I’m always searching for useful Cloud based file storage apps, and two of the strongest ones at the moment out there in terms of backup, and synchronising, are Syncplicity, and Dropbox.
My requirements in such an application are:
- Backup my files online
- Synchronise my files to another PC (Useful but not necessary)
- Allow me to edit my files online (For example give me access to Zoho or Google Docs).
- Allow me to share and collaborate on files online
A simple solution to all of the above would be if Google released some kind of synchronisation service to synchronise my Google Docs to my laptop. I find it hard to see this happening because Google wants people online, and fair enough, that’s the business their in.
I was torn between the two for a long time, and am still now sure which I’d recommend or go for. So far I like Dropbox, but I’m not really able to say why, other than it feels right! (and it seems to be immensely popular among the folks at lifehacker!) On the other hand Syncplicity seems to have a broader range of features, which I like and find useful.
Dropbox is great because it’s simple and it works.
You have a folder on your PC called My Dropbox, and whatever you drop into that folder is synchronised to your online Dropbox account, and to any other computers on which you have a Dropbox account. So, for example, when I’m working on my novel on my laptop, I save it into My Dropbox, and as soon as it’s saved, it’s almost instantly saved on my PC. One of the disadvantages of Dropbox as of this writing is the fact that everything has to go in the My Dropbox folder (You can have subfolders within it), but not anywhere else on your PC. The main advantage of it is that you can access your files anywhere once you have an internet connection, even on your iPhone. It’s also very useful for sharing files. Just put them in the shared folder on your Dropbox, and the files are sent to the person you want to share them with. No messing around with email attachments, and USB keys. Dropbox also keeps file revisions, so if you want to go back and get a previous version of a file, you can.
The advantage Syncplicity has over Dropbox is that you can sync any folder you want, and also it has added connections and services. For example, one important one for me is that it’ll synchronise my Google Docs back to my PC (Wish Dropbox would do this). So far this works almost perfect. I wouldn’t want to be depending on it, as a few files didn’t sync properly and were unopenable. I don’t know why this is and haven’t yet been able to find out a reason online. Google Docs is a very useful service but it’s scary having your documents in the cloud with no backup. That’s what Syncplicity is supposed to be doing for me, but just not good enough yet!
Another good service Syncplicity provides is that you can edit your documents, or view them online using the very handy Zoho suite of tools, and also Scribd.
I wanted to write this article to compare Syncplicity and Dropbox. I don’t know if I’ve done a good job of that because I still haven’t decided between them myself. If you just want to be able to backup your files online, synchronise them to another PC, and maybe share them, then I’d definitely go for Dropbox.
If you want more than that such as Google Docs syncing, and online editing of files then I’d recommend trying Syncplicity, just don’t expect to be able to depend completely on it, at least not just yet!
Both of them have good referral programs on the free service. The free service on both of them gives you 2Gb, abd by referring your friends you get extra (Dropbox up to 8Gb, Syncplicity up to 5Gb).
So that’s the best I can do on that front for now! I’ve done a lot of searching online for such services, and as yet haven’t found anything much better, or anything that’ll do exactly what I want. Box.net is another one worth checking out for online storage. It allows you to use online tools also such as Zoho, and Google Docs, but it’s Syncing tool is only available if you pay for it.
