When it comes to the iPad (or any tablet for that matter) cloud storage is your best friend. Accessible by your desktop computer and your tablet, you can easily move files from one device to the next, access files on the go, or place files into the cloud for a little extra security. But which one do you choose? Is one better than the rest? How do you decide?
And after the list of storage providers I will also list out Cloud storage managers. These are companies that understand that you may sign up to multiple cloud storage providers and have created tools so you can access them all in a central location.
If you know of others, please add them to the comments!
CLOUD STORAGE PROVIDERS (click titles to go to websites)
Receive 2GB of free storage. 250MB more for each friend you refer up to 16GB. Dropbox is (IMHO) the best cloud storage out there. It integrates easily on to your Mac or PC, and also appears in many of your iPad apps. This makes life to easy when you want to transfer files back and forth between devices.
Start with 5GB of free space. It’s not bad, but (IMHO) it’s more used as a backup repository. There is no desktop application as you have to transfer your files through a web browser. And you can readwrite to your files in certain apps, but you can’t seem to delete them. You have to get into the box.net website in order to do that.
Start with 25GB of space. Again, there’s not desktop application so you have to be able to transfer through a browser. If you’re a heavy Google user this will benefit you as it will integrate into all your Google apps.
Have a Hotmail or Windows Live account? Then you probably already have a OneDrive account with 25GB of storage space. What uses it in iPad apps? Not a lot really that I’ve come across. Microsoft’s new OneNote for iPad app syncs with OneDrive and Office2013 applications will use this as their primary cloud source.
Have iPad? Have iCloud! You can’t really utilize iCloud the way you can the rest of the cloud storage out there. It’s pretty much drawn out there that you can use it for certain features built into the iPad. You can backup your iPad here. Sync your mailcalendarcontacts here. And you can sync documents, but I believe it’s pretty limited to only Apple products (ie: iWorks apps)
CLOUD STORAGE MANAGERS
Once you sign up to a variety of cloud storage, then you start to wonder….how can I combine these and make them work for me? At least… that was the question I asked after signing up to a handful of these clouds. Luckily there are a few out there that have asked the same question and have actually created programs to allow you to access multi-clouds from one location.
Otixo doesn’t actually give you any space, but it allows you to combine your cloud storage from Dropbox, Box.net, Google Docs, Sugarsync, Picasa, MobileMe, AmazonS3 and FTPWebDav drives. They’ve actually built an online app. Accessible through a web browser you can move files between cloud drives. This way if your iPad app only has Dropbox access, and the file you need is on Sugarsync Otixo will help you move it from one cloud drive to the other.
And it’s FREE!