Get your head out of the cloud and use cloud storage to house crucial company data!
At this point, it should come as no surprise to any of us that our entire lives are on the internet. If you run a business, chances are that you generate a lot of customer data with every sale you make. Besides that, you probably have report after report on how effective your sales plans have been, financial documents, employee records—the list can go on and on.
Naturally, you need this information for the progress of your company. Losing it would mean losing out on years worth of hard work. This is precisely why you need an effective cloud storage solution where you can safely back up your company data. But how do you find the storage solution that fits your needs? We have you covered! Here is a list of the top cloud storage providers that you can choose from:
OneDrive
Microsoft’s OneDrive is a great choice for businesses that rely on Microsoft software products (like Outlook or Microsoft 365) for a lot of their activities. OneDrive seamlessly integrates these applications and supports a whopping 320 different file types. OneDrive makes it easy to collaborate on documents with features like real-time editing, comments and mentions. This cloud storage comes with 24-hour technical support, a thirty-day file restoration feature and smart ransomware detection.
OneDrive offers three different plans—Plan 1, Plan 2 and Office Business 365 Premium. Plan 1 comes with 1 Terabyte (TB) of storage for file sizes up to 15 Gigabytes (GB) for US$5 per month. Plan 2 comes with unlimited storage along with data loss protection for US$10 per month. Finally, the Office Business 365 Premium plan provides all the functionality of Plan 2 as well as the cloud-based Office Suite for US$12.50. OneDrive also offers a free personal plan which provides 5 GB of data storage.
Dropbox
Dropbox is an easy-to-use cloud storage solution that boasts over 300,000 teams as its clients. Much like OneDrive, Dropbox offers compatibility with Microsoft Office 365. It also supports a wide range of file types and has cross-platform functionality. It allows users to drag and drop their files into the Dropbox desktop app and also facilitates sharing with those who do not use Dropbox. Furthermore, it is great for businesses since it helps the management track how files have been edited.
Dropbox offers a free plan for individual users, which comes with 2 GB of storage and Microsoft 365 integration. For businesses, Dropbox has three different plans—a standard plan, an advanced plan and an enterprise plan. The standard plan (US$12.50 a month) allows for three users. It includes 3 TB of storage space and the ability to recover files for up to 120 days. The advanced plan (US$20 a month) provides unlimited storage and also allows you to create different administrative tiers for added control over files. To find out what the enterprise plan entails, you will have to directly speak to Dropbox’s sales team.
iDrive
iDrive offers a multi-device backup facility (for Windows, macOS, Android iOS and even Linux) with one single account. iDrive allows you to manage devices through its web console and makes it easy to navigate a wide network of files. iDrive has a strong security protocol with data encryption and two-factor authentication for an added layer of security.
iDrive offers a free plan for personal use, which comes with a 5 GB free data storage capacity. The cheapest paid plan iDrive offers is available for US$3.71 for the first year, which comes with 100 GB of data storage across multiple devices. From a business perspective, iDrive offers a US$74.62 plan (originally priced at US$99.50) for the first year for a 5 TB data storage that can be shared between five users. Besides this, there are other monthly plans which range from US$49.50-299.50 and provide 1.25 TB to 12.5 TB of data storage.
Google Drive
Perhaps one of the most well-known cloud storage services is Google Drive. Google Drive comes integrated with Google suite applications (like Google Sheets and Google Docs) and gives you access to data storage across devices. It is a great space for collaborative work, allowing users to make comments on shared files. Google Drive also seamlessly incorporates plug-ins and additional applications, like grammar checkers, into its interface. Another great feature of Google Drive is the built-in Google search; so if you lose track of any document, simply typing a couple of words from the document (from the title or even the body text) in the search bar would help you find it.
Google Drive offers 15 GB of free storage to all its users, but this space is shared across all Google Suite applications. Additionally, users can buy 100 GB to 30 TB of storage for prices ranging from US$2 to US$150 a month. However, unlike iDrive, Google Drive doesn’t have any end-to-end encryption.
SpiderOak
If you want absolute secrecy of your data, SpiderOak might be the right choice for you. It boasts “zero-knowledge” encryption, wherein data is encrypted even before it is stored on the cloud. Hence, only you have the key to access it. Much like Dropbox, SpiderOak has a drag-and-drop feature to help make the process of backing up files much quicker. The service also features a centralized device management dashboard to set permissions and monitor usage. SpiderOak’s data storage plans start from US$6 for 150 GB of data storage. Businesses need to contact the company directly to find out the plans offered to enterprises.
To pick the best storage solution for your business, it is important that you consider what your business’s needs are. For instance, if you want to be completely assured of your privacy, SpiderOak might be the best pick, whereas if you are looking for a cheaper solution that facilitates collaboration, Google Drive might make the most sense for your business. If you want a cheaper solution but want high levels of data security, iDrive is a good choice, and if collaboration is what you are looking for, OneDrive is a great option.
As of 2022, 60% of all corporate data is stored in the cloud, and the world’s data would grow by 50 times in the next decade. Thus, it’s indispensable to prepare your business to store and use the growing data generated and give careful consideration to the cloud storage provider you use.
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Header image courtesy of Freepik
