Dropbox’s CEO, Drew Houston, founded personal cloud storage in 2007 after becoming frustrated with the loss of his USB drive. As a result, he established the first individual, small business cloud storage service. It was a revolutionary idea at the time, and everyone loved it. There are dozens of low-cost or free cloud storage providers and services available today. But, aside from providing storage, they are very different.
Cloud storage is still expensive:
$10 per month for 2TB storage has become the industry standard for all major services such as iCloud, Google One, and OneDrive. And our need for more of it is growing all the time. If you’re looking for a low-cost (or even free) way to share large files over the internet, we’ve outlined some of the best options available, based on your storage capacity.
iDrive
iDrive starts its offers with 5GB for free. If you need a backup for your personal or small business, iDrive is a great option. It’s simple to use and inexpensive.
Microsoft 365 Family
The annual fee of $99 The Microsoft 365 Family plan includes 6TB of storage space spread across 6 accounts, and you can find discounted plans for around $90.
TeleDrive
Telegram, the popular private messaging service, includes unlimited cloud storage. The free plan is limited to 1.5GB per day and 2GB maximum download and upload, but those limits can be removed for $10 per year.
pCloud
pCloud is another safe cloud backup service that comes with two advantages. The first is that it provides 10GB of free storage space, which is significantly more than its competitors. Second, it offers real, lifetime cloud storage.
Icedrive
Icedrive is a cloud backup service that prioritizes privacy and security. 10GB of storage space is provided for free, and the 5TB plan costs $15 per month. It’s not as cheap as iDrive, but if you value security, it’s a small price to pay.
Mega
Mega is a cloud storage and data-sharing website. Mega is the only cloud storage site on this list that gives more than 20GB of free storage space. If you do decide to pay, you can get 8TB of storage for about $22 per month or 16TB for about $34 per month.
WeTransfer
WeTransfer is a popular data-sharing service, but it is not a cloud storage service. It’s simple: you can upload files up to 2GB in size and generate a link which lasts for seven-day. Their $12 per month plan allows you to send files up to 200GB in size and includes 1TB of personal storage.
In a nutshell, Find a service and begin saving and backing up your files to the cloud. You’ll be glad you did, and you’ll never have to look for a misplaced USB stick again.