkyDrive, and was making sure it was OK to insert Google Drive inside of SkyDrive, and it seems (according to this post) that it is! Looks like that's how I'll roll until they allow us to pick and choose random files to sync, rather than being forced to place them all in one folder.
ReplyDeleteWhat if I put dropbox inside google drive on one computer, and google drive inside dropbox on another. That way, they'll automatically sync back and forth no matter where I upload them. Somebody else try this.
ReplyDeleteIt will break the space-time continuum. Seriously, it will sync back and forth continuously until you run out of space.
ReplyDeleteSkydrive does not give you 25gb by default. They discontinued this.
ReplyDeleteMine was actually downgraded from 25gb to 5gb without warning. That happened to quite a few people, and now you no longer get the 25gb.