Cloud-Based File Synchronization Services

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tion services—as well as compare the key players in the marketplace.

What Is File Syncing?

With fi le synchronization services, my days of trying to keep track of the latest version of a fi le between differ-ent PCs is a thing of the past. Now, I can save a document, say a Word fi le or Excel spreadsheet, into my “cloud” folder on one computer and then go to another system and access the fi le, edit it, re-save it and then access the current fi le on another device. The fi le-syncing feature ensures that no matter where I am accessing the fi le, I have the latest version.

File syncing sounds much more complicated than its implementation is. In most cases, you can be signed up and syncing fi les on the cloud in a matter of minutes. Usually, you can get some amount of storage for free (a discussion of the top services will come a bit later). There is typically some software to install to enable the fi le synchronization functionality; once it’s installed, you specify which fi les to sync and the service saves a copy of those fi les on the cloud. As you access and modify these fi les, the service then “syncs” the most recent copy to the various devices you use to access them. Depending on the service you choose, you may be able to track the history of a document.

With a cloud syncing service, you don’t have to worry about leaving an important fi le behind. As long as you have access to the Internet, you can retrieve your fi les (but even some syncing services store specifi ed fi les locally, too). Frequent travelers can access important fi les from any Internet-connected device (something especially useful for business travel-ers). You can also use a fi le synchro-nization service to upload and access photos across multiple platforms.

With the advancements in ﬁ le-syncing services, I can save a ﬁ le on the cloud and then access and edit it

Synchronization Services

By Wayne A. Thorp, CFA

on multiple devices.

There is one caveat to being able to access and modify fi les across mul-tiple devices. Let’s say you created a fi le in Microsoft Word and synced the fi le with a cloud service. In order to open that fi le in its original format, you need to have Word installed on the other devices from which you wish to access it. Alternatively, you can have a program or app that al-lows you to open and modify Word documents, although the level of formatting that is preserved may vary. The same goes for spreadsheet fi les, PDF fi les, etc. Otherwise, the best you may hope for is the ability to view the document but not actually edit it.

Cloud Storage Versus

Synchronization

It is worth mentioning that there is a distinct difference between services only offering cloud storage and those that offer the added capability of fi le syncing. While all services offering fi le syncing offer cloud storage, not all cloud storage services offer fi le synchronization.

You can think of a cloud storage service as an Internet-based hard drive where you can store electronic data, such as music or photos. There are more archive solutions than fi le-syncing services, which allow you to access “current” fi les, modify them and be able to access the newly updated fi les across multiple systems or platforms.

This article focuses on cloud ser-vices that offer ﬁ le synchronization.

Choosing the “Best” Service

As I tried out several fi le-syncing services for this article, it became apparent that there isn’t a “one size fi ts all” solution. As we fi nd in the comparison articles we publish in

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hese days “the cloud,” like so many other technologies, has made our lives signiﬁ cantly easier. While most have probably heard the term, there is still a lot of confusion about what it is and how we can use it. Without getting overly techni-cal, cloud computing, or simply the cloud, refers to a collection of hard-ware and softhard-ware resources that are delivered as a service over a network, usually the Internet. Chances are you are already using some form of cloud computing, especially if you have an email account with a Web-based service such as Yahoo! or Gmail. In these cases, you don’t have email software installed on your computer. Instead, you log into your email ac-count remotely, with the requisite software and storage residing on the service’s computer cloud.

In surveys conducted in our weekly CI Emails, many of our readers use multiple platforms to access email, the Web and fi les: computers, tablets, smartphones, etc. While I am more the exception than the rule, on any given day you can fi nd me working away on any of my two desktop PCs, two notebook computers, three tab-lets and my iPhone. It used to be if I wanted to work with an electronic fi le, say a Word document or Excel spreadsheet, I would copy the latest version to a USB thumb drive and copy it to whichever system I was using at the time or I would email copies to myself. The problem with that was I ran the risk of not having the most recent version of the fi le. On many occasions I had to revise a fi le to incorporate changes I had made on different versions of it.

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and websites, the overriding factor is what you are trying to do. This will dictate the best service that is right for you, which may be different for someone else.

For this article, however, I viewed the services from a standpoint of someone looking to store ﬁ les—word processing documents, spreadsheets, presentations, etc.—sync them across multiple computers and devices and share them with friends, family or co-workers. Having been a long-time user of one such service, Dropbox, I was on the lookout for features that might lure me away.

In order to choose a ﬁ le-syncing service, here are some factors to consider.

