The velocity of data is increasing and will always increase. This is a fact of modern life. According to IBM, we create approximately 1.86EB of data every hour of every day. So it is no wonder that annual cloud storage revenue exceeds $60 billion and is trending up and to the right.
There are dozens of companies offering free or close-to-free storage solutions for consumers. Here’s an overview of seven excellent cloud storage choices – at least one of them will certainly fit your needs. Importantly, while each of these organizations offers enterprise solutions that accommodate industrial-strength needs, this list compares services suitable for individuals and small businesses.
1. Microsoft oneDrive
If you’re spending your day-to-day in Microsoft Office, coupling oneDrive with Office 365 makes a lot of sense. Paying for 1TB of storage on oneDrive is only $10/year more than Amazon, and you get the entire Office 365 suite to go with it. A small (but nice) oneDrive feature is Document Scanning, which lets you scan and store receipts, business cards, or whatever else you want to keep via a mobile app.
- $1.99/month for 50GB
- $69.99/year (or $6.99/month) for 1TB of storage plus Office 365 for 1 computer
- $99.99/year (or $9.99/month) for 5TB of storage plus Office 365 for 5 computers
2. Amazon Drive
Amazon Prime nets you a lot of “free” perks (after you pay your annual membership), but it doesn’t include much in the way of cloud storage. Aside from the 5GB of free cloud storage that everyone gets, Amazon Drive’s main benefit is that Prime members get unlimited free photo storage. Amazon offers storage apps for Mac, Windows, iOS, and Android, and while 5GB isn’t a ton of storage, Amazon’s paid tiers are competitively priced if you need to free up space on your phone or laptop.
- $11.99/year for 100GB
- $59.99/TB/year
