How do I choose between cloud storage services?
What actually differentiates them — ecosystem, privacy, version history and the cost of leaving.
- Difficulty
- beginner
- Time
- 25 min
- Read
- 2 min
Short answer
The one built into the devices you already use will be cheapest and work best. Choose differently only for a specific reason: privacy, a shared household, or wanting independence from a single company.
Cloud storage looks like a commodity and mostly is. The differences that matter are not capacity but how deeply it integrates with your devices, how long it keeps deleted files, and how hard it is to get everything out again.
Step by step
- Start with what your devices already use.The bundled option integrates most deeply, usually costs least alongside other services, and needs no setup. Deviating should be a deliberate choice.
- Check the version history period.How long deleted and previous versions are kept — often 30 days. This is what saves you from an accidental deletion or ransomware, and it varies a lot.
- Decide how much privacy you need.Most mainstream services can technically read your files. End-to-end encrypted providers cannot, at some cost in convenience and search.
- Look at sharing and household plans.A family plan sharing a large allowance is usually far better value than several individual ones, and makes shared documents straightforward.
- Check how it handles photographs.For most people this is the bulk of the storage. Does it keep originals or compress them? Does it deduplicate? Does it work well on your phone?
- Test the offline behaviour.Some services only download files on demand, which is a problem on a train. Check you can mark folders for permanent local storage.
- Work out the cost of leaving.Can you bulk-export everything? Some make it easy, some deliberately do not. Worth knowing before you commit years of files.
- Remember it is not a backup.Sync propagates deletion. Whichever you choose, keep an independent backup as well.
Tips
- Free tiers are usually too small for photographs. Assume you will be paying, and compare at the size you will actually need.
- Two providers is a reasonable hedge for irreplaceable data — most people's photographs qualify.
- Check where the data is stored if that matters for your work. Some providers let you choose the region.
Questions people ask
Which cloud storage is best?
Usually the one integrated with the devices you already use, on price and convenience. Choose otherwise for a specific reason like privacy or platform independence.
Is cloud storage safe?
Reasonably, for most purposes. Mainstream providers can technically access your files; end-to-end encrypted ones cannot. Either way, use a strong password and two-factor authentication.