Goodbye Dropbox. Hello Google Drive!

Sat, Mar 26, 2016

Yep, that’s right. I finally made the switch from Dropbox to Google Drive. Dropbox is great. They have awesome and intuitive UI, and still the best UI among competitors so far. Their file sync process is simple but admirable. Instead of syncing the whole changed file, they only sync the difference. Reduce lots of network bandwidth and syncing time. So why the switch?

Storage is the biggest issue.

Even with edu accounts and lots of extra storage for completing Dropquests, my Dropbox limit is still far less than I need. 27GB is far less than 2PB (yes, 2PB) Google Drive offered.

Dropbox used to have edge advantages. Now, not so much.

Five years ago, Dropbox is the only choice. Fast and intuitive UI and also the syncing process. Now, Google Drive has almost everything. Camera Upload? Yes. Selective Sync? Yes. Revision? Yes. Sharing? Of course Yes.

The only thing that Google Drive does not have is Fast sync. Google Drive still upload the whole modified file instead of only the difference. But my need has changed since five years ago. I used to use Dropbox for my thesis because they have revisions. Whenever I made something wrong, I can easily go to Dropbox and select the right revision to restore. Now I only used cloud storage for “storage”. I no longer need to keep revisions. Therefore, the switch is inevitable.

The pace of Dropbox’s innovation.

They acquired Mailbox, and killed it. They used to have a great Photo app called Carousel, but also killed it. They introduced a syncing platform for app a few years ago, but it does not directly add any value to end user experience.