We all have personal data such as photos and videos of our friends and families which are quite valuable to us. But if you are keeping your data only on your local machines like pc and hard disc or in a flash drive, there is a big chance that you might lose your data. There could be many reasons such as virus attack or hard drive failure. To keep your data safe you must use any cloud storage and keep a backup for your data. Some popular cloud storage services are Google Drive, One Drive, Dropbox, Mega, etc.
My recommended cloud storage is Google Drive and Mega. Google Drive has 15Gb storage on its free plan and mega has 20Gb on its free plan. Both of them has application for all platform. You can use it on any device. If you use Google Drive you will have data security for your file.
Google Drive
Setting up Google drive for backup is very simple. Create a Google Drive account for free. For desktops, you will find applications on their official website. Just downloaded it and install it. Then log in with your account and then you will see that your Google Drive folder is syncing on your desktop. To make everything automatic have to create a folder in Google Drive and open the setting for Google Drive and set that folder to sync. This is how your backup well. Whenever you move a file to that folder this will automatically sync your file to Google Drive. You will have a local backup and a cloud backup like this. If you do any changes on backup or in cloud backup it will automatically update on the other backup. If you change some file name on your desktop folder it will automatically update in your Google Drive cloud storage. This is how Syncing works.
You might face storage issues if you have a bigger size file. Because nowadays smartphone camera’s image size is around 5 to 10 MB per image. You can get a Google premium plan to get more storage. They have Basic premium and other plans starting with 2.5$ per month. If you are a student or working in an office you can get a Google workspace account or office team if your office or school has one. This workspace account has unlimited storage. Workspace account doesn’t cost a lot, it cost like 20-25$ per month. You can create a shared drive there which also has unlimited storage. Shared Drive is like a separate drive in one google workspace account. So you can buy one workspace account and create a separate share drive for your team if you are running a company and have a big amount of data that you need to keep a backup you can surely go for Google workspace space. In Google workspace, you will get Google other services like Google meet, and Gmail Google Photos with unlimited storage. You can do meetings with up to 250 people on Google meet.
Mega
Mega.nz is another cloud storage providing service. You will get 20 GB of free space on its free plan. It also has applications for all the platforms. Mega has an extra layer of security that prevents even mega to access your site without the encryption key. The encryption will only be available to you. No one else can break into your files without the encryption key. So your personal data will be super safe. Mega’s encryption is so deep that even if there is a server breach, your data will still be safe there. Mega will keep your data safe at any cost. Mega’s application has syncing features like Google Drive. Your data will automatically sync from your device. You just have to log in to your account on the app and select a folder for backup. On that folder you can move any file from your local machine then mega will automatically sync that file from your storage to mega cloud. The same way google drive syncing works. Another thing that that Mega provide is you can also upload more than 20Gb. If you have data of more than 20 GB mega will send you a notification to remove files. And after some days it will suspend your account. You can keep more than 20Gb data for a short period of time. But there is one big limitation for Mega and that is the bandwidth limit. Mega let you transfer only 5GB of data every day in your free account. Mega can detect IP addresses and the bandwidth limit won’t be lifted until one day. The bandwidth limit is only on download. There is no bandwidth limit on upload. So if you are using a free account and you need to transfer your data every day then Mega is not for you.
Microsoft’s One Drive
One Drive is another cloud storage service from Microsoft. It has 5Gb free storage on its free account. One Drive has applications for all platforms. So you can use it on any device you want. Like Google and Mega, it also has the syncing feature. But 5Gb storage might seem little for some people. Because nowadays 5Gb storage space is like nothing. If you are running an organization or Company you can buy their enterprise-level plan. Where you can even get unlimited space from Microsoft. One Drive’s 1TB storage space starts at 5$/ month. You can buy there their unlimited plan for 12$/ month. But for that, you have to buy at least 5 user accounts. That will cost you more than 50$/month.
Which one is Best?
The best one is obviously Google Drive. You can get its unlimited plan for just $20 per month. Which is quite good. In Google Drive, you can create a separate shared drive which is good if you are managing a big team and want to keep a separate Storage for some work. Google is quite reliable and even if you delete data from the trash you can still get that data recovered by chatting with google drive support. Which is quite good if your data is valuable to you. Google is a big company so you know you will get lifetime access and nothing is going to happen with your Data. You can also use multiple cloud storage services and use services like multi-cloud to move or copy files between two different cloud storage.