• April 1, 2021

Detailed Review of DropBox Online Storage Solution

Summary and history

Dropbox has been around for a couple of years now and they have done amazing things in that limited time. I particularly like their VoteBox system which invites you to choose which improvements they will work on first: Great idea. They offer three options: 1 free and 2 premium or pro editions. The free version provides 2Gb, while the professional editions give you 50 or 100Gb. Backup and sync are easy to get up and running and constantly run in the background, making this a true “utility”. set and forget “. The company also offers unlimited file versions as an option for professional editions.

The portable devices are fully compatible with iPhone and iTouch applications and a website for Internet-enabled devices. Collaboration features include sharing public and private files, as well as commenting on files and folders. With many more features in development. Photo albums and video streaming are currently supported. And how is this for the customer? If you follow the ‘getting started guide’ and complete most of the steps, you will be rewarded with an additional 250 Mb of storage. Excellent! If you want even more capacity, just invite friends and you get another 250 Mb per referral up to a limit of 8 Gb.

Dropbox was incorporated by Drew Houston and Arash Ferdowsi in 2007, and got seed funding from Y Combinator. As of now, Dropbox is well funded by Sequoia Capital, Accel Partners, and Amidzad. After launching publicly in September 2008, they have acquired more than three million customers and are growing rapidly. They have been featured in the New York Times and TechCrunch, and have won awards from places like PC Magazine and CNET. Their motivation is to deliver a program that really gets done and put it in the hands of millions of people.

Feature set

Security

DropBox has medium security: the web portal is SSL encrypted and you need a username and password to access your files. File transfers are protected with SSL encryption and once in your data centers, your information is encrypted with 256 AES encryption. In addition, they use the Amazon AWS service, which is compatible with the Amazon name and seal of quality.

Backup features

Always ready and ‘block level’ backups are provided to ensure your files are constantly protected. Files in use are archived continuously using ‘Block Level Incremental Backups’, which means that DropBox only loads the bits of a file that has been modified, rather than the entire file.

Including files and folders in the DropBox backup program is really easy: just select the files you would like to archive and choose ‘backup with DropBox’. Alternate versions of files are stored so that you can always recover a previous edition of a document if you accidentally deleted it. There is a status indicator to show how the backup is progressing.

The bad news is that removable and network drives cannot be added to files, and commercial databases such as Exchange and SQL Server are not directly supported.

Restore functions

Restoring your data is very simple. You have a couple of main options: Restore from the web portal – Log into your account, navigate to the file you want to recover, and then choose how you want to recover it. The secondary option is even simpler: just use the DropBox Manager to retrieve any desired edition of a file.

Control and analysis

There are bandwidth and processor limitations available in the DropBox client program. Reports and log can also be read from client software. Proxy servers can be configured with options for HTTP, SOCKS4, and SOCKS5.

Interface

The interface is neat and easy to use. There are very few options available, which makes everything simple and easy to use. There is a client software to install and when configured, the software creates a DropBox folder where all protected files are displayed.

Device support

Currently there is support for all devices under the sun! The way DropBox is designed; If your devices can access the internet, then they can use and be protected by DropBox.

Limitations

The website can only handle file uploads of up to 300 megabytes each, however you can get around this limitation by using compression tools like WinRAR or WinZip that allow you to break large files into more practical parts. The limit is not present if you are using the client software.

File retention (before deletion) is one month, unless you invest in ‘Pack-Rat’, which is available as a supplement to Premium versions and costs an additional $ 39 per year and allows you versions and file retention unlimited.

File sharing and collaboration

Data can be shared publicly, allowing everyone to see it, or privately, where you assign access rights to specific files and folders for each user or group.

Photo albums are also supported and can be shared publicly or privately.

Comments can be included on each file that is shared and viewers can be allowed to leave additional comments to create a discussion about a particular file or folder.

Synchronization

Synchronization is supported between different devices and between devices and the website. One really cool feature is LAN sync. This allows devices on the same network (home or work) to quickly sync changes over the internal network without first having to access the Internet. This greatly reduces the Internet bandwidth load.

Web 2.0 integration

At the time of writing, there was no direct integration with online services to allow document editing, etc.

Customer Support

Customer support is not available by phone, live chat, or direct email. However, there are many other forms of help available: you can contact support using a web form on their site; there is an extensive knowledge base and an FAQ section; documentation is complete to a sensitive level. Tutorials, a demo, and case studies are also available. However, the most useful resources for DIY support are the forum and blog. These are packed with valuable advice and support from both the DropBox support team and customers using the service.

Easy to use

Very simple to set up with: Sign up, log in, download the program on all your devices and start protecting your files. As of December 2009, there is now a LAN sync feature that is really cool. Both the desktop and web interfaces are clear, elegant, and easy to use. All that is considered a very easy to use package.

cost

  • Initial setup: free
  • Monthly: Basic: free; Pro50 – $ 9.99 / month; Pro100 – $ 19.99 / month
  • Annual: Basic: free; Pro50 – $ 99 / month; Pro100 – $ 199 / year
  • Amount of initial storage allowed: Basic: 2 Gb; Pro50: 50 Gb; Pro100 – 100 Gb
  • Additional storage cost: n / a
  • Cost of additional devices / PCs / users: n / a
  • Referral program: 250 Mb per referral up to max. 8 Gb
  • Electronic billing service: Free – n / a; Pro: yes

conclusion

DropBox is very easy to install and use. It has almost all the features of a complete online storage solution: backup, website, multi-machine sync, file version control, online photo albums, and file sharing. The only missing feature is website integration to allow you to change and create files directly on your DropBox. The price is not bad, but there are better options available if you need more storage than 100Gb. Security is very good and customer service is good, although the lack of phone, internet chat, and direct email support is a bit limiting. The forum and blog are excellent places to get answers to your questions. If you want a complete online storage solution, DropBox is a great option.

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