Who has the cheapest cloud storage?
Since Google unveiled it’s new pricing structure for Google Drive cloud storage earlier today, I’ve been wondering how Google now ranks with other cloud storage providers in terms of the annual price per gigabyte. So, I have done all the heavy lifting for you, and have taken a closer look at the five most popular cloud storage providers in the US: Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive (formerly SkyDrive), SugarSync, and Box.
What I found is pretty interesting, to say the least. In terms of free storage that you get just for signing up and doing nothing else, Google is the clear winner at 15GB per user. Some early SkyDrive users were able to grandfather in 25GB of free storage, so if you have that, more power to you. Dropbox users might also be able to earn more storage by referring their friends and completing other miscellaneous tasks, like sharing to their social media accounts, but I am only considering free storage that you get for signing up and doing absolutely nothing else.
Concerning the paid tiers in my chart above, there are several things you have to consider: each provider offers a different “entry” level, and thus the mid and high tiers are also different. (SugarSync also has a fourth option, which I didn’t include here, that gives users 100GB of data for $99.99/year.) So, you have to consider your individual needs.
That being said, Google offers the most gigs for the least amount of money in its entry level plan. The second plan up also offers more gigs than the competition, but it’s the high tier that is most interesting: Box is the only one offering unlimited storage, and it’s only $35/month, making it the clear winner for anything over 1TB.
Interestingly, SugarSync – which recently did away with its free option – is almost always the most expensive, while Microsoft’s OneDrive is very middle-of-the-road, offering the same annual price of $0.50 per gig, no matter how many gigs you want.
What’s your favorite cloud provider?
