Dropbox Review: The Best Cloud Storage for Business

With the many cloud services available for us, we are often in doubt what cloud service to choose. And, let me be honest with you, I tried many of them, including Dropbox, which is one of my favorite cloud services. Have you ever heard of Dropbox? Chances are that you are, as it has over 500 million users around the world and it’s one of the most popular and reliable cloud services at the moment. But, don’t let me waste your time, let’s jump straight to the review of Dropbox.

Dropbox Performance and Features

First up, is performance. Here, we are going to talk about upload and download speeds, as well as features of Dropbox. I bought 1TB of storage space for this review, to test download and upload speeds. First is upload (backup) speed. Backup is very fast here, and I was impressed to see that it recorded the speed needed to back up 1TB of data in around Ten days. That’s some lightning-fast performance! In my other tests, an average backup speed for 1TB of data is around twenty days, and this gives you an insight of how fast Dropbox is. It’s amazing!

The download speed, or restore speed is good, but compared to backup speed, I’m not that impressed. Not that it’s slow or something, but not that great as upload speed, and this is the problem I addressed in the past few articles, that the main concern is back up, and not both backup and restoration. Nevertheless, the speed is average at best, and Dropbox is surely one of the fastest cloud storages I’ve ever used; got to give props to that!

While allowing you to simply upload and download files, Mega also offers features regarding data-backup protection, file-sharing capabilities and device syncing. I know that these features are more or less standard for cloud services, but that’s what I expected. Nothing out of the ordinary, but just mentioned for you to know.

Dropbox Ease of Use

While the overall performance of Dropbox is quite impressive, I was a little let down by the Ease of Use. I’ll start with the backup process. As the backup is completed completely within a sync folder, and the process is a relatively simple thing to do, I was negatively surprised to see that there are no further options. For example, I wanted to access some settings and features form the sync folder, but Dropbox decided to go against my will. I mean… why? I’m an experienced user of some cloud services, but I still found it a little confusing, and if you are a novice, well… you’ll need some time to get used to it.

When it comes to file restoration, there is an even bigger disappointment. Thet backup process was not that hard, but not that simple, being a little confusing, while the restoration process can be hard for newbies. If you have a Dropbox app, you’ll have to ditch it if you want to restore your files. Instead, you must use your PC to open your web browser, go to Dropbox website, log in, and then you can restore your files. Then, you will be prepared a ZIP file that you can download. Again, this is just a simple overview of the download process, and I count that there are like ten steps to it which is odd. Overall, the Ease of Use is a let-down here. I expected more from Dropbox, but it kind of felt short of my expectations. Still, I got used to it, but I would like a little more simplicity here.

Security

If you read my articles, you probably know that I’m a little harsh when it comes to security, but I won’t be to Dropbox. They are using 256-bit AES encryption which is a VERY strong protection, and it’s uncrackable, with almost the zero chances of hacking. Dropbox, however, doesn’t offer a private encryption key which means that the developers and employees of Dropbox can access your files at any time. No, I’m not bashing Dropbox, as it’s a very professional company, but I’m explaining how the protection or lack of protection works in some cases.

I’m aware that Dropbox is a file-syncing and sharing service, so this is the reason for the absence of encryption key. How would you share a file with your friend with your private encryption key? You would need to go to his place, enter your key and let him access it, but that’s really odd way to do it, right? Overall, I like Dropbox’s security and would gladly upload my files there, which I did for this review.

Pricing

For a month-to-month option, $9.99 for 1TB of storage isn’t much. You can also pay $99 once and get a full year of 1TB of storage per month. I’ve used that plan for this review, and I think it’s valuable for the price. For a large family of PCs, Dropbox charges $20 for each computer, and when you put it to the paper, it’s $100 a year, which comes at the same. For a small family, it’s less than $35 a year, which is still cheap in my opinion. However, Dropbox isn’t the cheapest cloud service I’ve used, but having in mind that it’s one of the most reliable and fastest cloud services, this price is absolutely okay with me.

Verdict

It all boils down to a verdict, in the end. So, is Dropbox a worthy cloud service? If you don’t believe me, ask those 500 million users around the world, and they’ll tell you the same as I am going to tell you- Yes, it is! Its price is in place, performance is great, with high upload and good download speeds, and the security is still a great deal here, offering a 256-bit AES encryption. However, I was a little disappointed with the Ease of Use, which could be imagined and done better, but nothing too serious. I will gladly purchase the next subscription plan upon expiration this one.

Go to Dropbox Website