The Limitations of Free Cloud Storage
When you purchase just about any type of electronic device lately, including a laptop, tablet, smartphone or something else, it will come with some type of free cloud storage. If you are purchasing an Apple or Microsoft product, you will get a cloud storage account furnished by them directly and if you purchase another company’s device, you might get a free cloud storage plan that is furnished by one of their partners or someone they recommend. As a third option, you can make your own choice if what they offer doesn’t appeal to you.
With any free cloud storage offering, there will be one or more limitations. Almost always, the main limitation will be storage space. Others will limit bandwidth or other features, such as user and device access, security, automation, etc. Those plans, although they will take care of smaller, more basic needs, will not be ideal for everyone, especially when there are hundreds of gigabytes and even terabytes to back up and store.
The onboard space available on certain devices such as smart phones and tablets is very small to begin with, designed to save manufacturing costs and keep the MSRP on the product as low as possible. With the iPhone, for example, you will already pay over $600 for a base model with just 8GB of storage, which can be consumed very quickly with even a modest music and picture library, without even addressing videos. Increasing the onboard storage to 32 or 64GB can cost an extra $200-$300 depending on how new the model is, and may still not even be enough to contain your files. It is also very cost prohibitive for most average people, and not a good investment choice in a business setting.
Newer laptop-tablet hybrids, such as the Microsoft Surface, present a similar problem. They advertise 128GB of storage on their base models, but when you purchase the product and boot it up, you quickly discover that over 40% of that capacity is already taken up with the Windows OS and factory installed apps. So you are right back down to 64GB or so of storage, except you have a device that can do everything a computer can do, which requires a lot more storage space than a smart phone that is designed to hold pictures, music and small videos. This creates an even more costly problem, because you now have to invest in a USB backup drive that is insecure, expensive and susceptible to theft, fire, etc.
With each of these options, you end up with limited storage capacity and the free storage accounts offered with the devices that are so prohibitive and limited that they are hardly even with the bother of utilizing. If you want to back up your phone data, it might be fine and perfectly convenient, but more and more people are complaining about even that coming up short.
A good paid cloud storage plan can solve all of those problems, at far less of a cost than you might think. With OpenDrive, for as little as $12.95 per month, you can get unlimited storage and 100GB per day of download bandwidth. Although it might appear to be low, this is what you can do with 100GB of download bandwidth in one day that you can’t do with a free cloud storage plan with 1-2GB of daily bandwidth at the most:
- Listen to 68,000 MP3s
- Watch 80 high definition movies
- Download over 400,000 pictures
- Share and edit millions of Office documents
When you put that into perspective, the 100GB of daily bandwidth that OpenDrive offers for just $5 per month is more than one person can use in one day. There just aren’t enough hours. But with the free cloud storage options offered with the devices you purchase, you will find yourself out of room very quickly. It’s not worth the hassle of the limitations.
It’s far better to save your money by buying a quality product without having to pay for extra onboard storage. Instead, you can have an OpenDrive storage account that will allow syncing and backup of all of your devices for the same extremely affordable price. Even for the personal home user, the convenience is well worth the $12.95 per month, which is half the price of Netflix streaming service and just half the price of pizza takeout on a Saturday night. You can’t go wrong with OpenDrive’s Personal Unlimited accounts, and we invite you to give them a try today and save 10% on any unlimited plan.
Take a drive with OpenDrive today!
