It’s been quite a month for cloud services -- LogMeIn unleashed its new invite-only Cubby service back on April 12, and this week saw the arrival of both Microsoft SkyDrive and Google Cloud onto our Macs. Curious about which one is right for you? We’ll help make sense of these freshmen cloud players.
As it turns out, the new crop of cloud storage services look and feel a lot like reigning champs such as Dropbox: Install Mac (or Windows) client software and any files you place inside its dedicated folder also get pushed up to the cloud, where they are available from mobile apps, web browsers or other computers.
But that’s about where the similarities end, and as usual, the devil’s in the details, as the saying goes. So without further ado, let’s dig in and find out what makes each one tick as we pit them against each other in a cage -- er, cloud -- match to the death!
We’ve already provided some exhaustive information about how to install and set up Google Drive on your Mac and detailed pretty much everything there is to know about it, but to recap: Google Drive offers 5GB of free cloud storage available from your Mac or Windows computer (with a Linux client promised soon), or Android smartphone and tablet.
If you already use Google Docs, then Drive is pretty much a no-brainer -- the two services are so intertwined that new Docs users are being ushered straight to the Drive website without further ado now, and the Drive app actually replaces Google Docs on Android. You won’t get Google Docs integration with SkyDrive or Cubby, so that could go a long way toward swaying your opinion in Mountain View’s direction.
However, Google Drive isn’t perfect: It doesn’t offer password-protected files or media streaming, for example. The lack of an iOS app is likely to be a big fat bummer for most of our readers, although a recent report claims that Google is “98 percent done” with it. Paid storage upgrades are reasonably priced at the low end, but actually significantly higher than Google’s pre-Drive price tags.
There may other “gotchas” for potential Drivers as well. Safari users won’t be able to upload entire folders without installing a Java applet (or switching to Chrome, the method Google seems to prefer). This problem can also be overcome by dropping entire folders into the Google Drive Finder window with the Mac software installed. If you have multiple Google accounts, you’ll only be able to use the service with one of them for now, but that’s likely to change in time.
Perhaps the biggest Google Drive failing (aside from launching without an iOS client), however, is the absence of a contextual menu for acting upon files. Dropbox only recently made this quite appealing by adding a “Get link” option for easier sharing, but none of these up and comers offer such functionality (yet).
While Microsoft’s SkyDrive isn’t exactly a freshman player in the cloud storage scene, it is relatively new to iOS and Mac. Microsoft debuted an iPhone/iPod touch app back in December, but only this month got around to finally adding native support for the iPad while at the same time pushing out a preview version of the Mac client.
If you happened to have a Windows Live or Hotmail account prior to Monday, April 23, you were already enjoying a comfortable 25GB of free storage from SkyDrive. That was unfortunately reduced to a less-comfortable 7GB as part of this week’s refresh, but Microsoft is offering a way to reclaim that lost storage absolutely free, simply by heading to your SkyDrive “Manage Storage” page (conveniently linked from the Mac client’s menu bar icon).
Regardless, SkyDrive has the upper hand over Google Drive and Cubby by offering 7GB instead of the default 5GB, with paid storage options available starting at $10 per year for an additional 20GB compared to $2.49 per month ($29.88 per year) for 25GB of Google Drive storage -- although Google’s offer shares the storage with Picasa and also bumps your Gmail account to a separate 25GB, if that’s of any consequence.
SkyDrive is a great option for owners of Windows Phone devices, since photos taken with the likes of the Nokia 900 can be automagically uploaded to the service, then accessed from any of the other clients. This is a bit like iCloud’s Photo Stream, but images consume storage space and hang around longer than 30 days.
If you like to share with others, however, you may want to move along -- the preview Mac SkyDrive client currently offers no way of doing this, forcing you toward a web browser or (God forbid) a Windows box. Thankfully, you can at least send a link via email (or copy it to the clipboard) from an iOS device, or even download a file and do whatever you wish to it.
SkyDrive is also a great solution for those of us using Microsoft Office or OneNote, where Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents can be saved to the cloud and even edited among groups -- or even from a web browser, similar to Google Docs (now Drive).
