In-depth Review of DropBox Online Storage Solution

Overview and History
Dropbox has been around for a couple of years and they have done excellent things in that tiny amount of time. In particular their VoteBox system that invites you to select which changes they work on nextGreat approach. There are three options: 1 free and 2 premium or pro options. The free edition gives 2 Gb wheras the Pro versions supply you with 50 or 100 Gb. Backup and syncing are simple to configure and work persistently behind the scenes making this a genuine “set it and forget it” utility. DropBox also give the option for limitless file versioning as an additional feature to the Pro editions.

Handheld devices are totally supported with apps for iPhone and iTouch and a website for internet enabled devices. Collaboration functions include public and private file and folder sharing as well as commenting on files and folders. With many more features in on the way. Photo albums and video streaming are also supported. To get you started on the right track: If you follow their ‘getting started guide’ and carry out 5 of the 6 steps you are rewarded with an extra 250Mb of storage! Brilliant! If you want even more storage, then invite friends and you get another 250Mb per referral up to a limit of 8Gb.

Dropbox was incorporated by Drew Houston and Arash Ferdowsi in 2007, and got seed funding from Y Combinator. Today, Dropbox is well-funded by Sequoia Capital, Accel Partners, and Amidzad. After launching publicly in September of 2008, they have taken on in excess of 3 million users and are growing rapidly. They have been featured in the New York Times and on TechCrunch, and have won awards from places like PC Magazine and CNET. Their enthusiasm is creating a utility that really delivers and putting it in millions of people's hands.

Security Features
DropBox has average security: The web site is SSL encrypted with a requirement for a username and password to get to your files. File transfers are protected with SSL encryption and when on their servers, your data is encrypted with 256 AES encryption. Additionally, they use the Amazon AWS service which is supported by the Amazon name and quality stamp.

Backup Abilities
Non-stop and ‘Block Level’ backups are used to guarantee your files are continually protected. Even open files are backed up on a continual basis thanks to the use of 'Block level Incremental Backups' which means that DropBox only uploads the parts of a file that have been changed, rather than the entire file.
Adding files and folders to the DropBox backup schedule is a snap: Just select the files you would like to to protect and select 'backup with DropBox'. Alternative versions of files are stored so you can always restore an earlier edition of a file if you overwrote it. There is also a status indicator to indicate how the archive is progressing.
Unfortunately network and removable drives are not supported and prefessional databases for example, exchange and SQL server are not supported directly.

File Sharing and Collaboration
Files can be shared publicly – Which lets the world to see them – or privately where you setup access rights to specific files and folders for each person or group.
Photo Albums are also supported and are sharable either publicly or privately.
A comment can be attached to each file that is shared and viewers can be allowed to add additional comments to create a discussion about a particular file or folder.

Synchronization
Synchronization is supported between different machines and between devices and the web portal. An excellent feature is the LAN synchronization. This allows users on the same network (home or work) to quickly synchronize changes via the in-house network without going to the internet first. This greatly reduces your internet bandwidth overhead.

Customer Support
There is no phone, live chat or direct email customer support available. There are however, many other ways to get advice available: You can contact support via a web form on their site; there is an extensive knowledgebase and FAQ section; the online help is thorough to a practical level. There are also tutorials, a demo and case studies available. That said, by far the most useful resources for self-help are the forum and blog. These are full of valuable advice and support from both the DropBox employees and clients using the service.

Conclusion
DropBox is very straightforward to install and use. It provides almost all the features of a well thought out online storage solution: Backup, Web portal, multi-machine synchronization, file-versioning, online photo albums and file sharing. The only functionality not present is integration with web sites to permit you to amend and create files directly in your DropBox. The pricing is not bad however there are better options available if you want more than 100Gb. The security is very good and the customer support is good, although the lack of phone, web chat and direct email support is a bit restrictive. The forum and blog are great locations to get your questions solved. If you need an all-round online storage solution then DropBox is an excellent choice.

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For more in-depth information on DropBox and additional Online Backup Solutions visit the author's website: savvyITsolutions.com

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