While the interface scores highly for ease of use, it's a bit bare-bones in terms of functionality. This shouldn’t be too much of an issue if your plan is to leave the desktop client to run in the background, but if you need quick access to a large file that’s stored in the cloud, you may find yourself waiting a little longer than expected.

In our testing, file transfers were a little slow compared with some key rivals like Microsoft OneDrive and iCloud Drive. We like the way that you can pick any file or folder from your computer and choose to upload them, and the way you can carry out one-off backups as well as keeping specific folders monitored, and overall the desktop applications and web interface are polished enough. It also now includes the ability to sync, Dropbox-style, providing a means to automatically secure new files without any extra user effort. (Image credit: Amazon) Amazon Drive interfaceĪs we've said, there are a few confusing aspects to Amazon Drive, not least that the software you download to your computer is called Amazon Photos – that suggests that it just deals with your photo library, but in fact the tool will secure any folder or file irrespective of type. It’s best to think of the service as a digital photo library, with the option to archive files in the Amazon Drive section of the cloud service. The inability to edit files online also presents its own limitations. Users looking to store documents in the cloud will be disappointed with the lack of file versioning - a feature of both Google Drive and Microsoft OneDrive. If you're going to make use of Amazon Drive, it's likely to be because of Amazon Photos (and we wouldn't be surprised if Amazon Drive gets phased out, eventually). Again, the focus seems to be on media backups.Īmazon Drive actually has a link to Amazon Photos right in the main navigation bar, and if you make the jump over you get a few extras: smarter search, photo editing, and more. Actually, you don't get many of the features offered by competing services – features like selective syncing, scheduled backups, or an online office suite you can use in your browser. He also owns about 4% of the company.There's not really any two-way syncing, file versioning, or complete backups for your devices. He wears bright sneakers with snazzy business outfits.

A University of Southern California dropout, Levie founded Box out of his dorm room in 2005. About 275,000 companies use Box.Īaron Levie, 30, is what you might expect of a Silicon Valley executive. But the services all target different markets, and Box’s strength could be its popularity among large companies. Several top companies are offering cloud-based storage, with products like Amazon Web Services, Google Drive, Microsoft’s OneDrive, Apple’s iCloud, and Dropbox all competing for users. Last year, Box acquired MedXT to let customers in medicine annotate medical images, and the company has been attracting executives from the law, retail, health care and media worlds. It’s aiming a lot of its services toward particular industries, including health care and retail, by creating purpose-built sharing tools. About 99% of its 32-million users are employees from Fortune 500 companies.

Appbox and amazon drive