Combining services to create synergy

Using services like cloud storage can add many benefits to you or your company. It allows you to store a number of files on another server, where you can access those files at any given time and from any computer or device that can connect to the Internet. Services such as Amazon Cloud Storage and SugarSync, offer a free starting storage of 5 GB. For most people, this is more than enough to hold their documents, but pictures and music may be another story. What I have found, is that cloud storage such as Google Drive (5 GB) and Microsoft SkyDrive (7 GB) are the best place to hold my Google Docs and Office documents, respectively. Cloud storage such as DropBox (2 GB) and SugarSync (5 GB) can be used to hold other files such as music and pictures. You could even go as far as keeping only pictures on DropBox, while music is located on SugarSync's cloud storage servers. These services can also be expanded for free, DropBox offers a max of 18 GB for free, for referring additional friends to use the service (500 MB per referral). You can also gain additional storage by signing up for other offers, such as Netflix. Below is a table that shows popular cloud services, the amount of free storage they offer, and the minimum/maximum data available for users who would like to pay for more space.

The biggest concern with cloud storage is security. It may have you wondering "who can see my data that is on the cloud?" DropBox has claimed that they do encrypt your data, but they are also able to decrypt, or review, the data at any time. This has created a lot of concern by consumers for services, like cloud storage. One way to combat this, however, is to use a product that was not meant for use on the cloud, but certainly can be; that product is TrueCrypt. TrueCrypt is defined, via their website, as "free open-source on-the-fly disk encryption." It is a tool that allows the user to create encrypted files or container/folders of files. It is similar to creating a password protected .zip file, but offers more than just that. TrueCrypt allows you to create a folder (within a cloud storage service, such as DropBox) so that only those with the password, can view what the volume contains in your cloud folder. TrueCrypt also allows for customization of your encryption, meaning you can use different algorithms like AES, Serpent, Twofish and 5 combinations of these algorithms. You can also use TrueCrypt on your personal computer to encrypt the entire hard disk, so that a password is required to boot.

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Sources: http://lifehacker.com/5794486/how-to-add-a-second-layer-of-encryption-to-dropbox
All table data was taken directly from websites on 10/10/2012.