It is currently neededl access to information and the interconnectedness of work teams increasingly implies using tools with collaborative approaches that allow work to flow, as well as options that maintain information security.
For Alejandra Montaña, an expert in the systems engineering program at the University of San Buenaventura in Bogotá, “the new technological revolution where we talk about big data, agile processes and strategic decisions based on data, has turned cloud services into a necessity where globalized connectivity is urgent, enabling stability in its internal and external processes, and agile decisions, achieving greater confidence in the market.”
That is, in the scope of paid and free services cloud storagethere are options depending on the needs a person or company wants to satisfy; among them some clouds like Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive, pCloud, iCloud Drive, Dropbox and Mega.
Most of these clouds have a free storage service, which ranges from two GB, in the case of Dropbox, to 20 GB in Mega. Likewise, some of these options allow you to test different paid storage plans for an average of 30 days.
According to GoodFirms’ Personal Cloud Storage Usage and Trends Survey, 54.62% of respondents said they use at least three different cloud storage services, The four most used are Google Drive (94.4%), Dropbox (66.2%), OneDrive (39.3%) and iCloud (38.8%).
Pay for more storage
For Hora Not all companies or people have models and needs that require them to pay for storage servicesadministration and management in the cloud.
“The decision to pay for more cloud storage depends on the sector and the configuration of the company,” he said. Therefore, when choosing a cloud storage service, it is important to first know whether personal or business needs justify paying for a service with more capacity. and some add-ons in workflow management and control; or if, on the contrary, the free storage of some platforms is enough.
In terms of pricing, the cloud market has monthly payments starting at $1.0 for 50GB in iCloud and up to $47 for unlimited storage in Box. In this way, we have done research and, if necessary, the appropriate conversion of euros to dollars, to find some of the prices and alternatives that are on the market.
Among the main storage services Dropbox It has prices from $2.13 for 100GB to $26.76 for 5TB; OneDrive from Microsoft, monthly payments from $2.50 for 100GB up to $8.75 for 6TB; Apple iCloudprices from $1 for 50GB to $67.57 for 12TB; Mega from $5.35 for 500GB to $32.17 for 16TB; box from $7 for 100GB to $47 for unlimited storage; and finally, pCloud, with prices ranging from $4.16 for 500GB to $19.98 for 2TB.
These prices are monthly, but there are also options for annual payments, even for life, which represent a saving of more than 15% on the amount to be paid within 12 months of the year.
Other benefits of the cloud
Most of these storage services complement each other with other benefits, among them shared use of space is the most common; however, there are others more strategic for teamwork, such as controlling workflows, assigning tasks, resources such as digital signature, video calls, chats, video editor, PDF editing and, in the case of OneDrive, premium access to Office.
What to consider when choosing a cloud?
As previously mentioned, choosing a storage cloud depends on largely on the needs one has. According to Alejandra Montaña, an expert in the systems engineering program at USB of Bogotá, users can consider the following aspects: the level of security needed for the information, the response time needed to access it, and the short-term investment. in this service for a long time; He further suggests comparing what it would cost to manage the information to a third party versus what it would cost to manage it through a cloud service.