Dropbox is a dead simple online storage facility. Think about a folder sitting on your computer's desktop. You can drag stuff in, drag stuff out. That's basically Dropbox, only the folder's contents are also stored in the cloud, instead of just on your computer's hard disk. Add Dropbox to another machine and it'll download the folder from the cloud and keep it in sync with the folder on your first computer.
The instant advantage here is that Dropbox is multi-platform, but uses a central folder in the cloud. So any file you add on a Windows machine will be there in the same folder on your Mac, and also on your Linux-powered netbook. When you fire up one of your other machines, new files are downloaded from the server to make sure that machine's Dropbox is up to date with additions, deletions and changes. There's also a Web-based interface for downloading files on any computer in the world.
Oh, did we neglect to mention you get 2GB of storage absolutely free? We probably should have. And if you want more space, you can pay just over £6 per month for 50GB of storage, or just over £12 per month for 100GB.
How good is it?
It's hard to criticise such a neat little free product. We love the stripped-down simplicity of Dropbox, and its almost flawless ease of use. You can use either a public folder for sharing individual contents with standard HTTP links, or just use the private folder. And of course you can create folders within folders and organise to your aortic pump's content, with no limit on how large individual files can be (as long as they don't exceed your overall storage capacity).
As with other services your uploaded files are encrypted with 256-bit algorithms, and are sent over a secure SSL connection via the Internet. You just download a little app for Mac, Windows or Linux, which integrates into your OS of choice to manage the uploads and encryption.
What it won't do is function as an automated backup service. Unlike more comprehensive backup tools, it won't monitor folders and files for changes and additions and back them up. Instead, it's designed to be a central file repository where you drag and drop stuff you want backed up, or simply need access to on multiple machines.
The ideal user?
Anyone who regularly needs to access and edit the same files on multiple computers, but doesn't need to backup an entire hard drive.
Next: Mozy...
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Anonymous 7 June, 2011 07:17
First, I disagree with some of the points, Cloud is the future and by cloud I mean real cloud, like Amazon, MS, Rackspace, not proprietary storage, we all do remember carbonite lost their data in 2009 and blamed it on hardware, Also its useless to use a backup without blocklevel technology, like backing up your PST file, next time I only want to backup the changes! not the whole file, like most application do!, also I want dedupe technology! and complete cloud management so I can install it and control everything from the cloud, also it will be great to have disaster recovery, I tested most software's in the market, and most of them are big joke when it comes to business and real backup, and performance, the only 2 I found worth keep testing on my 72 business laptops are Mozy and Timeline Cloud, but Timeline Cloud won cuz of using Amazon S3 and Complete cloud disaster recovery