We’ve done the hard work of sifting through the options and have narrowed them down to what we consider to be the ten best cloud storage services out there. Functionally, Box is very good. Google Drive, OneDrive … The best cloud storage for families is easily pCloud, which strikes the perfect balance between price, features and security. PROS Comes in … Bottom Line: While more costly than some other services, will appeal to those who put a premium on security and privacy. It does pretty much everything you would want a cloud storage provider. At the end of the day, you are simply using someone else's resources (part of whole of a hard drive, a solid state drive or even tape) to store your information. You have 5GB of free storage for photos and videos, Own a Fire tablet? They offer Automatic Online Backup that is geared toward the individual/ personal user who wants to back-up their PC. At the time of writing, Google engineers were rolling out the ability to request approvals for Drive items and lock approved versions. Bottom Line: Fast, easy to use and good value if you need to store masses and masses of data in the cloud. Cloud storage and cloud hosting are secure and fast, and it’s also scalable. Now that is good value. That being said, you still get 15GB free, which is as much as any other service, and there are premium tariffs that include 400GB (€4.99 / £4.27 per month), 2TB (€9.99 / £8.56 per month), 8TB (€19.99 / £17.13 per month), and 16TB (€29.99 / £25.69 per month). plus 1TB of OneDrive storage for either £5.99 / $6.99 per month (one user) or £7.99 / $9.99 (six users). Some of the best UK web hosting plans are cloud-based, for example, HostGator offer cloud hosting from just $4.95 per month. Mega cloud storage helps users to download multiple files in the zip file and uploading files through the mobile app is also possible. That’s a Windows-only feature, although there is a nifty app for other platforms – Windows, Mac or Linux, and a web app for that matter – with a streamlined and well thought out interface. At its simplest, it is a secure virtual space that you will usually access via your browser or a desktop application (or mobile app). To understand what cloud storage means, you need to grasp what the cloud is. IceDrive 1TB lifetime cloud storage - $149 TechRadar is part of Future plc, an international media group and leading digital publisher. Bottom Line: Amazon Drive is not the best cloud storage service but it makes sense if you combine it with the other services the company offers. Another thing to note is that IT admins have access to the IDrive Thin Client application, which allows them to backup/restore, manage settings, and more for all their connected computers via a centralized dashboard. One might even consider Facebook to offer a limited version of cloud storage to its members as videos and photos can be uploaded free of charge to its servers. Google offers One as a membership, a quasi-lifetime commitment that's not unlike Amazon Prime. Prices start at just $3.99/£3.59 a month, and you get a whopping 500GB of storage for all your files. 1. On top of that, using a cloud storage solution is the preferred way to keep a backup of data too precious for you to lose. It’s a relatively simple but effective service which gives you a cloud storage locker, or alternatively can be used to create a local file vault on your device for secure storage, protecting your data with encryption in both cases. Bottom Line: A good cloud storage option for most people, with plenty of free space on offer. If you're looking for the best cloud storage at a guaranteed low price long term, we recommend pCloud. Pricing is unusual, in that you can pay a yearly fee for 500GB or 2TB, but the real draw is the Lifetime option which costs £159 / $175 for 500GB or £309 / $350 for 2TB. 5TB for $3.48 for the first year is unmatched, and so is the support for unlimited devices and the extensive file versioning system available. This is the best value for money offer from Microsoft. Dropbox is one of the biggest names in cloud storage, helping popularise the concept during its early years. By The best cloud storage for photos and pictures: free and paid; How to choose a cloud storage and backup provider; 5 things to consider when selecting your next online storage … As you might expect, security is super-tight, with NordLocker using Argon2, AES256, and ECC encryption protocols, with a ‘zero knowledge’ policy in place, meaning that your files can only be decrypted by yourself (and not the company, even if it wanted to). For photos, you have a neat facial recognition feature that helps you to automatically organize them, as well as syncing them across all your linked devices. Usually, the default setting is that when you delete the local copy of a file, the cloud version is also deleted. Coming from Microsoft – a company with plenty of money to throw at the cloud – it's a little disappointing to find that OneDrive doesn’t include more space free of charge. © Tresorit now lets users receive files in an end-to-end encrypted environment without requiring the sender to be a subscriber. Additional client-side encryption is also on offer (meaning your data is encrypted before it leaves your device) for a fee of £4.49 / $4.99 per month or for a lifetime fee of £115 / $125. There’s a 100GB tier that costs (£1.49 per month / $19.99 per year) and 1TB for £7.99 per month ($59.99 per year). In other words, it looks like Seagate, WDC and Toshiba, the three remaining hard drive manufacturers, are shipping as many large capacity enterprise hard drives as they possibly can. View Deal, 2. View Deal. The lifetime pricing makes it good value. This is a really important point: most of the services