Dropbox

If you even know that there is such a thing as cloud storage, you most likely know Dropbox. Founded in 2007, the company pioneered the cloud storage market. In the first five years there were 100 million users, in 2016 it was already half a billion.

Dropbox is regarded as the forefather and market leader of modern cloud storage solutions. As a tool from the very beginning, Dropbox gained a lot of experience and learned from past mistakes. Initial security gaps have been consistently closed and new features such as Dropbox Transfer, Smart Sync and Paper have been added. The App Center is brand new, where you can link Dropbox with around 50 external tools and apps to increase your options even further. The price-performance ratio is impressive: you can get 2 TB storage for around 10 euros per month; for business users there is even unlimited storage space in the Advanced or Enterprise tariff. A small drawback: The lack of a web office makes it difficult to work in a team; also, file versioning (which is generally useful) doesn’t always do what it’s supposed to. Another possible exclusion criterion: Dropbox stores your data on US servers by default, unless you negotiate an alternative option with the provider. Apart from that, Dropbox is and will remain a super-solid cloud storage with (almost) everything that goes with it.

Cloud storage is inherent in the fact that many files are uploaded and then downloaded again: Here, speed is crucial. How is Dropbox doing? On average, the provider downloaded files at 8.8 MB / s. While this is a good number, other cloud services were faster. Users also have to be patient when uploading: the speed was a bit slow at 1.2 MB / s. The tests were carried out on different days at different times.

Conclusion
Dropbox has the advantage of the old hand in the test: top equipment, many additional functions and large storage plans. The security is high with the various encryption options and business customers save some of their files on German servers. Uploading photos and personal documents takes a little longer, but can be done automatically if you wish. The data management is one of the best on the market – lots of sharing options, your own apps and good storage management. If you are looking for good cloud storage with affordable prices and easy operation, you will find it at Dropbox.