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By
17:23
n this corner, weighing in at 50 million users, and five years’ growth
under its belt, the filer from Manila-er, the forest that counts all its
trees, the synchronized, syncopated master of all it shares,
Droooooopbox! And, in this corner, the Mountain Viewmaster, the original
800-pound gorilla, the only thing that scares Steve Ballmer while he
sleeps, a giant among search engines, Goooooooglllleee! When these
online storage sluggers come out fighting, will there be a knockout, or
just a bloody match?
Dropbox may have years on Google Drive, but it’s a relatively mall firm, even though it stores massive amounts of data. Google is
an old-timer by Web standards, but new to the storage world, having launched Google Drive after nearly six years of its rumored near-term arrival. Google has docs; Dropbox has moxy. Which fits your needs better?
Let’s put the two in the ring and see how they contend, shall we?
Google Drive and Dropbox offer the same basic features. Both services
provide desktop synchronization of items in a single anointed folder
across multiple computers using cloud storage to both copy and provide
Web-accessible copies of files. Both require the installation of a
background app to handle keeping files up to date among computers.
Google supports Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) and 10.7 (Lion); Dropbox
goes all the way back to 10.4 (Tiger) through 10.7. Google also offers
support for Windows XP, Vista, and 7, but, strangely, no Linux support
yet. Dropbox handles the same Windows versions plus Windows 2003, and
two popular flavors of Linux (Ubuntu and Fedora Core).
Google includes 5GB of storage in free accounts, and outmuscles
Dropbox there, which offers just 2GB for users who don’t pay. However,
Dropbox has a nifty countermove: users who take advantage of its new
image upload feature get 500MB added for the first photos uploaded, up to 3GB additional (a total of 5GB). Dropbox also adds 500MB of storage for each referred user
who signs up free or paid service. Combined photo and referral storage
for free accounts maxes out at 18GB (initial 2GB plus 16GB added).
</blockqu
under its belt, the filer from Manila-er, the forest that counts all its
trees, the synchronized, syncopated master of all it shares,
Droooooopbox! And, in this corner, the Mountain Viewmaster, the original
800-pound gorilla, the only thing that scares Steve Ballmer while he
sleeps, a giant among search engines, Goooooooglllleee! When these
online storage sluggers come out fighting, will there be a knockout, or
just a bloody match?
Dropbox may have years on Google Drive, but it’s a relatively mall firm, even though it stores massive amounts of data. Google is
an old-timer by Web standards, but new to the storage world, having launched Google Drive after nearly six years of its rumored near-term arrival. Google has docs; Dropbox has moxy. Which fits your needs better?
Let’s put the two in the ring and see how they contend, shall we?
Google Drive and Dropbox offer the same basic features. Both services
provide desktop synchronization of items in a single anointed folder
across multiple computers using cloud storage to both copy and provide
Web-accessible copies of files. Both require the installation of a
background app to handle keeping files up to date among computers.
Google supports Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard) and 10.7 (Lion); Dropbox
goes all the way back to 10.4 (Tiger) through 10.7. Google also offers
support for Windows XP, Vista, and 7, but, strangely, no Linux support
yet. Dropbox handles the same Windows versions plus Windows 2003, and
two popular flavors of Linux (Ubuntu and Fedora Core).
Google includes 5GB of storage in free accounts, and outmuscles
Dropbox there, which offers just 2GB for users who don’t pay. However,
Dropbox has a nifty countermove: users who take advantage of its new
image upload feature get 500MB added for the first photos uploaded, up to 3GB additional (a total of 5GB). Dropbox also adds 500MB of storage for each referred user
who signs up free or paid service. Combined photo and referral storage
for free accounts maxes out at 18GB (initial 2GB plus 16GB added).
</blockqu