Capacity

Most services offer some level of free storage along with a tiered subscription structure based on how much additional space you need. Ad-vanced features can include version tracking.

Of the services compared here, Dropbox starts you off with the smallest amount of free storage—2G (gigabytes). However, it does tack on additional storage for each referral you make to the service.

Five gigabytes of free space ap-pears to be the norm, based on the services I looked at for this article; although, Microsoft’s SkyDrive starts you out with 7G for free. For many users, this may be more than enough. However, if you do need more space, it is important to look at the pricing options available to you.

Compatibility

Probably the biggest factor when selecting a cloud storage and ﬁ le-syncing service is the “ecosystem” you rely on. If you are like me, you are using multiple platforms—Win-dows, iOS, Android, etc. It is impor-tant, therefore, to pay attention to each service’s availability on different platforms.

Dropbox is versatile and can be used across Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS, Android and Blackberry. If you

are a heavy user of Google Docu-ments or Microsoft Ofﬁ ce tools, then Google Drive and Microsoft Sky-Drive, respectively, may be the best options for you.

Thus, you need to consider the devices on which you’ll want to use a ﬁ le-syncing service, and make sure it is available across all those devices.

Content Management

One way services are trying to differentiate themselves from the competition is with content-manage-ment tools. Instead of merely stor-ing and syncstor-ing your ﬁ les, services such as Google Drive and Microsoft SkyDrive offer tools that allow you to create and edit text documents, spreadsheets and presentations us-ing cloud-based applications. This means you don’t need to have speciﬁ c software installed on your computer or device.

Cloud-based apps are particularly attractive options if you don’t want to spend the money on productivity suites such as Microsoft Ofﬁ ce.

Local Storage & Offl ine Access

One thing you may not realize with cloud storage services such as these is that, while they back up your fi les to the cloud, the fi les may also reside on your local computer. This is both an advantage and, potentially, a hindrance. The advantage of having the fi les saved on your local PC as well as in the cloud is that you can still work with a fi le even if you don’t have an Internet connection. This is a good thing when fl ying at 30,000 feet in an airplane (assuming your airline doesn’t offer in-air Wi-Fi). You can create a fi le and save it to your synced folder or edit a synced fi le and syncing will take place the next time you are connected to the Internet. Amazon Cloud Drive, Dropbox and Google Drive give you offl ine access to your fi les.

The “downside” of this is that you are still using hard disk space. Depending on the systems you are syncing ﬁ les across, this may be an issue. My primary desktop system has

700G hard disk, so my 100G Drop-box Pro account isn’t overly burden-some. However, on my HP Folio 13 Ultrabook, I have only about 40G of free hard disk space.

If you are in a similar situation, it is a good idea to pick a service that allows you to choose which ﬁ les or folders you want to sync.

Privacy & Security

Two areas of concern among our readers in regard to cloud comput-ing are privacy and security. It only makes sense, since you are relin-quishing some level of control by storing your data on a third-party server.

Right now, the biggest concern for cloud storage providers is illegal con-tent, such as child pornography. Be sure to read the terms of service to see what is allowed and what isn’t. In their efforts to keep illegal data out of the cloud, some popular storage providers scan the data they are stor-ing. While they are required by law to respond to known or suspected instances of child pornography, not all take proactive measures.

Per their terms of service, most providers reserve the right to actively search data. Ultimately, it comes down to an interpretation of who owns the data. Those services that actively scan the data they store be-lieve they own the data on their serv-ers. Be aware, however, that the issue doesn’t end with child pornography. In the future, services may start searching for pirated media ﬁ les.

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There are companies that provide se-cure backup services, but that would be the topic of another comparison article.

It’s also helpful to be protected against ourselves, as we are often our own worst enemy. There are times we may be working with a ﬁ le and make changes that, in retrospect, were not needed or desired. The ability to revert back to previous versions of a ﬁ le is a handy option to have.

One fi nal element to consider is how well your data and fi les are protected. This includes both pro-tection of data as it is being relayed between your device(s) and the cloud as well as protection of data as it is being housed on the servers. At a minimum, data should be protected while in transit with SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) protocols as well as encryption. Getting back to the issue of privacy, if a company’s terms of service state it has the right to scan your data and report illegal activity to authorities, that usually means they have a master encryption key that allows them to analyze your fi les for embedded data.

The bottom line is to be sure to read the terms of service before sign-ing up with any cloud-based storage service. Furthermore, don’t expect to use a cloud storage service for illegal activities without getting caught.

