Doug's Mailbag: Cloud Storage
Readers share their thoughts on using services like Dropbox and iCloud to store personal data:
Oh yes! I always put my confidential material on cloud storage, where I can expect that the Chinese and Russians will be perusing it sooner or later. Didn't Dropbox turn off authentication for its users for about four hours during the summer? Dropbox is definitely a must for those who want to leak the very most!
-Anonymous
I've been a longtime user of Sugar Sync and so far have not signed on to iCloud or ever used the Dropbox account I signed up for years ago. I should note that I have always used the paid version. Perhaps I'm a fool but I get tired of people thinking they deserve things for free, and if I use something every day and trust my important data to it I pay for it.
The reason I like Sugar Sync is that I can easily share and unshare ANY folder on any of my Mac or Windows machines, and I can decide which other machines they are synced to. I love that I can easily share large files with other people without having to move the file to some special location.
I've liked that it is unobtrusive -- I'm a compulsive resource watcher (thanks iStat Menus) and SugarSync never has given me trouble. I like that I can adjust the upload speed so it doesn't hog my bandwidth when I first share a large folder or drop a new file in a shared folder. I suppose the main reason I use it is because it just works. I guess that's the best endorsement I can think of -- it just works. My files are always accessible and I never have to carry or look for a thumb drive. I've never used the photo or music sharing capabilities (I'm Pandora One subscriber and a Flickr Pro member -- both services good enough to pay for).
Despite all this I will take a look at the new Microsoft offering. The first software I ever used that synced folders was FolderShare, which Microsoft purchased and turned into Microsoft Live Sync. It worked great but MS charged too much for what it was giving back then so I moved on. It sounds like it is giving a good value again( if it works).
-Mark
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Posted by Doug Barney on 01/30/2012 at 1:19 PM