we recommend here work by syncing files in the folders you choose to the cloud. Believe it or not, the concept of cloud storage has been around for a long, long time. It's still confusing, though, and not particularly easy to find on Amazon's website. Stacy Fisher. Normally, it runs to $224, but you can pick up this plan for $149 now, which is a third off. IDrive offers continuous syncing of your files, even those on network drives. The Swiss-based company is more expensive than the competition, but the one-off payment means that you won't have to worry about renewal fees which can be horrendously expensive. If you have Microsoft 365 (formerly known as Office 365) either through your work, educational institution or private purchase, you'll automatically get 1TB of space per user for free with an option to boost it up. The process is done over the internet over a secure connection via a dedicated app or via a web browser. OneDrive also ties in nicely with Windows 10 and there is a selection of reasonable mobile apps to facilitate access on the move. Should you prefer that to not be the case, or just want to boost your storage capabilities, then there’s the Pro tier that includes 1TB of space, the ability to upload files directly from a website by pasting in the link, bulk downloads, and One-Time Links to prevent people sharing files you’ve made available to them. You can forget it’s installed and simply not worry about your files. You can however, access your files from anywhere, which is great. The caveat is that one account only covers one computer, so while there are no data allowance worries, you’ll have to pay for a fresh account for each PC you want backing up. We've reviewed dozens of the best cloud storage providers, but which one is best? On the business side there’s a range of options, kicking off with the Starter plan for £4 / $5 per month, which also offers 100GB, a slightly lower 2GB file size, works with teams of 3-10 people, supports document encryption, granular permissions and stores previous versions of any file. 3. pCloud provides a lifetime cloud storage subscription IDrive is the best cloud storage provider There are no restrictions on file size, so you can upload anything that your storage space allows, and versioning means files can be restored back as far as 30 days. There's also a family option that allows you to share your space with up to four other family members and a superior option - pCloud Business - that offers 1TB per user with pCloud Crypto included. Massive third-party app support, plus integration with Windows and macOS, means that if you’re looking for a service you can rely on and know that works with pretty much everything, then Dropbox is a solid choice. Livedrive for Business is a UK- and EU-focused cloud storage and file sharing solution with intuitive web, desktop, and mobile clients. Although the initial free tier of 5GB will quickly fill up, it’s still on a par with many other services. We have researched nearly 50 services, from personal cloud storage to enterprise grade cloud storage, that store files in the cloud - and so much more - in a bid to provide you with our curated list, ranking on aspects such as capacity, price, file size, security and ease of use. Desktop and mobile apps are available on Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS and Android. Think of it as the self-storage services - cherished by home movers and renters - but instead of filling them up with boxes, you fill cloud storage accounts with your own files. Google has overhauled its cloud storage services, rolling Google Drive, Gmail and Google Photos into one account and service: Google One. EXCLUSIVE IDrive 5TB plan | $69.50 $34.75 for 1 year The free tier gives you 10GB of storage, although 3GB needs to be unlocked by completing tasks such as downloading the mobile app, uploading a file, or sharing the service with friends. Nevertheless, the free package still gives you 10GB of free space, although there is a limit of 250MB for file sizes. Plus, when you come to move to a new Apple device, you’ll instantly be able to sync all the information from your old one in a few minutes. That's why we've created this page including everything you need to know to help you get the right provider for you – plus our bias-free list of the best and worst cloud storage tools on the market today. View Deal . 3.5-inch enterprise hard drives - the bread and butter of cloud storage providers - accounted for 62% of all capacity shipped, and only 23% of units, while registering a staggering 12% growth. Most importantly, nobody has tested and reviewed more of the best cloud storage services online than us in 2021. You can share it among up to six members, and Google Experts are only a phone call away should you need them.View Deal. To use on your own machine locally, NordLocker is free, and with that free version you also get a small amount of online storage – 3GB to be precise. To use those, you'll need to sign up for Microsoft 365. Just make sure you read the terms and conditions. It's possible to share files with other people even if they aren't OneDrive users (complete with customizable permissions), and the ability to edit files online without downloading them is a welcome touch. This is fine for most documents, spreadsheets, and even hi-res photos, but not video. The company itself is registered in Switzerland which has strong privacy laws, and you can also pay a premium of $4.99 a month for pCloud Crypto to lock (and unlock) individual files with passwords. For £7.99 / $12.99 per month Amazon Prime offers 5GB of storage, unlimited space for photos, plus Amazon Video, Music and Prime delivery. LiveDrive is a UK based cloud file storage