Major Players

Do a Google search for “cloud storage” and dozens of services will appear. Instead of merely providing a comprehensive list of providers, I’ve chosen to take a closer look at the major players in the arena: Amazon Cloud Drive, Apple iCloud, Dropbox, Google Drive, Microsoft SkyDrive and SugarSync. The comparison grid on page 4 and 5 lists the main features of each.

Amazon Cloud Drive

Amazon Cloud Drive was ini-tially started as a counter to Apple’s iTunes for Amazon users to store and stream MP3s purchased from

the online retailer’s music store. Over time, Cloud Drive has evolved to a true fi le storage service. Last year, Amazon separated Cloud Drive from Cloud Player, which allows users to access music and video stored on their Cloud Drive (we will be focus-ing on Cloud Drive for this article). In May of last year, Amazon took another step forward by releasing a desktop app for Windows and Mac that allows users to drag and drop fi les within a client folder instead of uploading fi les via the Web. At that point, however, Cloud Drive didn’t offer fi le syncing. That feature didn’t come about until April of this year with the introduction of “File Sync” for the Cloud Drive desktop app.

Cloud Drive’s terms of service do state that Amazon has the right to ac-cess your fi les, and they do not guar-antee the safety of your data, some-thing I fi nd a bit troubling. Setting up Amazon Cloud Drive was pretty straightforward, although it took the longest of the services compared here because the executable you need to download from the Amazon website is 62M (megabytes) and takes a few minutes to download, even over a fi ber connection. If you already have an Amazon account, you are good

to go. If not, Amazon accounts are free. With a free Cloud Drive account you get 5G of storage. The Cloud Drive desktop app is compatible with Windows XP or later (includ-ing Windows 8) and Mac OS 10.6 or later. After installing Cloud Drive on my Windows 7 desktop and Micro-soft Surface Pro Window 8 tablet, a Cloud Drive shortcut was auto-matically added to my Favorites, and Cloud Drive was added to the system tray.

The Cloud Drive folder has three default folders: Documents, Pictures and Videos. This is the same view when accessing Cloud Drive via a browser. You can add new folders, rename them or delete them. You can drag fi les into the Cloud Drive folder to sync them as well as save them to that location. You can also upload fi les from a Web browser. I could not fi nd an option to pick and choose which fi les or folders to sync on my local PC. This may be an issue for those looking to limit the size of their synced fi les on certain comput-ers. Also, when viewing the drive via a browser, there is a search box in the upper-right corner to easily locate fi les stored on Cloud Drive. Lastly, you can share or stop sharing

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Service Name Free Storage Referral Bonuses

Monthly Fees

Features Drag & Drop Upload Dedicated Sync Folder

Choose Any Files/Folders to Sync

File Sharing

Folder Sharing File Versioning

Restore Deleted Files

Event Log

File Preview

Content Management Tools

Access Desktop App

Mobile App Web Mobile Syncing Multi-Computer Syncing Offl ine Security SSL/TSL Encryption Password-Protected Sharing Folder Permissions

Technical Email Support

Support Knowledge Base

& Help User Guide/Manual Video Tutorials

Online Chat

Phone Support

individual fi les via a Web browser. You click the check box next to a fi le or multiple fi les and then select More Actions and then Share. This will generate a Web link that others can use to access the fi le(s).

Amazon Cloud doesn’t have a dedicated app for iOS or Android. But I was able to access ﬁ les on my Cloud Drive via my Safari browser on my iPhone. There is a Cloud Drive Photos app for Android that allows you to access and upload pictures from your Android phone or tablet via your Cloud Drive.

At the bottom-left of your Cloud

Drive Web page, you are given how much storage is in use. You can also see this by hovering your mouse over the Cloud Drive system tray.

Unlike Google Drive and Micro-soft SkyDrive, Amazon Cloud Drive lacks any content management tools or apps, so you will need to have programs already installed on your desktop or apps on your mobile de-vice to read and edit content such as text documents.

With Amazon Cloud Drive you get 5G of free storage, which appears to be the norm among many providers. You can buy extra storage, with 20G

of storage costing $10 a year. You can purchase a maximum of 1,000G (one terabyte or T) for $500 a year.

