Best cloud storage platforms that make backing up your data a doddle

Everyone has heard of Google, but not all know about the 15GB of free cloud storage you get with every Google account you sign up for. This is a useful amount, though your Gmail inbox and any files you create in Google’s online office suite (Docs, Sheets and Slides, all of which are capable of opening and editing Microsoft Office documents) count toward the total.

Google Drive is among the best cloud storage systems thanks to its ease of use. It has changed a few times since its launch in 2012, and there are slight differences between the implementation of the Google Workspace app offered to companies and the Google Desktop app used by individuals, but the basic way it operates is to sync folders between your computer and the cloud.

A Google One subscription, which offers from 2TB (£79.99 a year) to 30TB (£119.99 a month) of storage on an annual or monthly payment basis, is the easiest way to get more storage. Extra features include a 10 per cent discount on purchases at the Google Store, and a VPN for use with an Android device. Extra editing features appear in Google’s Photos app on Android, you get three months of Stadia gaming and YouTube Premium free, and there are even discounts on hotels to be had.

Founded in 2007 by two students from MIT, Dropbox introduced the concept of cloud storage with synced folders on users’ computers. A Dropbox folder sits on your computer’s hard drive, and its contents are synchronized with an identical copy that exists in the cloud.

Rather than running its own office suite, as Microsoft and Google do, Dropbox takes a different approach to collaboration. Its integrations plug into everything from Salesforce to Slack and Autodesk, which enable files to be held in the cloud and worked on by many hands. Dropbox Paper allows teams to collaborate wherever they are, keeping everyone organised and keeping everything related to meetings in one place.

For most users, though, it’s the cloud storage space that’s going to attract them to Dropbox, with 2TB costing £7.99 a month for one user, and a family plan sharing the same space across six people costing £18 a month. All plans come with 30 days of version history, and your data can be remotely deleted from a lost or stolen device while remaining safely in the cloud.

Microsoft’s cloud storage system is tightly integrated into Windows and with Microsoft Office. This means you can choose which of the common Windows user folders – documents, pictures, videos etc – are backed up rather than having a single folder that’s synced.

OneDrive’s subscription plans often net you some extras, such as Office 365 membership and Skype credit. The family plan (£79.99 a year or £7.99 a month) is the best value, as it offers 1TB of storage each for up to six users, as well as access to the Outlook, Word, Powerpoint and Excel desktop apps. Each user can install these apps on up to five PCs, Macs or mobile devices.

You get an extra-secure personal vault that can scale to your maximum storage limit, which can also be expanded to 1TB for an additional fee. You get 60 minutes of free Skype calls a month, and 30 days of file history. The same plan for one user costs £59.99 a year or £5.99 a month. If you just want a bit more storage, without the other features, you can get 100GB for £1.99 a month.

A more business-focused cloud storage offering than many others, Box dates back to 2005 and was developed partly in an attic and partly in a garage.

Today, those humble beginnings are behind it, and Box is a public company based in California. It offers unlimited storage to its business subscribers, but there are conditions. For a start, you need a minimum of three users, and if you want to upload really big files you’ll need one of the more expensive plans. Individual accounts do exist, including a free option with a useful 10GB of space, but the fact the website defaults to business accounts tells you something about its focus.

For £8 a month, you get 100GB of single-user storage with integrations for Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace, but it doesn’t look like amazing value compared to others.

New Zealand-based Mega makes a big deal about its encryption. Its transfers are end-to-end encrypted the same way WhatsApp chats are, with a key derived from the password you set when you sign up for the service. This way, Mega itself cannot decrypt your data, and can’t give the key to anyone else, because it doesn’t know it. Mega also hosts a secure chat platform, and is unusual in that it charges for data transfer as well as data storage.

A personal account with Mega nets you a very handy 20GB for free, but the amount of data you can transfer back and forth is capped depending on how busy the servers are. To nail down a fixed transfer limit, you’ll need to upgrade. Individual accounts vary from pro I, which offers 2TB of storage and 2TB of data transfer each month for £8.63 a month. There’s an 8TB option for £17.26 and a 16TB plan for £25.90 a month.

Mega is good value, but its security features mean you have to be very careful about never losing your password.

Exclusively for BT Broadband customers, BT Cloud space up to 1TB is given away depending on what your broadband package is, so if you’re a customer, there’s a chance you’ve already got it.

You’re not limited to the amount of storage you’re allotted – for £3 a month you can add 50GB, and an extra 500GB costs £9 a month. Of all the cloud storage providers, BT Cloud is the most basic backup service – you designate the folders you’d like to be mirrored in the cloud, and their contents are uploaded and kept up to date. You can then access this data from browsers and mobile apps.

Privacy enthusiasts will be interested to see that BT Cloud stores all your data within the EU, subject to EU privacy laws, and the company cannot see the content of your backups, just how much space they take up.

The cloud storage service from Apple, you’ll encounter iCloud every time you want to make a backup of the settings from your iPhone or iPad. There’s more to it than that, however, and an upgrade to iCloud+ can net you up to 2TB of cloud storage for £8.99 a month. If that’s too much, try 50GB for 99p, or 200GB for £2.99 a month – the prices for Apple’s iCloud storage increased in June 2023. Additional benefits include a custom email domain and the Hide My Email service that generates random email when signing in to services you’d rather didn’t have access to your main email address.

There’s support for HomeKit secure video cameras, which scales depending on how much storage you sign up for, and access to the beta test of iCloud Private Relay, which operates a bit like a VPN. That last one is subject to geographical restrictions, unfortunately. Your iCloud+ storage and benefits can be shared with five other people.