provider. It's also integrated with non-Microsoft services like design behemoth AutoCAD. She has published hundreds of articles and co-authored a book. The key difference is that IceDrive’s online storage can be presented as a standard drive on your (Windows) system, just like your hard drive, with the idea being that it makes this storage easier and more intuitive to use. Free users get a mere 5GB of storage, although it's relatively inexpensive to increase this to 100GB. File sharing with others can be achieved, but they must also have signed up for a NordLocker account and be using the app. IceDrive subscription plans are nicely priced, and you can get the Lite tier which offers 150GB of storage for as little as $20 for a year ($1.67 per month). You have unlimited storage for photos taken with that device, plus 5GB of extra storage, Fully integrated with iPhones, iPads, and Macs, 10GB of free storage (limited to 250MB files sizes), 10GB free storage (expandable through various bonuses), Share files directly to social media sites. For countries and regions where the local currency isn't supported, such as Argentina, storage upgrades are billed in US dollars (USD). 50 GB of free space is available for the Mega cloud storage users. Drive’s interface is simple, clean, and takes about two minutes to master. It’s priced relatively cheap when compared with the others. Enterprise saw a rise of 2% on the other hand which may indicate that cloud storage providers and hyperscalers like Google are buying as many hard drives as they possibly can. At face value, you might think pCloud's offering is a little on the expensive side. But that's where we come in. In February 2021, research company Trendfocus disclosed that the number of hard disk drives being shipped was free falling with year-on-year shipments seeing an 18% drop, most notably in the consumer market. Realistically, you'll want to go for the Premium package at a minimum which costs £8 / $12.50 per month for 500GB. Its web interface can support files from email, Facebook and even Twitter. That resource is usually located in a server housed in a data center (but not always) alongside potentially hundreds of others. Today it has grown into a business-orientated service with powerful tools such being able to collaborate on PowerPoint and Photoshop files in real-time, create mood boards and team-based plans on its own Paper platform, plus the usual online file storage options. The subscription price for personal backups – which can be paid monthly, yearly, or on a 2-year deal – is good value ($60 for a year), particularly considering that you’re getting unlimited data. And if you can't find what you're after, check out some of our other guides, including the best free cloud storage, best photo storage and best business cloud storage roundups. Dropbox Business is another popular cloud storage provider that has options for individuals or business. Prices start at just $3.99/£3.59 a month, and you get a whopping 500GB of storage for all your files. Sign up to get breaking news, reviews, opinion, analysis and more, plus the hottest tech deals! Businesses will need a Business plan, which starts from £16.58 per user per month (that's £199 per year per person). IceDrive may only have been in the cloud storage business for a couple of years, but the firm offers a compelling solution, and one that’s rather different to the traditional cloud locker. If you prefer an annual Pro subscription, it’ll set you back $4.17 per month (meaning that in three years, you’ll pay the same as the lifetime cost).View Deal. A veteran of Computer Shopper since 1993, John has covered just … All of these precautions cost money of course, but Tresorit does offer a 14-day free trial. So cloud storage is not necessarily backup. While IDrive Personal offers 5TB or 10TB per user, the professional counterparts get between 250GB and 12.5TB of online storage. NordLocker Premium 500GB cloud storage - $3.99 per month You will receive a verification email shortly. $350 for 10 years is less than $3 per month. Up to 30 previous versions of all files backed to your account are retained. These include validating your account, installing the Mega apps, and inviting friends to the service. Apple gives you a somewhat stingy 5GB of cloud storage for free, but you can upgrade to 50GB for 79p a month, 200GB for £2.49 a month, or 1000GB for £6.99 a month. Well, we've got you covered with the most extensive, thoroughly-researched and complete buyers guide with as little jargon as possible. The key word is ‘backup’ here, because there are no file syncing or fancy collaboration features here – as the name suggests, Backblaze backs things up, and that’s it. Features include automatic photo backups, advanced search facilities, mobile and web access to OneDrive, plus the Files On-Demand settings that can keep files stored solely online rather than taking up space on your device. It means that the service is effectively free after you've used it for about four years. We still much prefer the Google Photos app over Amazon's Photos app though. He covers iOS, Android, Windows and macOS, writing tutorials, buying guides and reviews. Just bear in mind that this is cloud storage at it simplest with barely any advanced features here. © Copyright 2021 IDG Communications Ltd. All Rights Reserved. NordLocker allows you to sync all those files in the cloud between all your devices, and using the app is an absolute breeze – just drag-and-drop your files in, and they’re automatically encrypted and uploaded. While some people swear by the individual Dropbox plan, it's … At the time of writing Pro will set you back $3.75 per month (approx. 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