“Should I send you the file by email or put it on a USB stick?” There is usually only one sensible answer to the question: “Neither of the two.” Both are simply impractical in most cases.
The use of file synchronization in the cloud has now become established for the regular exchange of files between different computers, tablets and cell phones or with fellow students. The term cloud refers to services that are made available to users via a network (usually the Internet), be it computing or network capacity, software or storage space. The file synchronization services offered on the Internet use cloud storage space to store users' files. Small additional programs (clients) synchronize the files or directories from the cloud with the different devices of a user or between devices of different users.
Top dog with up to 2 GB
Dropbox (www.dropbox.com) is the widespread and universal top dog among services, offering clients for virtually all devices and operating systems. Whoever you want to exchange files with, the chances are pretty good that they will use Dropbox anyway and won't have to be laboriously persuaded to install additional software. Dropbox continues to actively promote its own distribution with a referral bonus of 500 MB as additional cloud storage for each customer referred. This allows you to increase your Dropbox cloud storage free of charge by up to a maximum of 18 GB. This is helpful because the free version only has around 2 GB of cloud storage. An additional 100 GB can be purchased for $99 per year, but this is expensive compared to the competition. Another often heard criticism of Dropbox concerns data security: the files are encrypted before being stored in the cloud, but the key is also stored on the server.
The Dropbox concept has now found many imitators and SugarSync (sugarsync.com) is often cited as the service that is Dropbox's closest competitor in terms of function and distribution. Like most other services, SugarSync offers 5 GB of storage in the free version and an additional 0.5 GB advertising bonus, but up to a total of 32 GB. If you are now wondering why the number of possible recommendations is limited, please refer to the case of SpiderOak (spideroak.com). The company started with the offer to provide 2 GB free and 1 GB for every new customer referred up to a maximum of 50 GB. The consequence was a flood of fake registrations motivated by the generous advertising bonus. The 50GB cap had to be rolled back to 10GB to reduce incentive. SpiderOak attaches great importance to data security, offers many options for data synchronization and is also one of the few services that also have a client for Linux available for download.
Operating system services
There are also separate services for file synchronization via the cloud for the three major PC operating systems. For Linux there is Ubuntu One (ubuntuone.com), for Windows there is SkyDrive (skydrive.live.com) and for MacOS there is iCloud (icloud.com). What all three services have in common is that they integrate very well into the respective operating system, but work rather poorly with other operating systems. At 7 GB, Windows SkyDrive offers the most free storage space of all the services compared here and the cheapest price when purchasing additional storage, for $10 per year you get 20 GB of storage in the cloud. There is no file version history with iCloud and Ubuntu One and that is a serious disadvantage when working on files together.
Aside from storage space and available clients, some services offer interesting additional features. The Cubby service (cubby.com) is the only one that can synchronize files directly between computers; it does not use the 5 GB of cloud storage space included in the free version.
In addition to the free 5 GB, Google Drive ( drive.google.com ) offers the option of automatically converting Office documents, opening them with Google Docs and working on several of them at the same time via the website. This is practical, for example, during telephone conferences or in meetings. Google has also already announced that it wants to expand the free storage space to 15 GB. Additional online storage is comparatively cheap, with 25 GB available for $2.49 or 100 GB for $4.99 per month. However, SkyDrive is even cheaper; 100 GB costs USD 50 per year.
The Box service (box.com) also goes in the same direction as Google Drive, and should be mentioned here primarily because it not only allows simultaneous collaboration on documents, but also offers other interesting functions to improve collaboration in spatially separated work groups become. This includes mapping processes or commenting on files. However, many of Box's functions are chargeable and the service is aimed more at the needs of small and medium-sized companies than at those of student work groups.
Conclusion:
Exchanging files via COUD simplifies collaboration in the work group, secures version statuses and allows everyone to access the same files. Dropbox is the established all-rounder among services and in the free basic version with 2 GB of storage will in many cases meet the needs of the workgroup. When working on Office documents or in situations that require more storage, Google Docs is worth it. The documents can be edited online here and additional online storage is relatively inexpensive.
Illustration: Sabine Redlich
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“Should I send you the file by email or put it on a USB stick?” There is usually only one sensible answer to the question: “Neither of the two.” Both are simply impractical in most cases. It has now become popular for the regular exchange of files between different computers, tablets and cell phones or with fellow students
