I started off with Part 1 talking about calendars and you can read that here.
Everyone likes free stuff.
I have been a longtime user of Dropbox and just not for my genealogy stuff; I use it for everything that I want to access across my digital platforms. However, the Dropbox free account only offers 2GB of storage (with referrals you can get more) and I have been pushing that limit. So, I have recently been exploring other options to add to my free cloud storage because I just don’t want to pay for it. So, here is what I am doing and how I now have 32GB of free cloud storage.
- Dropbox (2GB). This is my goto storage just because I have been using it for so long and am comfortable with it and it plays very nicely with everything. However, like I mentioned, it only comes with 2GB for the free account. I am pushing that limit.
- Google Drive (15GB). Since I use Google, I have free storage with them called Google Drive. I have not really used this too much in the past and I really don’t know why. However, I‘ve linked my storage to all my devices and will now play with it. My initial thoughts is this is where I will store word processing and excel spreadsheets that I need to update on a fairly routine nature. Research logs, biographical sketches, research notes, etc… Google drive is the the goto place so you don’t have to buy Microsoft Office. I’m beginning to like it a lot.
- SkyDrive (7GB) by Microsoft. I’ve had this for awhile but did not like it in the past because it seemed glitchy and didn’t seem to play nice with others. The primary purpose of this was to sync Microsoft product specific information and I didn’t use Microsoft stuff for portability, I have Apple stuff for that. However, Microsoft has updated something and it is working a lot better and more like the other cloud storage products. After linking my account and downloading the app it seems to be a great place to store things that you want to have access to but may not update – static pages of information. I am a den leader for one of my boys Cub Scout dens so I am using this for all that information. Seems to be working great so far.
- SugarSync (5GB)– this is the newest to my cloud storage apps. It seems to be very comparable to Dropbox, just a very different interface but not too difficult to work around. I am using it the same that I use Dropbox just with different stuff; I put all my schoolwork and military history research sources in here. The hardest part of SugarSync was actually getting the free storage, it isn’t obvious on their website. You have to first download the desktop application and then create an account from there. You then get the option to accept their free account – although it keeps defaulting to try and get you to opt for the paid version. But, 5GB of storage is perfect for what I need it for.
So, there you have it – I went from 2GB of free storage with Dropbox to 32GB of cloud storage in just a couple of days. It may seem inconvenient because stuff is located in different folders or apps, but it only took me a day or so to get used to where I put stuff – I don’t even have to think about it now.
Do you use free cloud storage? Did I miss a good one? Let us know by leaving a comment.
Thanks for reading and keep diggin’ for that family.
Chris
P.S. I will be making periodic updates to this post to let everyone know how each is working out.
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