Back to School – Best Cloud Storage for Students

It’s that time of year again! Students of all ages are headed back to the classroom. This means more projects and papers but also notes and other files depending on the teacher and the subject. So where is the best place to stare all these files you’re bound to accumulate?

 

Dropbox

When I was in university Dropbox was my cloud storage of choice . It’s free (always a big plus for the broke student!) and there are ways of earning more than the starter 2GB that don’t involve purchases. Another positive is that most people have heard of or use Dropbox. Even if they haven’t, sending a download link to someone is easy. You can also set certain folders so that other users can add and edit the files as needed – perfect for group projects!

OneDrive

Although more limited in scope compared to Google Drive and Dropbox, OneDrive does have some nice options that make it stand out from the rest. Chances are, you’re going to have a lot of notes to type up at some point. If you use Microsoft’s OneNote, all your notebooks will be stores in your OneDrive, making them accessible in more locations as well as shareable with fellow students. Also if you’re getting a new computer for the school year and it’s a Windows computer, you’ll definitely be set to store things in OneDrive quickly and easily on startup.

Google Drive

These days I’d say Google Drive would be my go-to cloud storage for academic work. You get 15GB of free storage however the real power behind Drive comes from its collaborative tools. It comes bundled with Google’s file processing suite if you access the service online, so you get Docs and Sheets and other programs. This makes it easier to work with other students or teachers even if you have different computers. I remember so often there’d be that one person in a group with a Mac who didn’t have Office, rendering group work inaccessible. Not a problem with Google Docs! On top of that, you can see the editing history and add comments to any Docs in Google Drive. This makes it easy to collaborate with your group mates in real time or even get feedback from teachers directly on your papers.

ADrive

Although it doesn’t add much to the usual formula of cloud storage providers, one thing that really makes ADrive appealing is what you can get for free. 50GB of free cloud storage that you can access from just about any device you need to is pretty great! And just like many other cloud storage programs, you can edit your files from their folders and still have them synced with the cloud, no matter what device you access them from.

iCloud

I don’t know what your university lectures are like these days, but a few years ago I remember every Humanities lecture hall was Macbooks as far as the eye could see. Slim and stylish, Apple products are a popular choice among the college crowd. For that reason, iCloud might be the choice for you. You can get 5GB of free storage to access from your Mac or iOS mobile device. While your storage won’t be as shareable or collaborative as other storage options, if you’re just looking for easy access cloud storage for your Apple devices then iCloud is for you.

Sync.com

While Sync also provides the same basic features as other cloud storage options like Dropbox, Sync does have a very beautiful interface for accessing your files. You get 5GB free, which is more than you get with Dropbox, as well as all the same features – accessibility from nearly any device as well as easy sharing of file links between users. You can even password protect files for added security if you’re working with sensitive data.


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