I have been using Dropbox for sometime now. It’s fantastic, I have regular file syncs across all of my computers (trust me, I have many computers), internet access when I am on a work laptop, and complete sense of security that I will always have my files and not have to worry about a hard disk failing.
So let’s cover a few subjects real quickly:
1. Cloud is not new. The term “Cloud” is a coined and marketed term for redundantly stored and internet accessible data storage. Sheesh this term “cloud” gets on my nerves sometimes, more so because we have been doing this a lot longer than the term has existed.
2. You shouldn’t really be storing too sensitive data out on the cloud, but many people do it. More often than you think.
3. It is very important to use passwords greater than 12 characters, numbers, characters, and symbols.
4. Embrace it, it’s here, it’s very valuable.
What I’ve been thinking of lately is switching from Dropbox to Box. Dropbox continues to get a bad rap from all of their news of being hacked. It’s true that they have had a couple of things slide through, but the numbers of people hacked is actually far less than you would think.
Here is why I am thinking of quitting and moving to Box:
- Security Risks – Take yourself out of the spotlight, using the “primary” brand, and you will reduce people from attempting to get into your files.
- Costs – Box is charging about half of what Dropbox offers.
- Storage – Half the price and 10 times more storage.
In the mean time, to test them both, I think I will sign up for Box and use both of them at the same time. Actually, this could potentially have many more potential possibilities. With alias’ and symbolic links, you can use redundant cloud storage to link up several existing accounts to master accounts and create a sense of compatibility within storage systems.
I’ve often though of using cloud storage to selectively sync up redundant production, test, and dev web servers so that dragging and dropping files to a folder directory and all of your load balanced boxes get synced up.
There are a lot of things you can do. Consider Box, but at least consider some form of cloud storage. I’ll continue to report on my experience with Box, when I sign up for it and see how well I like it. I will likely have a multi-redundant cloud setup at least for sometime, until I either decide to: stay with Dropbox, switch to Box, or find a good reason to keep both.
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