Family Historian User Group

Microsoft OneDrive now offers 15GB free storage, the same as Google Drive, swamping the 2GB from Dropbox.

Also, by using camera roll on your tablet to save photos, another free 3GB is offered giving 18GB in total.

Additionally, for $6.99 (about £4.20) per month Office 365 Personal offers 1TB for free plus use of an online Office toolset.

In the unlikely event of wanting extra storage, the OneDrive charges have been reduced.

Only drawbacks may be the 2Gb file size limit, and some lingering concerns about the visibility of your data to Microsoft (it isn't encrypted in flight and at rest as, for example, is Dropbox data). They've made some promises to improve privacy, but aren't all the way there yet. Google, like Dropbox, claim they'll only dig into your files with a court order. Microsoft has been known in the past to scan users files, looking for illegal (As they judge it) content, to enforce their usage policies...

That said, I'm in the process of moving my cloud storage progressively to OneDrive. I will be encrypting files that contain financial information or passwords, and I'll need to keep an eye on my email file (which regularly approaches 2Gig). And I'll be keeping my Dropbox, GoogleDrive, Amazon S3, Copy and iDrive space was well... just in case! And syncing everything between 2 PCs and a NAS as well as the various cloud storage spaces.

One correction: the Office 365 product which Mike refers to includes a subscriotion to the full Office 2013 product not just the online products -- usable on your desktop as long as you keep paying the annual fee.

Those are some valid points Helen, and yes my mistake about Office 365.

I will investigate maximum file sizes and encryption options for the three products.

There seem to be some encryption apps for Google Drive already.

Recent announcements suggest OneDrive is protected by SSL in-transit and Perfect Forward Secrecy (PFS) too.

If files/folders are encrypted by the user at source, then of course they cannot be shared very easily.

DropBox: No file size restriction, encrypted in flight and at rest, support for a large number of platforms: Windows, Mac, most phones, some Linux (and therefore some NAS).

Google Drive: 10Gb maximum file size, encrypted in flight but not at rest, Platforms: Windows, MAC, some mobiles, Linux is promised/beta (and therefore so are some NAS).

OneDrive: 2Gb maximum file size, now encrypted in flight but not at rest, Platforms: Windows, Mac, Android, Windows Phones, iPhone -- not Linux (and so not NAS).

Personally, I favour Dropbox, not because of its capacity, but because previous versions of updated files are retained online and can be restored, in bulk if necessary (e.g. after Cryptolocker contamination - not mine I hasten to add).

I'm not sure that this is possible with either Google Drive or OneDrive.

With OneDrive, I suspect you have to have also configured File History (WIndows 8) but the rollbacks are stored locally. I'm not aware of any equivalent in Google Drive.

As far as I could tell the Google Drive general file limit is 5 TB but there are lots of restrictions for different Google applications.

Google Drive for Linux is still slow work in progress, and the only clients I could find were from third parties and some charged for use.

It seems that Google Drive does support file version history, and OneDrive does under some circumstances (when using Office products or in OneDrive for Business).
You can of course always maintain your own history versions by renaming files as you proceed.

I have updated all three pages in the KB and any feedback comments are welcomed.

A disadvantage with Google Drive, is that any text (.txt or doc) files get converted to googledoc files and are then only retained on google drive and not synced to your PC. This is supposed to be able to be switched off, but I have not been able to do so.
I have also found Google drive to be very slow to sync large files.

John:
To avoid converting .doc and .txt files click the Settings cog icon top right, and choose Settings from drop-down, then untick Convert uploads. It works for me.

Peter:
To prevent CryptoLocker and similar malware, download and install CryptoPrevent.
See http://www.foolishit.com/vb6-projects/cryptoprevent/.
The blue download button is right at the bottom of the page after scrolling down.
There is a lot of documentation and advice for advanced users & special cases, but the defaults will usually work OK.
We advise all our Computer Club members to use it and keep it updated.

Another disadvantage of ONeDrive is that it doesn't support shared folders in the same way that Dropbox does. You can share a folder with another individual but the files are held in the cloud -- they don't get a local copy.

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/oned ... b23a893b5a

I accept that OneDrive seems to be different in this case.
BUT if I understand correctly it is where the folders are shared between different OneDrive accounts.
If both PC use the same OneDrive account then folders are synchronised, which is sufficient for FH Projects on two PC.

I started using OneDrive when it was known as Sky Drive back in 2007 when it had 25GB storage. I was entitled to have this transferred to OneDrive so I now have 28GB free.

For around £34 per year, I back up my entire computer to the cloud with Carbonite. This allows me to view all of my computer on any mobile device and share links. Version history of files are also included.

Craig,

Whilst I don't and wouldn't backup my whole computer to any cloud service without at least one 'local' backup, access to 1Tb of One Drive Cloud storage, plus 5 constantly up to date copies of the full Microsoft Office packages (on both Windows and Mac) for around £80 per annum is tempting, when compared with purchasing individual MS Office licences. Plus, you can invite family members/friends to use any spare licences you don't need without giving them access to your space on OneDrive.

Note: This is NOT an advert for Microsoft, and it will be interesting to see how/if other services will respond - Apart from Google there's been no significant movement yet. It also remains to be seen if Microsoft will move further into leasing rather than selling software licences (Windows 365 rumours), or if it's (or Google's) pricing changes significantly when a critical mass of users is achieved.

Mervyn

I tried out OneDrive and went back to Dropbox very quickly -- the quirks in the way Microsoft have designed it to work, especially with their own applications, made if effectively unusable for me.

OneDrive free storage increases again.
The Camera roll bonus has jumped from 3 GB to 15 GB.
This means the maximum free storage is now 35 GB = 15 GB standard + 15 GB camera roll + 5 GB referrals.

And Microsoft has also announced today that those subscribing to Office 365 will soon get unlimited storage rather than the, already generous, 1TB!