Google Drive vs Dropbox: Let’s Settle The Battle of the Cloud Storage Titans
You’re looking for a fast, reliable, and secure cloud storage provider. You’ve weighed your options and have narrowed them down to two — Google Drive and Dropbox. So, which should you go with?
And the answer is…
It depends.
You see, your choice is pegged on what you’re trying to accomplish. Now allow us to do what we do best — pit these titans against each other. We’ll help you dissect the nuanced differences so you can choose the best cloud storage provider for your needs.
Let’s get down to business.
Meet the Contestants
Dropbox
Dropbox was launched in 2008. As you might have guessed, it hit the market way before Google Drive. Heck, it pretty much ushered in cloud storage as we know it today.
Is it worth a punt? Absolutely!
After all, the over 700 million users can’t all be wrong, can they? In fact, 15.48 million of these users have voted with their wallets and signed up for a premium plan. Sweet!
Google Drive
Admittedly, Google Drive is a Johnny-come-lately in the cloud business. Launched in 2012, it was five years late to the party. But Google did the Google-thing and tried to eat Dropbox’s lunch.
According to the latest figures, Google Drive is about to hit the 1 billion mark in active users.
The Square Off: Dropbox vs. Google Drive
We’ve met the contestants. And now to look under the hood. Grab some popcorn, and let’s dive right in.
1. Free Storage
Google Drive gives you 15 GB of storage right off the bat. Even though this storage is shared with Gmail and Google Calendar, it’s still a great deal. In comparison, you only get 2 GB of storage for free with Dropbox. Even then, Dropbox allows you to earn more free storage through referrals. You gain an additional 500 MB for every referral. Unfortunately, there’s a 16 GB cap on the free storage. So you have to refer 32 people to get the same storage volume you’re getting on Google Drive for free.
Winner: Google Drive
2. Syncing
Dropbox uses block-level syncing. Sounds complicated? Stick with me for a moment… I’ll explain.
Block-level syncing is an innovative way to upload files to Dropbox servers. When you upload a file the first time, the whole of it gets synced. As a result, syncing may take a bit of time, depending on the file size. But when you make subsequent changes to the file, only the bits that have changed get synced. This way, file syncing is much faster. Pretty neat, huh?
Google Drive downloads and uploads the entire file to sync it. Often, this results in delays when you’re trying to access the latest version of the file from another device. Fortunately, Google runs some of the fastest cloud servers in the world. As a result, the difference in speed between Google Drive and Dropbox may not be noticeable when dealing with small files.
If you have multiple devices connected to the same network, Dropbox makes it easier and faster to sync files through LAN sync. With Google Drive, files have to be uploaded to their servers first and then downloaded to the rest of the devices in the network.
Winner: Dropbox
3. File Sharing
You’ll want to share files with others at some point. File sharing in both Dropbox and Google Drive works in pretty much the same way — via a link. The only difference is that Dropbox allows you to set a password on the shared file. This way, only those with the password can access the file. Even better, you can set an expiry date for the link such that it won’t work after the date passes.
Winner: Dropbox
4. Security
We have some bad news: If you have sensitive files, you might want to avoid storing them in the cloud. Still, you want maximum security for any files you store in the cloud.
Dropbox uses 128-bit AES standard encryption when files are in motion and switches to 256-bit AES encryption when files are at rest. The company also offers two-factor authentication to prevent unauthorized access to your files.
Google Drive uses 256-bit AES standard encryption for files in transit and 128-bit AES standard encryption for files that are at rest. It also supports two-factor authentication.
Winner: Dropbox
Verdict
Drum rolls, please! And the winner is… Dropbox. We find Dropbox to be the superior cloud storage provider in every single aspect. Even then, Google Drive might work for you if you’re just getting started, have limited funds, and don’t have too many files.
