Comparison of Dropbox vs. Google Drive Cloud Storage

By Cloud Storage Oktober 01, 2019

The cloud-minded people in direct comparison: Google Drive vs.. Dropbox. What differentiates the two services and which offer should you choose?

Personal photos, important documents, videos from your last vacation: We put more data in the cloud for various reasons. Mobility and data security play a major role here.

• Access files from any device
• Access files from anywhere in the world
• All data is stored safely in one place
• Manage and edit files with others
• Varies as the user's interest is the provider in the field. From small web services to all-in-one solutions, users can choose from a variety of offers

Google Drive vs. Dropbox: Who can do what?

Pioneers of cloud technology: Google Drive and Dropbox have been on the market for more than a decade and have been the first point of contact for cloud users for many users.

Google Drive

Google's memory service is its basic feature since 2006 - when it was still in the form of text & tables, not as a stand-alone cloud storage. Google Docs and all other Office applications continue to exist and are an integral part of Google Drive. Originally limited to documents, the offer has now become a flexible cloud storage for each file type. In addition, Google Drive is integrated with services such as Gmail (Google's email service), making it easier to manage and distribute files over the Internet.

Using Google's Office application makes it very easy to collaborate with other users on documents, presentations, or spreadsheets. Everything you make in one of these applications is automatically saved to Google Drive. Data can be easily shared with others by assigning different roles: Can others just see, comment or even change content?

Google Drive can be fully serviced through the web interface. This website provides users with file management. You can create folders, upload files or entire folders and move them. But there is also software called Backup and Sync to work more comfortably with cloud storage. This works on Mac and PC or on iOS and Android devices.

This software allows one to synchronize selected folders on the hard disk with cloud storage. If you make any changes here, it also happens in parallel on Google Drive - assuming, of course, that there is a connection to the Internet. For users who choose the premium G-Suite service, there is a Drive File Stream offer. This allows users to access cloud storage directly from file management on their PC or Mac without using disk space.

Free Google Drive standard edition. Following are the available 15 GB users. However, it must be remembered that Gmail account storage is also part of Google Drive. If you have large attachments stored in your email account, this can already occupy most of the cloud storage. If you need more space, you need to upgrade to Google One. The premium service in the smallest version currently offers 100 GB for just under 2 euros per month. For around 300 euros per month but you can also get 30 TB.

Google data centers are spread all over the world, with most servers in the US. Because Google is a US company, it is possible that under the Patriot Act, the US government can, under certain circumstances, request data on the server. Google itself can only be limited.

All data is encrypted with 256-bit AES when moving (for example, when transported from one server to another). The file that is not moving is 128-bit encrypted. Users generally access services through HTTPS tunnels. The account itself can be secured by two-factor authentication.

Google Drive special features:

• Integration with other Google applications
• File encryption
• Access through a browser or with special software
• 15 GB of free storage space
• synchronization software

Dropbox

Dropbox has been on the market since 2007 and is probably the first contact with cloud storage for many PC users. From the start there is the appropriate software: After installation, there is a folder on your own PC or Mac, which is synchronized (with an existing internet connection) constantly with the same version on the company's server. The idea behind it: Two or more people have access to this folder and can use the files in it. Regular exchange of different files is not possible.

You don't have to limit yourself to folders. Different folders can also be shared with different people. That made Dropbox at that time, but even today it is very interesting for professional collaboration. But also for personal use, this service is very helpful: Sending large files, z. As a vacation photo, via email often fails due to size limitations. Such concerns are hardly needed anymore with the Dropbox cloud storage service.

In principle, all users need an account with Dropbox for collaboration. To make data available to people who are not logged into the service, individual download links can be created for individual files or folders.