We’ve actually found ourselves using Microsoft SkyDrive over other cloud storage offerings simply because of its generous 25GB, although new users will have to settle for the lesser 7GB. But our biggest pet peeve lies with the Mac client, which insists on leaving an icon in the Dock for the app while it’s running, with no option to shoo it away. Bad Microsoft, go to your room!
Truly the new kid on the block, Cubby hails from LogMeIn, a company better known for remotely controlling Macs and PCs. Currently available as an invitation-only beta, Cubby offers 5GB of free storage for your Mac or Windows computer, any modern web browser or iOS and Android mobile device. (LogMeIn specifically notes there is no current support for Linux, Windows Phone or BlackBerry at this time.)
So what is this “Cubby”? It’s just a folder that can be shared with people or devices through the Cubby service. Unlike Google Drive and Microsoft SkyDrive, any folder can become a Cubby, simply by dragging it onto the desktop client. This behavior is a bit more liberating than competitors, something we’ve enjoyed from services like SugarSync as well.
Once you’ve added a folder to Cubby, it stays put, exactly where you left it on your computer. Using the software, you can now share the folder with others, make it accessible to the public at large or remove it entirely (but only from the cloud -- the files remain on your computer).
While Cubby can be used without the desktop client, the service won’t be very useful without it. Once you’ve added folders, they can be accessed from other computers with the software installed, any web browser or mobile clients, where you can selectively share links to folders or files via email or copying them into another app, or saved for offline access.
Cubby also offers unlimited peer-to-peer syncing. For example, add a large folder of images from your home computer, then turn on syncing from the Cubby app and uncheck “Cloud.” With the Cubby software installed on another client, you can easily view those files from another computer as long as your home computer is on and connected to the internet.
While Cubby works quite well, it has two fatal flaws for now. The first is that it’s a beta service, with no paid storage upgrades currently available -- you’re stuck with 5GB for who knows how long, so it might not be advisable to get too attached to it yet. The second problem is that Cubby lacks a public API, so developers are unable to tap into the service for now, although this is less of an issue if you only need iOS or Android mobile access, since Cubby is the only service between the three to offer this option at this writing.
Our suggestion is to give them all a spin to see which one suits your needs, although at the moment, you’ll need to wait for an invite to get into Cubby, which shows some promise as a rival to SugarSync. Google Drive and Microsoft SkyDrive are clearly taking aim at Dropbox, but neither service is currently as entrenched.
There are also plenty of users uncomfortable with sharing even more personal data with Google (and to a lesser degree, Microsoft), preferring to stick with a smaller, more trusted company like Dropbox -- even though the legalese in all of their end user license agreements are largely the same.
The good news is, running multiple services doesn’t seem to affect day-to-day usage of our iMac: We’re currently running Dropbox, SugarSync, SkyDrive, Google Drive and Cubby all at the same time -- along with iCloud and Pogoplug. That’s a whole lot of icons in our menu bar, though...
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iMac.27
April 30, 2012 at 11:22pm
Any reason MS hasn't put this in the Mac App store as free app?
They have the WP7 connector, so I was wondering if this violated rules the app store would require.
I wouldn't mind trying the skydrive out but MS seems to find a way to put holes in OS-X for malware.
So far every vulnerble area of a Mac is: Flash, Word (Office in gen), Java.
Call me leery, but I almost hate to instal anything from MS, especially if its not thru the app store.I would love to see an article about what you are giving away by using these services. I heard that if you use the Google drive that ANYTHING you put up there is able to be used by Google in ANY way they want. So you can't really use it for anything personal.
chirpity
April 29, 2012 at 1:12pm
"Dropbox only recently made this quite appealing by adding a “Get link” option for easier sharing"
Not sure how long you have been using DropBox? This feature has been in it for at least a year.
DJR12
May 01, 2012 at 10:12am
I think the distinction is that until recently, you had to have a file in your Public folder for Dropbox to give you that public link option. Now you can do it from anywhere in your Dropbox folder. A welcome addition.
frostybroc
April 27, 2012 at 4:19pm
Great article, I have all three (well access to SkyDrive, but don't use it). I like each in their own way. So hopefully all three will have decent free to cheap plans for us on the budget side of things. Again Great article.
