![]() ![]() Box comes with twice as much space - 10GB - however it does compromise with one one file version available and a 250MB file size limit. OneDrive’s free account comes with 5GB of storage and the full range of features, including online editing, sharing, the ability to keep desktop files in the cloud to save on space, and 30 days’ version history. Pricing does vary slightly, and depending on which sort of user you are, this could sway your decision somewhat. There’s not a lot that separates these in terms of the plans that are available: both offer free cloud storage options as well as bigger paid-for accounts for personal and business users. Overall, neither cloud service makes it particularly easy to get real-time support, which is a shame. Handily, there’s email, phone and chat support, so it should be easy for users to get support in a timely manner. ![]() Phone support is somewhere in there, too.īox also benefits from a whole range of self-help articles, though these are combined with community threads too so not every solution will have come from Box themselves. Buried deep inside several menus we were able to send off an email, and while response times are reported to be quick, we would prefer to see other options like live chat. Microsoft OneDrive comes with access to a huge number of self-help articles which are great for troubleshooting easy-to-fix concerns, however we were disappointed with how hard it was to get live help. OneDrive took a little longer, however we suspect this might be more to do with the reliability of our connection rather than internal throttling, given the access to advanced throttling controls. Box downloaded the same file in less than two minutes using a 300Mbps connection, which again is a fairly average time compared with other cloud drives we have tested. In our testing, both pieces of software managed to upload a 1GB test file in around five minutes with a 35Mbps upload speed, which is fairly average. Cloud storage reviews: how we tested them.The closest Box comes to this is a warning on its mobile apps when uploading or downloading files over 20MB on mobile data. Options include unlimited, an automatic limit, or a custom limit where the user can set a predetermined maximum bandwidth allowance, in KB/s. Unlike the Box desktop client, OneDrive’s computer software does allow for user control of the network usage. Sharing both within and outside of an organization is about as easy as it gets, too. Team management features are spot on, too, with controls for file access, live collaboration (opens in new tab), and history. That said, if you’re prepared to make that one extra (small) step of opening the correct folder, you can store all manner of documents within it and there’s nothing stopping you from setting up folders for photos, videos, documents, and so on to mirror the setup you may already be used to locally on your hard drive. ![]() It instead occupies a single folder which you can place anywhere in your File Explorer or Finder window. If you’re expecting it to sync files across your entire computer, then you may be disappointed. That said, the desktop client somewhat lets Box down. This all helps to make Box a really powerful tool for companies that rely on various technologies to get their work done. Much like Microsoft OneDrive, Box (opens in new tab) integrates support for Office 365 apps, however these make up just a handful of the more than 1,500 apps supported by the cloud storage drive, including Slack, Adobe, Google Workspace, Airtable, DocuSign, and even automation service IFTTT. There are iOS and Android apps, too, so getting access to your files shouldn’t be an issue wherever you are, as long as you have access to the Internet or you have downloaded files for offline use on your mobile device. Online editing is limited to Microsoft’s own suite of products, so you’ll need to be using apps like Word (opens in new tab) unless you’re prepared to download non-native files and re-upload them after making changes. Yes, there is browser-based access to OneDrive, but this is where things become more limited. This also allows users to open and edit non-Microsoft files (such as those mentioned by Apple, or Photoshop templates, for example) with minimal fuss. For the best experience, users should install the desktop client which handily syncs in the background with no input needed from the user (beyond saving the file in the right place). ![]()
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