The last (but certainly not the least) of the Cloud filing systems that I’m going to go through is Dropbox. If I’m perfectly honest, Dropbox, for me, has always been a bit of an outlier. What you may have noticed about the other three systems is that there are other things that go along with the Cloud Service. Gmail gives you an e-mail and the entire e-mail suite, OneDrive you can get access to the entire Microsoft suite, and iCloud allows you access to your Apple Media. Dropbox, in contrast, is a stand-alone system. This is both good and bad….but first as always;
(WARNING: LEGAL STUFF) To be clear, I am not affiliated with Dropbox. I do have an account with them but I’m not professionally affiliated so if you do decide to use Dropbox you can’t get it through me.
Benefits
1) You can use your own e-mail – This (if I’m honest) is something that I’ve always really liked about Dropbox. when you sign up for iCloud and g-mail, for example, they assign you an account e-mail. This, of course, you can change in settings or sign up with your own e-mail, but it’s always there and you have to be able to go and disable it. they do this because they want to be able to push their own product and use their e-mail as your username. I get that. It’s easier for them to use their own domain names. The difference with Dropbox is that when you sign up you’re using your own e-mail, and THAT is your username. This means that you are not forced to use a new user-name for this service, which means that there is one less to remember.
2) Dropbox integrates with everything – I mentioned at the top of this post that Dropbox was a standalone system, which means that they don’t have anything else to offer. This has forced them to be able to integrate with every system out there on the market. This, in turn, means that no matter what you’re using (Mac or PC) you can get the Dropbox plugin so you can see your files easily. There are also Dropbox apps for any mobile device.
3) It’s great for sharability – Because Dropbox works with anything and you are using your own e-mail address, this, in turn, means that sharing files is really easy. all the other user has to have is a Dropbox account of their own and you can share files instantly. There is no need to create a new domain name for the person you’re going to share your files with.
Drawbacks
1) Only 2 memory levels – On the Dropbox website it technically says that there are three levels but in reality, it’s 2GB for free, 1TB for 12.99 a month or 1TB with some added features for 27.99. For more than double the price I would expect that I would be able to access more memory. Some of the added features may be useful for companies who would wish to use Dropbox as their filing system, but for the rest of us I highly doubt that the features that they add on (Such as single sign-on and admin control) for the personal user who is just looking to keep their files digital it’s not worth the extra money.
2) It’s JUST a storage area – I mentioned at the beginning of this article about how the other systems give you other add-on features (even in the free versions) for using their service. with Dropbox, this is not the case. This is just a file storage system. for me personally, if you are going to charge me money for a product I like it when I get more than just the bare bones system to work with.
Dropbox, at the end of the day, is actually a really cool system to use for storing your files. I think, however you have to be prepared to do a bit more initial work in order to set it up with all of the other systems that you use. Plugins for your file explorer (or Finder for Mac users), ensuring that your e-mail connects to it so that you can easily save documents. If you’re willing and able to take the time to do all this set up then, rock and roll, it’s a great system to use. If, however, you’re looking for a system that is easier to set up then you may want to consider looking somewhere else.
Would you consider using Dropbox?
Let me know in the comments section below. If you like this blog post and want to see more, you can follow me on Social Media (LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook @jasonlovefiles) or Subscribe to my blog to get new content delivered directly to your mailbox.