If you purchase a lot of music from Amazon, Cloud Drive may be the ser-vice for you, as purchases can auto-matically be uploaded to your Cloud Drive. You can then stream them over your computer or devices via Amazon Cloud Player. Also, the ﬁ rst 250 songs you import from Amazon do not count against your storage limit, and there are Cloud Player apps that allow you to stream your music over mobile devices. While Amazon Cloud Drive has come a long way

Amazon Cloud Drive

5G 20G: $1.67; 50G: $2.08; 100G: $4.17; 200G: $8.33; 500G: $20.83; 1000G: $41.67 ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8; Mac OS 10.6, 10.7, 10.8 Android ✔ ✔ (photos) ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ Apple iCloud 5G 15G: $1.67; 25G: $3.33; 55G: $8.33

✔ (iWork fi les only)

Windows Vista SP2, 7, 8; Mac OS 10.7.5+ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ Dropbox 2G

1G for each referral up to 32G 100G: $9.99; 200G: $19.99; 500G: $49.99 ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔

last 30 days; unlimited w/ Packrat add-on ✔ ✔ ✔ Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8; Mac OS 10.6, 10.7, 10.8 Ubuntu 7.1+

Android, Blackberry, iOS

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since it was fi rst launched, especially with the added functionality of fi le syncing, I didn’t fi nd anything that re-ally made Amazon Cloud Drive stand out from the others I looked at.

Apple iCloud

Apple’s iCloud service is really for those who live exclusively in the Mac/iOS ecosphere. It is built into every new iOS device (iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, etc.) and every new Mac, which means there is no software to install on your Mac.

File syncing is done at the program or app level, without any dedicated

Google Drive 5G 25G: $2.49; 100G: $4.99; 200G: $9.99; 400G: $19.99; 1TB: $49.99; 2TB: $99.99; 4TB: $199.99; 8TB: $399.99; 16TB: $799.99 ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔

last 30 days or last 100 versions of Google Docs

restore from Trash if not emptied

✔ Google Docs Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8 Mac OS 10.6, 10.7, 10.8 Android, iOS ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ Microsoft SkyDrive 7G 27G: $0.83; 57G: $2.08; 107G: $4.17 ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔

last 25 versions of Offi ce fi les, PDFs restore from Recycle Bin winthin 3 days

✔

Offi ce Web Apps Windows Vista SP2, 7, 8 Mac OS 10.7, 10.8

Android, iOS, Windows Phone

✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ SugarSync 5G

500M for each free referral up to 32G; 10G for each paid referral w/ no limit 60G: $7.49; 100G: $9.99; 250G: $24.99; 30-day free trial for all subscriptions, but credit card required

✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ last 5 versions

restore from Deleted Files folder if not emptied

Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8 Mac OS 10.5+

Android, BlackBerry, iOS, Symbian, Windows Phone ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔ ✔

folder like the other services high-lighted in this article. Instead of remembering which folder you saved a ﬁ le to, all you have to do is remem-ber which app you used to create it. If you have the same iCloud-enabled apps on more than one device, iCloud automatically keeps the docu-ments you create, and data used by your apps, up to date across all your devices. iCloud is built into such Mac programs as Keynote (presentations), Pages (word processing) and Num-bers (spreadsheets).

The problem with this approach, however, is that it is more difﬁ cult

to access fi les across different apps. Once you create a fi le in a given app, plan on editing it in that same app across differ-ent devices. This approach also means there is no direct method of sharing fi les or collaborat-ing with others. I fi nd all of this rather un-Apple.

To get iCloud, you need an Apple ID. If you own a Mac or an iOS device, you should already have one. If not, drop everything and sign up for one now! iCloud gives you 5G of free storage, and you can purchase additional storage if you need it. Fifteen gigabytes costs $20 year; 25G is $40 a year; and 55G costs $100 a year.

It is worth pointing out that Apple’s terms of service state that it can, at any time, review the data synced with iCloud, and under certain circumstances might share that information with legal authorities.

As an iPhone user, I do like Photo Stream with iCloud. After enabling Photo Stream on my iPhone, any pictures I take with my iPhone automatically appear on all my other iCloud-accessible devices, including Macs and Windows PCs. I also periodically backup the entire contents of my iPhone and iPad to my iCloud account in case I lose or dam-age the devices. When I had to replace my iPad due to a faulty SIM card, I was able to restore the entire contents of it onto my new iPad using iCloud.

For Windows users, Apple does of-fer an iCloud Control Panel program that is compatible with Windows Vis-ta SP2, Windows 7 and Windows 8. However, “all” this does is sync your mail, contacts, tasks and calendars with Outlook as well as sync your PC with Apple’s Photo Stream. In terms of word processing, presentation or spreadsheet ﬁ les, there is no syncing between Windows and iCloud.

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However, the company has been hinting that the situation may change in the future. At a press conference earlier this year, a Dropbox spokes-person said that the company plans to push away from being a personal-storage product to becoming a ser-vice that brings content to wherever people need it.

