Free or paid alternatives to OneDrive

Hi all,


When I was traveling all the time due to work I started using One Drive as the place to store all of my personal documents and files due to the fact that I use my personal MS account to sign into all of my desktop and laptop devices.

I have recently stopped traveling and have settled down and am living in one location for the first time in over 20 years.

I don't trust Microsoft as far as I can throw them so I want to find a viable (free or paid, both will get looked at) alternative online storage option for my files. I realize I can use a portable HDD but I'd prefer something online as I said.


Thanks in advance for any and all helpful replies.


- BJR

There are lots to choose from the main one being Google who give unlimited storage for photos and 15 gigs free for Google drive they have an automated backup which will backup files within mins. It all depends what your requirements are and the type and size of files

Try GroupDrive. It is a paid alternative, but it is very reasonable and you only pay for the storage you use. Also has some cool security features that others don't have.

Jottacloud

https://www.jottacloud.com/en/

Unlimited = 10TB

There's also Box and DropBox. Both have free as well as paid plans.

sync.com

cereberus said:

MS probably have the best server infrastructure and backup system in the world. You know your data will never get lost.

In any other service, how can you be sure company does not fold commercially?

Put it this way - if MS fail, the world is in deep dung.

I would not trust anybody else!

If you are making a silly gibe at spying or whatever, what makes you think other companies are not doing worse?

The old phrase "Better the devil you know...." totally applies here.

Don't read too much into my comment please... I just don't trust them and am a very private person. I'm going to disassociate my pc from my Microsoft account and wanted some options as I have a lot of personal things on Onedrive.

Thanks all for the suggestions I will look into all of them.

roblinb said:

Don't read too much into my comment please... I just don't trust them and am a very private person. I'm going to disassociate my pc from my Microsoft account and wanted some options as I have a lot of personal things on Onedrive.

Thanks all for the suggestions I will look into all of them.

If you are a very private person and can't trust Microsoft, then you simple cannot use online storage. There is no reliable method to store your files in the cloud while being sure the company won't go under, or won't be doing some sort of analytics on your data (and that's a maybe).

The only other option is to setup your own private server, and to do your own off-site backups of your server regularly, and have that server open up to the internet. Likely this will limit your abilities to access the files on your phone or other certain devices, but it's just a sacrifice you'll have to make if you want something that you know is TRULY only in your hands. This kind of setup will cost thousands.

Don't expect full privacy, reliability, and ease-of-access to all come free or even cheap. You can either pick 2 of those three things, or you can pay exorbitant amounts of money to setup your own personalized solution.

TechGuru said:

If you … can't trust Microsoft, then you simple cannot use online storage.

I agree. I've been using various MS storage facilities—email, files, company intranet, etc—for nearly 20 years without a problem. Please let us know if you find an objectively more trustworthy solution, many people would be interested in a second option.

The only other option is to setup your own private server, and to do your own off-site backups of your server regularly, and have that server open up to the internet. … This kind of setup will cost thousands.

You don't need a private server, a shared one will do just fine with a reputable host. I've been using Namecheap for $30/month for years for my company websites, and backup my critical local files there periodically. To access the files remotely, you ideally need FTP software, but you can do so via browser—but that's much slower for more than a few files. Look into their $15/year option if 20GB is enough space.

Namecheap has been my domain registrar for ~15 years, so I trust them nearly as much as MS.