There are many cloud storage providers, it is likely an essential for business or personal as in 2022, due to everything is networked. If you have an average network connection in Australia (such as 4G network or NBN 50/20 plan), then an endpoint can act like a terminal or a local play-station now-a-day, and it is better to let cloud services talk to cloud services in order to increase the quality and productivity.
General cloud storage usage example:
- Backup or offsite backup
- File sharing
- Co-work on the same file
- Data collection for analytic
I like cloud storage service as most of ISPs follow ISO, so you will have someone to take care the data retention, DLP and security policy in software and hardware. Security like recent Optus hacking is another big topic talk to, here we focus on the service offers.
The following are the provider we have found
| ISP | Size | RRP$ | Deal | Plan Name |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| crashplan.com | ∞ | A$185 /user | Small Business | |
| idrive.com | 20TB | A$265 /user | 25% off | IDrive® Personal |
| pcloud.com | ∞ | A$295 /user | business pro | |
| sync.com | ∞ | A$276 /user | Teams+ Unlimited | |
| carbonite.com | ∞ | A$185 /user | 40% off | Home-Plus |
| mega.nz | 16TB | A$463 /user | Individual-Pro III | |
| backblaze.com | ∞ | A$108 /user | Personal backup | |
| google.com | 2TB | A$125 /5 users | Premium 2TB | |
| dropbox.com | ∞ | A$436 /user | Advanced | |
| microsoft.com | ∞ | A$165 /user | Business Plan 2 | |
| apple.com | 2TB | A$180 /user | icloud+ 2TB |
choice of plan is base on largest size, number of services and lowest cost.
Size is maximum capacity from ISP, 1TB=1000GB.
RRP price is for 1 year in Australia dollar of conversion rate fx(audusd)=0.65 (6-Nov-2022)
crashplan.com offer small business for unlimited storage from 1-100 endpoints at $10 per month per endpoint.
pcloud.com offer life time one off payment for 10TB plan and unlimited business pro plan at $15.98 per user per month.
idrive.com offers from free 10gb plan to 20TB personal and business plans. Use multiple accounts if possible to get the maximum storage.
sync.com offers from $6/6TB/month to $15/unlimited/month, which cause a headache to make a selection, but the unlimited plan sounds right for everyday business situation.
carbonite.com offers from $4.2- $7.5 /month, we selected the plus plan due to webroot anti-virus is included, but we don’t need courier at this point.
mega.nz offer from free 20GB to $46.3, individual to team/business. It is a bit pricey compare to others, however the free service is good in some points. Pro III is good, if you have found a deal to signup.
backblaze.com – a name for many years as mega, offers B2 Cloud Storage, business and personal unlimited backup from $7 per month to $130 per 24 months payment. Their plan is relatively cheap and don’t mind to compare the price, that’s why we like it.
google.com If you are not in google eco-system, google is one of the popular online storage on the market, offer well known 15GB gmail free storage up to A$124.99, 2TB per google account. They target everyday user instead of system level backup or archive.
dropbox.com is one of the popular consumer based online storage provider, offers from $19 2TB-$43 unlimited storage monthly.
microsoft.com if you are not in Microsoft eco-system, outlook provide 5GB free storage per account and OneDrive for Business (Plan 2) or higher plans provides a conditional unlimited plan to their customers: *Unlimited individual cloud storage for qualifying plans for subscriptions of five or more users, otherwise 1 TB/user. Microsoft will initially provide 1 TB/user of OneDrive for Business storage, which admins can increase to 5 TB/user. Request additional storage by contacting Microsoft support. Storage up to 25 TB/user is provisioned in OneDrive for Business. Beyond 25 TB, storage is provisioned as 25 TB SharePoint team sites to individual users.
apple.com icloud+ is a premium service for apple users, apple offer 50GB to 2TB online storage price are from free to A$14.99 per month per user.
Conclusion of the day
Spend your money wisely, wait for a good deal. backblaze.com is the best value on the table, and pcloud.com provides life time plan which is good to some business. If you are already in Apple, AWS, Microsoft or Google, try to use up all the paid online resources before engage into new resources.
Keep a backup plan, keep hopping. nice day 🙂