Paid Dropbox Pro subscriptions also carry signiﬁ cant price premiums over other services: 100G for $9.99 a month or $99 a year; 200G for $19.99 a month or $199 a year; and 500G for $49.99 a month or $499.99 a year.

With the “Pack rat” service, which costs $39 a year, Dropbox offers unlimited undo history and undelete. This is an excellent feature, as it safeguards ﬁ les you delete and saves old versions of a ﬁ le in case you need them later. Even without the Pack rat add-on, Dropbox keeps snapshots of every change in your Dropbox folder over the last 30 days.

You have two different means of sharing fi les and folders within Dropbox. You can either share a link to fi les and folders or you can create a shared folder. By sharing a link to fi les or folders in your Dropbox, you can share your fi les with any-one, even if they don’t have Drop-box. Anyone who uses the link can preview the fi les and folders through their browser. Alternatively, you can share a folder in your Dropbox with others so that you can collaborate with them on the same fi les and fold-ers. We use this feature extensively in the offi ce when several of us are contributing to the same publication or project. However, this doesn’t offer the true collaboration that you get with Google Drive. If more than one person is working on a document within a shared folder, the changes are not integrated into a single document. Instead, Dropbox creates “confl icted” copies of the fi le with the date in the fi le’s name. While this en-sures that changes aren’t lost, it does then require some work to merge the changes into a single document.

One unique option Dropbox offers has zero appeal from a ﬁ le-syncing

standpoint. It is, however, great to be able to back up my iPhone and iPad to iCloud, making restoration a snap. For Apple users, however, it is a dif-ferent story, as iCloud is integrated into all new iOS and Mac devices as well as major Apple apps for creat-ing text documents, presentations and spreadsheets. If you are someone who works exclusively on Mac/iOS, iCloud is ready and waiting for you to use.

Dropbox

I have been using Dropbox for sev-eral years now and haven’t switched because it works. While at the time I started using it, Dropbox was prob-ably the undisputed leader in cloud-based ﬁ le syncing, it has fallen be-hind some of its competitors in terms of the amount of free storage offered, pricing and content management.

Dropbox offers the widest operat-ing system integration; it’s compatible with Windows, Mac and Linux oper-ating systems as well as iOS, Android and Blackberry mobile platforms. Much like Amazon Cloud Drive, you download an installation ﬁ le to put the Dropbox client on your computer. The installation then places a

Drop-box folder in your Favorites and a Dropbox icon in the Windows system tray. From there, you simply drag ﬁ les into a Dropbox folder or save ﬁ les to a Dropbox folder. You can also access your Dropbox folders from a Web browser.

Dropbox has some of the best iOS and Android apps for accessing your stored data. Using various document readers, media players and text edi-tors, I was able to access most of the ﬁ les I saved in my Dropbox from my iPhone, iPad and Google Nexus tab-let. For those looking to access ﬁ les across multiple platforms, including mobile devices, Dropbox gives you some powerful options.

With Dropbox Basic you get a relatively paltry 2G of free space. However, Dropbox offers a number of ways to increase your amount of free storage. You get 1G of addi-tional space for each person you refer to Dropbox, up to 32G. You also get 125M each for connecting your Dropbox account to your Facebook and Twitter accounts and another 125M for following Dropbox on Twitter.

Compared to Google Drive and Microsoft SkyDrive, Dropbox doesn’t have any content management tools.

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is the ability to limit the amount of bandwidth the service uses for uploading and downloading fi les from the desktop client. Furthermore, Dropbox only transfers those parts of a fi le that change during revisions. So instead of transferring an entire fi le that may be hundreds of megabytes in size, Dropbox only transfers the changes, which may be signifi cantly smaller.

Looking though Dropbox’s terms of service, I didn’t ﬁ nd anything too shocking. Dropbox will look through your data for illegal activity if pre-sented with the proper legal docu-ments from authorities. If you upload pirated ﬁ les, Dropbox reserves the right to delete them. Furthermore, Dropbox doesn’t guarantee the safety of your data on their servers.

As I said during the introduction, I went into this looking to see if I could fi nd a service that could unseat Dropbox as my go-to cloud storage and fi le-syncing service. For what I do, Dropbox is perfect. It is easy to use and reliable. However, the rela-tively small amount of free storage space and price points for additional storage are turnoffs. Whether or not Dropbox remains my preferred cloud storage and fi le-syncing service remains to be seen.

