Mac users already have plenty of options when it comes to cloud storage, but over the course of the last year, a worthy opponent to Dropbox, SugarSync and Box has arrived from an unlikely source: Microsoft.

Although companies like Dropbox are generally the first place many Mac users turn to for their cloud storage needs, we're increasingly using SkyDrive instead. After all, Microsoft's cloud storage allotment is more generous than the competition, with 7GB free for new users -- and even sweeter for those of us who have had a Hotmail or Live.com account for years by keeping the previous 25GB available from the "Manage storage" option.

It certainly helps that SkyDrive is available from just about everywhere: Microsoft rolled out a slick universal iOS app last year, then followed it up by an initially clunky Mac client which has finally come into its own this month. Of course, the service is already tightly integrated with both Windows and Windows Phone, and Microsoft has promised an update for Office 2011 for Mac soon as well.

That just leaves Android and the web, with the former finally announced and coming in the next few weeks, while the latter just got a slick Windows 8-style (formerly known as "Metro-styled") overhaul only last week.

SkyDrive on the Web

We'll start with the latest incarnation of SkyDrive used on any Mac or PC web browser. With its blue tiled look borrowed from Windows Phone and Windows 8, the SkyDrive.com website fits nicely into the rest of Microsoft's current offerings, with documents, photos and other files displayed in the center of the screen.

A click on any folder expands its content for individual selection, and in the case of photos, files will open large with a dark gray screen allowing users to move back and forth through the folder using arrows at the left and right edge, while a ribbon of thumbnails below will get you to any image quickly.

The right edge of the screen displays all of the key information about your photo, including any People tags you've added, easy sharing options and details on your image type, dimensions, add and modification dates, path, file name and size.

Along the top of the screen are options for playing images as a slideshow, downloading, viewing original, share, embed and manage, which allows users to delete, move or copy images on their SkyDrive.

Clicking the SkyDrive logo in the upper left corner jumps back to the folder view, with a search field below and quick links for viewing Files, Recent docs or Shared folders. Users can also create Groups, which makes it easy to share files with family, friends or co-workers in a snap.

SkyDrive.com offers access to any internet-connected Windows PCs you may also be using; sadly, Macs don't currently show up here, but there are plenty of other ways to duplicate this functionality with other software.

On the right side of the SkyDrive window, users can choose to display folders as a list or grid, and optionally display a sidebar for viewing information about a folder or file when you select it.

If you have more than one Hotmail, Live.com or Microsoft account, you can easily switch between them right from the SkyDrive web app.

What about document files? Clicking on a Word, Excel or PowerPoint file will open the appropriate web app preview, allowing SkyDrive users to make quick revisions right inside the web browser, no applications required.

SkyDrive Apps

No matter how good a web client is, it will only get you so far -- but thankfully, Microsoft has rolled out some pretty nice desktop and mobile apps over the last year, with only Android users being left out of the party (but not for long).

SkyDrive for Mac was updated to version 16.4 last week, allowing users of the cloud storage service to link a folder on their desktop or laptop with the cloud. If you've ever used Dropbox, you pretty much know how this works, right down to a SkyDrive folder being added to your Finder sidebar.

There isn't much else to the SkyDrive Mac client as yet -- preference options allow you to open the app at login, hide the Dock icon and automatically send log files to Microsoft if you experience any problems. Otherwise, it's pretty much as easy as dropping files you want to store in SkyDrive into the folder, or having files uploaded from another client synced back to your Mac.

Meanwhile, the universal iOS app works equally great on an iPhone, iPad or iPod touch, complete with Retina Display support, file sharing, choosing multiple photos or videos for upload and even the ability to open SkyDrive files in other iOS apps.

It goes without saying that the best SkyDrive experience comes with owning a Windows Phone handset, such as the Nokia Lumia 900. From such a device, users can have new photos automatically synced straight from their camera roll to the cloud, where images can then be easily accessed from anywhere.

What's Missing?

As much as we like and recommend SkyDrive, it's not quite perfect yet.

We'd actually prefer a way to sync folders other than the default SkyDrive location -- which coincidentally, can be installed anywhere you'd like, even on an external drive. Barring that, we're hoping Microsoft will at least let us selectively sync folders inside SkyDrive's gated community, much like Dropbox already does. (Microsoft acknowledges they're working on a solution to this very concern.)

While Microsoft has sharing down pat for most of its client software, the Mac client stumbles, requiring users to share from the web client (or iOS app) instead.

It's pretty likely this limitation will get addressed in a future update as well, but in the meantime, sharing is thankfully quite nice from the web client -- links can be sent via email, posted to Facebook or Twitter or users have the ability to create their own links which can be view only, view and edit or public, for images or documents that can be discovered even without a link.

Finally, the new SkyDrive limits file uploads to 2GB (up from a mere 300MB previously), although that's a fairly generous "limit" unless you need to upload huge video or multimedia files.

Pricing

Otherwise, SkyDrive makes for a formidable opponent for the likes of Dropbox, especially considering its generous 7GB free compared to only 2GB (which can be expanded up to 18GB with referrals, but admittedly, that requires some amount of work for the user).

SkyDrive is also cheaper than Dropbox when it comes to paid upgrades, offering an extra 20GB for only $10 per year, 50GB for $25 or 100GB for $50 -- the latter is a full 50 percent less than Dropbox, who charges $99 per year for 100GB, $199 for 200GB or a whopping $499 for 500GB, with no smaller options available.

With Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8 on the horizon, Microsoft is likely to raise the profile of SkyDrive even further than it already is, so cloud storage fans should see the service really start to spread its wings in the months ahead.

Follow this article’s author, J.R. Bookwalter on Twitter