Choosing the Best Free Cloud Storage

There are many cloud storage providers to choose from these days, most of which will have some kind of free account offering their users a certain quota of free cloud storage! With some providers this free allocation is heavily restricted and intended to function more as a trial of their premium account, many others offer a genuinely useful free account featuring many of the premium account features and been limited only by the storage quota itself.

In the points below I will be addressing some of the main things to think about and consider whilst evaluating any free cloud storage provider, these are:

Amount of Free Storage

Starting with a fairly obvious point, the amount of free storage on offer from any cloud provider is a very important consideration, one that many will often make a decision based wholly upon without asking any other questions of the service itself.

This is a good time to be honest with yourself about how much cloud storage you will actually require, it might be tempting to go for the provider with the headline grabbing free storage numbers even though these providers might not meet your needs elsewhere. As such, if you go into this process of evaluating providers knowing (roughly) how much storage you actually need, you will be less likely to make an emotional decision based upon any attention-grabbing marketing tricks!

Bandwidth Quota (Transfer Quota)

An often overlooked (and often obscured) metric to look at is the amount of bandwidth free accounts have on offer for their customers, this being the amount of data you can transfer to or from the cloud storage within a given time frame. Some providers don’t place any limits on such transfers whilst others are very strict and make use of artificially low transfer limits to persuade free account users to upgrade to premium accounts.

Whilst bandwidth quotas are generally not an issue for the majority of cloud storage users, it is something to consider if you are regularly uploading or downloading large files. In such circumstances, certain providers might limit the speed at which you can transfer files after a certain bandwidth limit is hit, others might (temporarily) suspend your account for a set amount of time to help manage bandwidth for their other free users amongst other measures sometimes employed.

The Upgrade Path

Something often overlooked by many cloud users is what happens should their requirements for cloud storage change at some point in the future. It might be that a small allocation of free cloud storage meets your needs sufficiently today, however, changes in your job, business, family life etc. might see you needing more space or additional cloud features in the near future (this could include the need for desktop synchronisation software, automatic photo uploads, PC backup software, password protected file sharing etc.).

With the above in mind, cloud storage users should at the very least look at the costs of upgrading from any given providers free plan to (at the very least) their most basic premium offering. Whilst doing this, take note not only of the cost of such premium packages, but also the additional features they have to offer. This is really important as the provider might be offering a premium service (e.g., device backup) for which you are currently paying for via another piece of software to do, as such, upgrading might actually save you some money in such circumstances!

Desktop Sync & Backup Software

Whilst many cloud storage providers are web-based (meaning they are mainly used from within a web browser), there are now plenty of providers offering desktop software to work alongside and enhance their cloud storage offerings. This desktop software often helps in setting up a virtual disk drive or folder on the device which links directly to the cloud storage offering (often referred to as a “cloud drive” or “sync folder”).

At a basic level, this synchronised folder will allow for working with any files which are stored on a local device whilst automatically synchronising any changes made directly with the cloud account in the background. This has the benefit of keeping any important files available from anywhere and on virtually any device providing you have access to an internet connection.

This type of synchronisation can also be used as a form of basic backup software, for example, if you were working on a laptop computer and then lost the laptop, any files which have already been synchronised will still be accessible from within your cloud drive. Some providers take this concept even further and allow historic file versioning on any synchronised files, thus helping to turn the software into a fully featured backup service as a result.

If you want more information on dedicated backup software, including backup software designed to work with 3rd party cloud providers please check out our guide to choosing the best backup software.

Smartphone Apps

Many cloud storage providers now offer smartphone apps for iOS and Android devices, use of such apps allows smartphone users access to any files stored within the cloud account alongside providing many other useful features thus enhancing the offering.

One of the other, commonly available, smartphone features is the functionality to automatically backup any photos taken on the smartphone to the cloud storage account. Others features include the ability to share large files thanks to built-in link sharing tools and the ability to backup all photos, contacts, files etc. which might usually be found on a smartphone.

Privacy and Security

User privacy and account security are two important considerations when choosing any form of cloud storage (free or otherwise). Be sure to try and choose providers who offer additional security features (such as multi-factor authentication and end-to-end encryption) whenever possible and (if applicable to your needs) choose providers within certain jurisdictions such as the EU or Switzerland where data privacy laws can be more stringent.

Most providers will offer free and premium account holders the same levels of account security and privacy, some do, however, allow premium users more freedoms such as the ability to use additional multi-factor authentication methods including (in some cases) YubiKeys!