Monday, October 25, 2010

Cloud Storage Dropbox vs Sugarsync

Recenlty I started thinking about backups and decided to use cloud storage to help keep things up to date.  Right now I'm testing two services out to see how they work.  I'm using the free version, source is pretty small, but might upgrade to a paid service if its good enough.

The two services I'm testing are Dropbox and sugarsync.

Dropbox
Dropbox is one of the most common ones out there.  You establish a single directory on your system and then the dropbox application will monitor that directory and sync any files found to the cloud and other computers.

It's easy to set up, and comes with a 2GB initial size.

If I refer someone to dropbox both that person and myself get an extra 250 MB of space (up to an 8GB max).   I should have found a referral link before signing up.

If you want a referral link, just follow:
Dropbox referal link

The iphone client is pretty nice and will even let you view your source files.

Sugarsync
This got good reviews and has one major advantage over dropbox.  It can share ANY directory on your system.  This is pretty good.  In addition if some one is referral to the service by you, you and that person get 500 mb of extra space (not bad) really.  2 GB for free out of the box, another 500 mb for playing with it a little bit, and then one extra person signing up for a free account gives you 500 mb, with no upper limit.

If you are want to try it out follow this link:
Sugarsync referral

I wish I had found a referral link prior to signing up, it would have been extra space :)

Right now I'm trying out both DropBox and Sugarsync on the same files in the same directory.  This is a nice dual redundant backup, and I can see how they work for me.

The iphone client lets you stream music, and view photos but doesn't let you view other files like DropBox does.   I like the space and flexibility however.

The nice things about these is the service runs in the background and updates your files as you change them.  They can even track history for you.  Painless source control.  Of course I would still run a real repository, but this is a good 'backup'.

I plan to run both services in parallel for a while to see which I like better.

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