Google Drive

Google Drive is a rebranding of the former Google Docs service, with added features such as fi le synchroni-zation. It is one of the few fi le-sync-ing services to offer a free online of-fi ce suite that seamlessly incorporates cloud-based fi le syncing (Microsoft’s SkyDrive is the other). Google Docs fi rst started out as an alternative to Microsoft Offi ce and has grown into an impressive one-stop shop for creating, editing, saving, syncing and collaborating on documents.

With Google Drive you can create new word processing documents, spreadsheets and presentations via a Web browser. Google Drive works with a number of apps that you can install from the Chrome Web Store. With these apps, you can edit images

and videos, fax and sign documents, manage projects, create ﬂ ow charts and more.

A free Google Drive account only requires a Gmail account, and it gives you 5G of free storage. You can buy additional storage; prices are some of the more reasonable among the services highlighted here. Sub-scriptions start at $2.49 a month for 25G and go up to $799.99 a month for 16T.

You can access your Google Drive via the Web or you can install a client on your Windows (XP, Vista, 7 and 8) or Mac (Mac OS 10.6, 10.7 and 10.8) computer. This places a Google Drive folder on your computer and a Google Drive icon in your system tray. There are also Google Drive apps for Android and iOS. Like most of the other services in this article, once you install Google Drive you have a dedicated folder that you save or copy ﬁ les to in order to keep them synced across multiple devices. You can also choose to sync only select folders on your Google Drive.

When uploading ﬁ les to Google Drive via the Web interface, you

have the option of converting them to Google’s fi le formats to edit them online. Perhaps even more useful, however, is the ability to export fi les you create or edit via Google Drive to more standard formats such as .doc, .rtf, .pdf and .csv. The Google Drive Viewer allows you to view over 30 fi le types in your browser, which, according to Google, includes HD video, Adobe Illustrator and Photo-shop fi les—even if you don’t have the source programs installed on your PC. Outside of Microsoft SkyDrive, Google Drive is a good means of editing Microsoft Offi ce documents without needing Offi ce installed on your system, although you may lose some formatting in the process. If you convert fi les to the Google Docs format, they do not count against your storage limit.

For those looking for true collabo-ration, Google Drive ﬁ ts the bill. In other words, no matter who’s edit-ing the showed document, everyone always sees the most up-to-date changes. When more than one person is working on a document, all changes are made in real time.

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In fact, this may well be the most useful, and unique, feature of Google Docs. If you wish to share a ﬁ le or folder, all you need to do is send a link from Google Drive in Gmail and the recipient will have the latest version(s) of the ﬁ le(s). You can limit permissions to view or comment only or allow others to edit.

Google Drive tracks changes you make as well, tracking versions as far back as 30 days. You can also choose to save a previous version so you

always have it.

A relatively new feature added to Google Drive is offl ine access, meaning you can still access and edit a Google Docs fi le even if you don’t have an Internet connection. One catch is that you have to be using the Chrome browser or a Chrome OS device. Once you have set up offl ine access, you can view Google docu-ments, spreadsheets, presentations and drawings without an Internet connection. Offl ine editing is limited

to Google Docs documents, presen-tations and drawings (not spread-sheets). You can also view other fi les in your Google Drive, such as PDFs, Microsoft Offi ce fi les and images. Any changes you make to synced fi les while offl ine will automatically sync when you reconnect to the Internet.

In reading about privacy concerns with cloud-based storage systems, it seems that Google gets most of the bad press. Google has an all-in-one privacy policy that applies to all of its services—Gmail, Google+, Google Docs, Google Drive, etc. Some people are worried about the policy’s seemingly wide reach, which they interpret as giving Google the right to do pretty much whatever it wants with uploaded data. Google has is-sued clarifying statements that “what belongs to you stays yours.” When you get down to brass tacks, howev-er, Google’s privacy policies are really no different than those of Dropbox, iCloud or SkyDrive. As a writer for PCMag.com put it, if you are com-fortable using Gmail, you shouldn’t have a problem using Google Drive.

Google Drive is an intriguing offering because it is actually part collaborative offi ce suite and part cloud-storage fi le-syncing service. It offers a good amount of free stor-age space and its subscription prices are more than reasonable compared to the competition. Since I already have either Microsoft Offi ce or Open Offi ce installed on all of my desktop and notebook computers, Google Docs isn’t something I use very often. Besides, Microsoft SkyDrive offers free Offi ce apps that allow you to edit Offi ce documents via the Web (we will discuss this a little later). As a fi le-syncing service, though, it does a good job. Uploading fi les is easy and the Google Drive Viewer is a means of previewing a wide array of fi les without needing a lot of different programs installed. It is also a nice touch to be able to export Google Docs formats into more widely-used document formats. I found the iOS and Android apps to be intuitive as well, although with these apps you

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can only create new documents and spreadsheets, not presentations or drawings.

