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Dropbox vs iCloud

S

stockcerts

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Jun 29, 2007
1,307
31
Pensacola, FL
I've been using Dropbox for several years and for the most part it's worked out well. I also use Adobe Lightroom and my catalog file has been kept in Dropbox so I could then access my pictures from my iMac at home, or my iPad Air...wherever I am. I have the free account, but I'm now running out of space and it would cost $20- a month for the next plan. iCloud offers additional storage that would meet my needs for .99 cents a month.

Has anyone else thought about transitioning over to iCloud for file storage? I was thinking I would give it a little more time since it's new.
 
I will dabble in iCloud and let it mature some
Just like I do with Google Drive and OneDrive

I have bought into the Dropbox system and I am very comfortable using it
Would take a lot for me to change completely at this point
 
I only use Dropbox at this point. I have a feeling now that iCloud can accept other documents outside of apple only documents I think more people will use it. I myself, will wait to see how well it works. I do not like the fact, iCloud is limited on space. Heck Apple won't even let you back up an entire 8 gig phone to the it. I feel they should give you the amount of storage you have purchased with a phone or tablet. If I have two devices, add up the space and let me back up both items.

But, Dropbox for me.
 
I've just started using iCloud Drive. Looks interesting. I've used Dropbox for a long time. The last few months it has gotten a lot slower.

I've just started using Air Drop from Yosemite to my iPad. I love it! :D

To get a PDF to my iPad I used to first upload it to Dropbox then download it to the iPad. Now I goes straight to the iPad. Instead of several minutes in each direction this takes just a few seconds. Very cool.
 
I don't use iWork apps too much so the allure of iCloud is less for me. I use OneDrive as it works better with my Office apps.
 
Dropbox recently upgraded me to 1 TB of storage for $9.99 a month. I was giving serious thought to moving to iCloud instead; this amount of storage is what I need and is cheaper than the iCloud alternative.

Additionally, as other posters have noted, there's something to be said for being comfortable with Dropbox. I don't have the luxury of the time required to worry about iCloud Drive and whether it will fill my needs.

I'm an unabashed Apple fanboy, so not buying the Apple offering is tough for me. In this case, however, Dropbox keeps my business ... at least, for the moment.
 
The way iCloud appears to work is a little different than Dropbox and Apple seems to be obfuscating things enough that I'm not sure it'll work well for the things I use Dropbox for: http://arstechnica.com/apple/2014/10/os-x-10-10/15/#icloud-drive

It may be the case that I could just symlink folders that I need to, and things will work how I expect, but I'd like to see it in action first (only have one machine on Yosemite at the moment).

Another thing is that Dropbox is cross platform. I know iCloud works on Windows (which I don't care about), but Dropbox will also work on Android and Linux (which I do care about).

Dropbox pricing is also better. I am paying $10/month for 1TB. iCloud is $10 for 500GB and $20 for 1TB.

Photos is the only thing making me consider iCloud Drive. If the Photos Mac app is a decent replacement for Aperture, and it allows me to easily access all of my photos (including ones shot from other cameras that I've imported into Photos for Mac) from my iPhone, that'll be a compelling reason to purchase more iCloud Drive storage. Though even in that case it might be in addition to Dropbox. I'm currently planning to move my Aperture library into Dropbox.
 
Bear with me, although using a mac book for a over a year now, I am still lost on many things.

I recently upgraded to the Dropbox 1 TB plan. Figured for $99 a year, it was another good back up and a place for all my files.
I still use windows.

My rMBP is 1 TB SSD, 800 for OS and 200 for Bootcamp Win 7

I decided to add my pictures to Dropbox for access across both platforms.
All my pictures are stored on a 4 TB Thunderbolt drive, 288 GB's worth.

Well adding them to "online" Dropbox also adds them to my hard drive partitions.
This results in my Mac HD having only 20 GB of space available and only 32 MB's available on my Bootcamp partition with the obvious error from Dropbox about not completing the sync.

Aside from wasting most of the available space I now have on Dropbox (I did have 4 GB of free space prior) can any of the wizards here recommend something?

I don't "need" to have cloud access to my pictures, the Thunderbolt or a USB 3 drive would suffice. But, what would be best for cross platform access for standard jpegs?

Obviously my windows program cannot access my Thunderbolt drive.
 
After reading about people losing all their documents in iCloud after just reseting their phones I won't be using iCloud for anything serious for quite some time.

It's not that there was a bug. Everything has bugs. It was the way the documents were eradicated from every one of the users' devices, quietly excluded from Time Machine backups, and even Apple technicians couldn't (initially) find them. That's not just one bug, its a systematic failure.

How can anybody let such a scenario happen? Surely the FIRST thing you design in such a system is the failsafe that allows users to recover their important data. There should be checks and double checks that files aren't simply being deleted without trace. There should be back-ups of backups, and the users should be able to see where they are and see how to get them.
 
Stockcerts - you need to re-check the Dropbox plan costs. DB now offers 1TB storage for $9.99/month (or I think, $99/year). Can't beat that deal.

And DB is stable, unlike iCloud and iCloud Drive.

Even though I'm a committed Apple user (iMac, iPad Air, iPhone 6), I like the idea of platform-independence for data storage and syncing. Just look at the example of 1Password. For the last month its iCloud data syncing has been - well, unsettled to say the least, because of the changeover and turmoil with iCloud. Fortunately, 1Password has the option to sync the data vault using Dropbox, so I have been unaffected. And going forward, iCloud will always be Apple-only. Non-Apple apps and other platforms cannot use it.

Dropbox is a great deal, either free or with the 1TB plan. Data is what they do, and they do data syncing right. It just works. Apple does many things, some better than others. And iCloud is not Apple's stellar performer, at least not yet.

Just my $.02.
 
infantrytrophy said:
Stockcerts - you need to re-check the Dropbox plan costs. DB now offers 1TB storage for $9.99/month (or I think, $99/year). Can't beat that deal.

And DB is stable, unlike iCloud and iCloud Drive.

Even though I'm a committed Apple user (iMac, iPad Air, iPhone 6), I like the idea of platform-independence for data storage and syncing. Just look at the example of 1Password. For the last month its iCloud data syncing has been - well, unsettled to say the least, because of the changeover and turmoil with iCloud. Fortunately, 1Password has the option to sync the data vault using Dropbox, so I have been unaffected. And going forward, iCloud will always be Apple-only. Non-Apple apps and other platforms cannot use it.

Dropbox is a great deal, either free or with the 1TB plan. Data is what they do, and they do data syncing right. It just works. Apple does many things, some better than others. And iCloud is not Apple's stellar performer, at least not yet.

Just my $.02.
Click to expand...

If a person has Office 365, he or she can get 1 TB of space for less than what Dropbox charges, provided he or she does a little price shopping. At the moment, you can get a year for less than $60.00 on Amazon. OneDrive raised their single file upload size limit to 10 GB.

I too like Dropbox a lot. But, for the price, I will take a little slower OneDrive's 1 TB.
 
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