I love traveling. I love traveling, more when I know my data is traveling with me. I love traveling, even more, if I know my data, files, music, is secure and my house burning down or my computers crashing won’t make me lose my sanity and my data. But, it was not always like this!

I have had lost enough of data to know that Cloud based syncing and file sharing services rock! Here is a simple list of all the file sharing and syncing SaaS or otherwise services, I compared before finally settling down with dropbox.

MobileMe:




MobileMe, is a service provided by Apple. While originally developed and deployed for Mac users, it works on Windows powered PCs effortlessly [ahem]. It’s feature rich, syncs mail, contacts & calendar along with files. You also get an email address of @me.com. It syncs and shares between Mac, PC and iPhone. Pricing wise, Individual plan is for $99/year[20GB] AND Family plan is for $149/year[40GB]. It does offer a 60 day free trial after which the billing starts!

SugarSync:




SugarSync, is a great SaaS based file syncing and sharing service. It’s almost as good as DropBox, and comes with a lot of features like File Versioning. One up for SugarSync compared to other services would be that it lets you backup and sync any folder on your local hard-drive unlike most others who don’t let you do that, exceptions to this include Carbonite and Mozy. But, one thing that no other service offers, is that you can backup and sync ANY folders on ANY machines! So you can in real time sync ANY number of folders [1 per machine]!

Syncplicity:

A little over the expensive side and a little more limited than the others, Syncplicity, tries to establish itself as more of an enterprise targeted SaaS file sharing and syncing cloud based service. It has a lot of loyal users and is a work in progress still, I mean sure it might not be in beta, but it still requires some work. It has some features, but one that catches the eye is the support for directly syncing and saving files from online apps like Google docs, etc!

Windows Live Sync:

Windows Live Sync, is some what confusing. What I mean is that this service does offer syncing of files, but does not store the file. Windows Live Mesh, offers that service, to store the file online. And in doing so defeats my requisites! I wanted a service where I could sync as well as store as a “Clouded Backup“.

SpiderOak:

SpiderOak is a great SaaS file sharing, syncing and great for backups. Its very user-friendly, simple and to the point. The down side to SpiderOak is that it does turn out to be some what resource hungry, both memory and processor wise. Pricing is big plus as compared to other services, offers 100GB of storage for $100! now thats nice!

Mozy:

More of an online backup service Mozy was designed to be just that, but its still a very good option for an online storage service. It has some limitations where data and file sharing is concerned, but by the time this post hits the screen, I think it would be remedied. Definitely one of the best SaaS based File Sharing, Sycning and Backup based service out there. Pricing wise, its pretty affordable too!

Carbonite:

Originally meant to be the tomb for Hans Solo, Carbonite is one of the oldies in the market of syncing, sharing and backing up. Its easy to use and setup, features like auto backup present, autobackup, backs up most popular files that need to be backed up on autopilot. Carbonite, like Mozy, was initially meant to be an online backup, rather than a file storage service. Another point to mention would be unlimited storage space for one flat rate and also has remove access. More info on carbonite here.

OpenDrive:

OpenDrive, again markets itself as a remote drive. It offers sharing, syncing and back ups for all your files. You can opt from the basic 5 GB plan to the pro 1 TB plan. The down part of OpenDrive is that it limits the bandwidth, albeit ample amount of bandwidth limit is provided. Its still on the expensive side and its only available on windows vista and XP. More info here.

ZumoDrive:



ZumoDrive is one of the good guys out there. It is simple, intuitive, easy to install and affordable, with plans starting from $2.99/mo. ZumoDrive, makes your computer think that the files are local, which allows you do more with your files, like importing them directly into iTunes, it also offers caching which is not offered by many. More info here.

DropBox:

DropBox, is the most simplest and easiest of them all. Its a great service and has just crossed 4 million users! I will let the numbers speak here. All in all its pretty fast and delivers just that, file syncing, sharing and backups on the cloud!

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