Bottom line, Google Drive is a good service, especially for someone who is new to cloud storage and uses the Chrome OS or prefers the Chrome browser. While it doesn’t offer enough to pull me away from Dropbox, it more than holds its own.

Microsoft SkyDrive

Often accused of being late to the party, Microsoft was actually one of the fi rst cloud storage providers when it launched Windows Live Folders in August of 2007. Over the years, the service has evolved into SkyDrive. Like Google Drive, SkyDrive offers cloud storage and fi le syncing as well as a suite of online tools to create and edit a variety of fi les via free Of-fi ce Web apps.

You can access SkyDrive via the Web as well as on your computer by installing the SkyDrive desktop app. The desktop app supports ﬁ le sync-ing and is compatible with Windows Vista SP2, 7 and 8 as well as Mac OS 10.7 and 10.8 (but not 10.6). There are also apps for Windows Phone, Android and iOS for accessing your ﬁ les on a mobile device.

SkyDrive gives 7G of free storage space, a step up from the 5G most other services offer. Subscription costs for additional storage are the lowest among the services high-lighted in this article: 27G for $10 a year; 57G for $25 a year; and 107G for $50 a year. In order to get a free SkyDrive account you must ﬁ rst have a Microsoft account, formerly Micro-soft Live. The account is free.

Installing the SkyDrive desktop app puts a SkyDrive folder on your computer as well as a SkyDrive icon in the system tray. From this item in the system tray you can choose which folders to sync.

SkyDrive.com is the Web inter-face for SkyDrive and is where you can create and edit Microsoft Of-ﬁ ce documents. Having used OfOf-ﬁ ce for nearly 20 years, I prefer these free Web apps over what you get

from Google Docs. I also found these Web apps to be more robust. Currently SkyDrive offers apps for Word documents, Excel workbooks, PowerPoint presentations, OneNote notebooks and Excel surveys. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that these Web apps functioned on my Safari browser on my iPad and the Firefox for Android browser on my Google Nexus tablet. For editing Word documents on an Android smartphone or iPhone, there is the OneNote app. I was also surprised to ﬁ nd that the SkyDrive Web interface was streamlined and intuitive, two

things Microsoft products are often not accused of being.

One unique feature the SkyDrive desktop app for Windows offers is Fetch fi les, which you can use to ac-cess all your fi les on a computer, even those not in a SkyDrive folder, from SkyDrive.com. You can even access network locations if they’re included in the PC’s libraries or mapped as drives. When you browse a PC’s fi les remotely, you can download cop-ies of fi les to work on. You can also stream video and view photos in a slide show. To access fi les on your PC remotely, make sure the PC you want

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to access is turned on and connected to the Internet. SkyDrive also needs to be running on that PC, and the Fetch ﬁ les setting must be selected. This feature is not available on Macs.

You can share fi les and folders with SkyDrive via links. In February, Microsoft made a change whereby you no longer have to have a Micro-soft account before accessing a fi le via a share link that is sent to you. However, you can still choose to require people to sign in to access a shared fi le. When you are sharing a document using Offi ce Web Apps, you can see who is currently working in the document. When you make changes to a shared document that others are currently editing, the other users receive an alert that changes have been made. Instead of automati-cally updating collaborative fi les like Google Drive does, the users must save the fi le they are currently work-ing on to receive the latest changes.

SkyDrive automatically keeps track of the previous 25 versions of all documents. It also allows you to restore or download an older version through the ﬁ le’s version history.

SkyDrive has also been integrated into Windows 8, the latest version of

Microsoft’s ﬂ agship operating sys-tem. When you log into a Windows Phone or Windows 8 PC, SkyDrive can sync settings and apps on those devices. This means that when you log in, SkyDrive will reproduce a previous machine you’ve set up: color and background themes, user photo, browser favorites and history and more. Also on Windows 8, there are a number of apps that have SkyDrive integrated into them.

Microsoft is a little cagey when it comes to how it handles your privacy and is always quick to state that it doesn’t comment on internal practic-es. However, it is no secret that Mi-crosoft Research’s PhotoDNA Project is automated software that helps law enforcement and Internet service providers track down child pornogra-phers. Undoubtedly that software is scanning SkyDrive accounts looking for illegal material. Beyond that, the company says it has “strict internal policies in place to limit access to a user’s data…”

About the only disappointing thing about SkyDrive is that you can’t access your ﬁ les without an Inter-net connection. Since Dropbox and Google Drive offer ofﬂ ine access, I

SugarSync hope SkyDrive adds this feature in

the future.

