The cloud storage service that’s seamlessly integrated into Windows 10 is Microsoft’s OneDrive. The best part is that Google One can be shared by up to five family members.īottom line: Google Drive is an excellent, reliable, and affordable cloud storage service. There’s a choice of 100GB (£1.49 / $1.99 per month), 200GB (£2.49 / $2.99 per month), 2TB (£7.99 / $9.99 per month), right up to 30TB for a princely sum of £239.99 / $299.99 per month (and that is a fraction of what Amazon charges for 30TB!). If 15GB isn’t enough space then you can pay for the new One of the real benefits is that Drive works seamlessly with Google’s free suite of office apps which you can use in a web browser or via apps on your phone and tablet. That’s not to say it’s basic, as Drive has useful features such as sharing links to folders (while setting the level of control the recipient has), accessing a file even if it’s opened on another device, plus apps for PC, Mac, iOS, and Android. This can be used to back up documents, photos, videos, and anything else you want to keep safe.ĭrive’s interface is simple, clean, and takes about two minutes to master. If you have a Google account then you already have 15GB of free storage available to you in Google Drive. Some services let you choose whether to sync or back up, but not all. So cloud storage is not necessarily backup. It’s the same the other way around: delete a file in the cloud (via the provider’s app or website) and the file will be removed from your computer or phone. Usually, the default setting is that when you delete the local copy of a file, the cloud version is also deleted.
As we just said, most cloud storage services make a copy of the files (in the folders you choose) and store then in the cloud. On phones and devices with limited storage, you can usually mark which files should be available locally, which saves precious storage space.
That means there’s a local copy of all the files on your laptop, PC or Mac as well as in the cloud. If the thought of storing your files only on a server somewhere on the internet makes you feel a bit uncomfortable, then know that the way most cloud storage works is by ‘syncing’.