We are living in times where the leading email provider is Gmail, the leading CRM suite is Salesforce and many apps are being hosted on the cloud. Cloud computing is the order of the day since it brings in many benefits, the key ones being ease of maintenance and real time updates, reduced IT team sizes and flexible usage packages.
Cloud storage has been around for a long while with Google Drive among the earliest movers in this space. In the last few years, Microsoft has revamped its cloud storage offering in the form of One Drive which is seeing significant pickup from corporate and individual users.
Is this all you need to know about cloud based storage service providers?
Well, not really, there’s a lot more to be explored.
Let us look at some of the top cloud storage providers for businesses:
Dropbox for Business
Dropbox for Business is a solution for secure file sharing and storage specifically designed to meet the needs of businesses. It comes loaded with amazing features:
- Dropbox allows you unlimited recovery of files, including ones deleted months back
- Maintenance of unlimited number of versions of files which can be restored with just a few clicks
- As per need, temporary access to files can be provided via the use of expiring links
- An Account transfer tool is available which can be used to transfer files between user accounts when needed
Not just that, Dropbox comes with multiple third-party app integrations. For individuals, the service is available for $9.99/user/month and comes with 1TB of space. The offering for business teams comes at $15/user/month for up to 5 users.
Microsoft OneDrive for Business
- OneDrive from Microsoft is a new and improved cloud offering which has made a splash in the marketplace.
- OneDrive has many nifty features one of which is that it syncs your files across devices for anytime, anywhere access.
- The core feature-set enables you to share your files securely with colleagues with set controls for access permissions.
- OneDrive storage plans start with 5GB for free with additional space available for $1.99 per month.
SugarSync for Business
SugarSync for business has plans starting at $55/month for 3 users including premium customer support. SugarSync is a full-blown, for business solution with an admin dashboard that allows you to add storage at any time, assign storage limits per account and monitor user activity.
SugarSync comes with several useful features:
- Mobile access using SugarSync mobile apps or through a web browser
- Files of any size can be sent from any of your devices to anyone. There is comprehensive support for setting access permissions
- Flexible sync capability is available by which specific files or folders can be chosen for periodic sync with multiple devices
- SugarSync comes bundled with the Disaster recovery function needed to restore all hard disk data after system crashes. At all times, multiple copies of all your files are stored on SugarSync servers.
Box
Box is a cloud-based platform that helps you securely store and manage all your corporate documents and files. Both mobile and desktop apps are available for accessing files. Several novel features and utilities are available with Box:
- File sharing is really easy in Box with customized shared links with passwords, restricted download access and the ability to set expiry dates
- Shared folders can be set up in various ways, enabling you to set up a SharePoint-type access in just a few steps
- Box has excellent permissions-related capability including the ability to set very granular permissions such as view only and upload only
- The other novel element of Box is the advanced tracking and reporting capability that gives you advanced notifications related to downloads, uploads or commenting activity
Google Drive
One of the oldest products in the segment, Google drive continues to be a competitive offering for cloud storage. Offering 15 GB free, the significant aspect of Google drive is that it works with Gmail and Photos to enable 1-click “save to drive” kind of capability.
The other powerful feature is the availability of Google search for documents within the drive. If you buy a Chromebook, Google drive is built in and provides automatic backup for files and photos (Most Chromebooks come with 100GB of storage for free for two years.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-HU9Z5gtQVk
Google drive for work comes with the below features:
- Unlimited storage for folders, files (Accounts with less than 5 users get 1TB of storage/user)
- Priced at $10/user/month
- Comes bundled with Google Apps for work – Forms, Docs, Sites, Calendar and Sheets among others
- Documents can be shared even with those not using Google drive
SpiderOak
SpiderOak is a great product for corporates which are obsessed with data-privacy. With a proprietary “Zero-knowledge” framework, your data with SpiderOak is truly 100% private, meaning that no access keys or metadata are ever stored on SpiderOak’s servers.
Whenever files need to be sent across to SpiderOak servers, they are always encrypted and only the encrypted version of the data is sent to the servers.
Other than that, SpiderOak One comes with industry standard features including unlimited versioning of files, ability to sync data across devices and automatic backup capability.
Plans start at $7/month for 30GB of storage and higher value plans are also available – $12 a month for 1TB of space and $25 a month for 5TB of space.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9uE0BUIUp8
MozyPro
MozyPro is cloud data protection software which is focused on backups to the cloud. MozyPro is a specialised backup solution so it offers several unique features specific to backup.
For example, between two rounds of backup, MozyPro automatically detects and backs up both changed and new files, once the initial uploads are completed.
It also provides a module to control how much bandwidth MozyPro is permitted to utilize. It also has an advanced data restore manager which provides single-click restore capability.
With 1 year plans starting at $110 per year for 10GB without servers, MozyPro is a real steal if you are looking for a solution focused on backup (options are available with servers starting with 10GB plans for a year for $153.78).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6ab-MRBoSc
Carbonite Server backup
Carbonite Server backup is a tool that is focused on disaster recovery. The solution provides backup for unlimited physical and virtual servers on-site and in the cloud. It utilizes hybrid backup in order to combine the speed that local storage provides along with the security that cloud backups provide.
The post Top Cloud Storage Providers For Businesses appeared first on Cloudswave Blog.