I was thoroughly impressed with Microsoft SkyDrive. If you deal with a lot of Microsoft Offi ce documents, this is the cloud storage service for you. Offi ce Web Apps allows you to create Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents, even on tablets. I found this to be much more robust than Google Docs. The Fetch option is a unique feature that allows you to access fi les on other systems, even if they aren’t in a SkyDrive folder. Lastly, the 7G of free cloud storage and inexpensive subscription costs create a little separation between SkyDrive and the rest of the pack. If I were new to cloud storage, this would be the one I would choose.

SugarSync

The last service we looked at for this article is SugarSync. The biggest difference between SugarSync and the other services highlighted here is that you can use it to sync any folder or fi le on your computer. What this means is that you can access the con-tents of any system you have synced with SugarSync. If you don’t wish to sync all your fi les and folders, how-ever, the desktop client still installs a My SugarSync folder that automati-cally syncs all fi les and folders that you put in it.

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acquire with these types of refer-rals. Subscriptions are a little pricey compared to some other services: 60G for $7.49 a month; 100G for $9.99 a month; and 250G for $24.99 a month. All ﬁ rst-time subscribers have 30 days to cancel without being charged, but it still requires you to provide your credit card information.

In order to sync your ﬁ les on a Windows PC or Mac, you need to install the SugarSync Desktop App. While you have the ability to sync any and all folders, the desktop app still also installs a SugarSync folder that syncs the ﬁ les you place in it. However, one thing I don’t necessar-ily like when installing the SugarSync desktop app on my Windows system is that it automatically assigned a drive letter to the SugarSync Drive. Luckily, you can turn this off within the Desktop App preferences. The installation also puts a SugarSync icon in the system tray.

When you open the desktop app, you can see all of the folders synced to your account or just the folders from the individual computers you’ve installed SugarSync on. Syncing additional folders besides the My SugarSync folder is extremely easy: simply drag the folders into the gray box at the bottom of the desktop app or select folders from the folder tree.

SugarSync offers multiple means of sharing and collaborating. You can share public links for any ﬁ le or fold-er and share it on Facebook, Twittfold-er,

email, etc. Recipients can click on the link to download the fi le or folder without having to register or sign in. You can also create Shared Folders for collaborating with others. You can send an email invitation to join your shared folder. Folder members can then sync a shared folder directly to their own computers to edit fi les locally. Updates are then refl ected for everyone whenever the edited fi le is saved. You can also share a folder as “read-only” so recipients can view the fi les but not make changes to them.

The SugarSync apps for iOS, Android and Blackberry allow you to sync folders or fi les to your smart-phone or tablet for offl ine access. You can make changes on your mo-bile device and then sync the changes back to the cloud and your other devices the next time you are con-nected to the Internet. When opening a synced fi le on both my iPad and Google Nexus, SugarSync listed the apps I had installed that could open the selected fi le.

SugarSync allows you to view and restore previous versions of your ﬁ les. SugarSync keeps the previous ﬁ ve versions of all your documents.

SugarSync is more along the lines of Dropbox and Amazon Cloud Drive in that it doesn’t offer any con-tent management tools. It is strictly for cloud storage and ﬁ le synchro-nization. You will need to have the programs and apps installed on any device you use to open and edit the

ﬁ les you sync.

The SugarSync privacy statement is pretty clear-cut. SugarSync doesn’t allow access to your data by third parties unless required by law or if you give permission to another ser-vice to access your ﬁ les. SugarSync also states that it will not share your personal information with third par-ties without your consent.

After using SugarSync, I was sur-prised it hadn’t come across my radar sooner. For someone not needing a suite of online tools to create and edit documents, SugarSync would be my choice over Dropbox. Both ser-vices are easy to use and reliable, but SugarSync edges out Dropbox with more free space and more reasonable prices for additional storage. It’s also hard not to like the ability to sync all ﬁ les and folders on a computer, not just those in the client folder.

Conclusion

There isn’t one cloud-based ﬁ le syn-chronization service that is truly “the best” for everyone in all situations. Each service has its advantages and disadvantages. As we said earlier, the ecosystem in which you operate will go a long way toward determining which service is the right ﬁ t for you.

If this article shows you nothing else, it’s that there is an easy and inex-pensive means of backing up impor-tant ﬁ les to the cloud and sync them across multiple devices quickly.

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