A few weeks ago I blogged about the new online storage service from Trend Micro called SafeSync and compared it to Dropbox, and ultimately I preferred Trend Micro – visit te port for more info. The main reason I preferred SafeSync was due to the unlimited storage for £22 but I’ve changed my mind…
Over the past week or so I got a Buzz (Google) from someone I’ve heard off, followed up by an email. It seems this (very honest) person somehow got access to some of my files on SafeSync. On checking it seems I’d ‘shared’ a particular folder with four people I’ve never heard of. I contacted Trend Micro who told me it must have been something I’d done that caused (of course it wasn’t them!) and that I should change my password on my account on my laptop. Instead of getting into a lengthy argument on the issue I’ve just decided to leave it as is with a black mark against it.
One other point I found about SafeSync v Dropbox, the visual notification on Dropbox i.e. icon, showing you what has been updated is much more useful than I originally gave it credit for. While using SafeSync, about half through uploading my 14,000 files the number of files to be uploaded jumped from 7,000 to 9,000 files. Now I don’t know what caused this jump in number of files (that’s another issue) but that’s when I suddenly realised I had no idea which had already been uploaded. The Dropbox status icon is therefore really handy, you can find this out with SafeSync by right clicking on the file.
Scores – Revised
So a revised score is as follows…
- Installation/config – Pretty much the same, install the app and select the files/folders you want to sync/backup – Draw
- Sharing – Suddenly unknown people have access to my file via SafeSync – SafeSync loses, -4 points
- Web Portal Playback – Pretty much the same, both offer a media playback option from their websites i.e. photo galleries work, MP3 playback works (not really tried anything else) – Draw
- Visual backup notification – Dropbox wins, you can see immediately what has been backed up, SafeSync is disappointing – Dropbox wins +4points
- Web Portal Usage – Quite subjective but Dropbox is probably better – Dropbox wins +1point
- Storage/Price – SafeSync is unlimited for £22, no competition – SafeSync wins +4points
- Community – Dropbox has a thriving community that supports each other, and which Dropbox are involved in, SafeSync is poor in this respect – Dropbox wins +2points
- Other – The SafeSync online folder also appears as a mapped drive, might be useful – SafeSync wins +2point
Score – Dropbox 7points, SafeSync 2points.
So due to recent issues with SafeSync I’ve experienced Dropbox is now my preferred option, but unlimited storage for £22 is still attractive…
One huge thing Safesync has in its favour, although I am a big fan of Dropbox too, is that you can synch’ any folder on your computer with a mirrored folder in Safesync. With Dropbox, everything to be synch’ed needs to be inside the My Dropbox folder tree. There are workarounds for Dropbox, involving junction points, but these are too techie for most users.
I also jumped on safesync bandwagon thinking it was unlimited. But for the first year only, they recently changed it to limited storage – 20, 50, 100GB and pricing is outrageous now. So yes, Safesync sucks!!!!
You might look at Cloud Drive from rackspace.com. I was looking for a workgroup solution and it ticked lots of boxes for me (sync any local folder to an online folder, use file and folder name filters to exclude data from sync etc). The personal edition looks pretty good too.
Not sure how it compares on pricing though.
I tried out Cloud Drive the other day and it seems to be an Amazon interface (via JungleDisk) which I gave up on in about 1 hour of tinkering….. I really, REALLY wish SafeSync didn’t pull the ‘bait and switch’ as I can’t find a good alternative that has built-in video and gallery support (when it decides to actually work). I wish that Humyo would have expanded and did their own thing instead of selling their almost-finished product to Trend Micro. I have about 4 months to find a new service……..I’m testing Dropbox now…….but damnnit, I still wanna love Safesync/Humyo if they weren’t so dirty with their tactics! Still shopping for my best alternative to Safesync…………………..
The best thing about DropBox is that it is able to sync TrueCrypt containers.
And: DropBox is doing it incrementally, not like other CloudStorages that transfer the complete encrypted container anew.
This means real security. This is fast. This is smart.