OneDrive vs Amazon Drive

[vEEP pEEP]

Hello,

Amazon offers 1TB of space for $59.99 a year and unlimited Photos

Office365 offers 1TB of space and Office for $79.99

I don't really use the Office products at home. Or there is open source, or Google services.

I primarily need storage.

Can someone share their experiences with Amazon Drive and OneDrive - which is better?

Thanks,

Mr. V

 

[neo158]

I can only comment on OneDrive since that's all I use, I use Office quite a but so a 365 subscription for £59.99 a year (Office 365 Personal) makes sense for me and that 1TB of OneDrive space is a massive bonus, for you I suspect it would be the other way around.

Using OneDrive also allows me to save directly to it from Office as well as store music there to play back on other devices via Groove.

 

[ochhanz]

I prefer onedrive since I can easily access it also through web outlook and through my lumia phone. Also not sure if I personally would trust Amazon with personal files, since like Google their advertisement etc money I think seems to be more important for their business. (with them trying out ads for their Alexa speakers etc, and their dirt cheap tablets where you as a customer seem to be more the product for them)

 

[Ryujingt3]

I also only use OneDrive. Seeing as OneDrive can sync music with Groove (and all other cloud services can't) that is why I mainly stick with OneDrive. However, based on what you have listed as your requirements then Amazon Drive may be the better and cheaper option if you do not use Office 365 services.

 

[nate0]

I have a 50GB subscription to 1 drive. AmazonDrive? Never heard of it, but it does not surprise me

 

[vEEP pEEP]

Thanks everybody!
for fun: https://www.cloudberrylab.com/blog/ms-onedrive-vs-google-drive-vs-cloud-drive/

Amazon is very basic - it is just a giant file share. But I am an Amazon Prime member. So it makes sense

As MS gets rid of mobile (by Groove), I am probably headed towards Android. Not giving my money to MS - especially after the dropped W10m and then wanted to scale back on the 15GB for free on OneDrive. I don't trust them for consumer services. I can see them backing out and totally going for the business market.

Or go to google....

OneDrive does have a decent search on it - can recognize objects (search for 'boat' and boats appear) but I Amazon can develop this stuff too.

Anyhow - thanks for sharing your thoughts - appreciated!

 

[rollindice]

i'm amazon prime member and also Office 365 Home user, Onedrive rules, hands down, sharing my benefits with other members and each gets 1TB storage also for 99 bucks a year, no question.

 

[Scott McBurney]

I have an Office 365 subscription, the one that is for up to 5 users / 5 computers. It lets you connect up to 5 Microsoft accounts to the subscription (each getting 1tb of space), and install the full office suite on up to 5 computers, and gives each account 60 skype minutes per month too. I wouldn't have it any other way, since it runs on every platform out there, and you can get web access to your files from anywhere. And the file storage is not limited to only office documents, OneDrive on a PC will synchronize anything and everything. And it keeps file history too! (that has come in handy a few times)

 

[Jared Parkinson]

Over the past year I have used all three services. OneDrive through both normal OneDrive and OneDrive for Business, Google Drive, and Amazon Cloud storage. They have all had their ups and downs, with syncing issues and sharing issues, but Amazon topped the list as having the most issues. Uploading anything failed more often than not, and uploaded files were often corrupted. It doesn't have a sync client that is in any way similar to OneDrive or Google Drive, although third parties attempt to fix that issue. The price for 1 TB of storage on Amazon is not worth the frustration. They have put absolutely no thought into the service, other than to put it out there.


Comparing two services that actually work, OneDrive and Google Drive are fairly similar in terms of quality. They can both store more photos than I have taken in my entire life, and they both provide workable office suites.

For my daily life I primarily use OneDrive. It does a better job at being both an online service and a local service. I found Google Drive works best if you only use a web browser, which I don't.

As for the free tier issues and Groove, I don't see those as any indication on the future of consumer OneDrive. I used and loved Groove, but it sadly never go the attention from anyone that it deserved. OneDrive has never been that way. It is directly attached to one of Microsoft's most successful products in both consumer and business, and that product also doesn't seem to be going away anytime soon. Groove stood all on its own, and met a sad end.

 

[Hirox K]

I upload my photos (raw) and projects to a private SVN, it has infinite size. I use gPhoto for selected photos for quick access and sharing (free service).

I use OneDrive mostly for system stuff, app sync & software settings. e.g. My hack tools / scripts, OneNote, wallpapers, emulator ROM&save for Xboxes and Win10, Portable Apps, etc. I still have my free 30GB.
I prefer OnDemand on all my Win10 devices (I bet it will work on future ARM devices, small or large screen) cause it syncs quicker and I don't need all my files locally all the time. Unfortunately OnDemand is not possible to intergrade on Android or older Windows.

Movie and that... I buy'em digitally or I just watch it on Netflix.

 

[kingtigre]

OneDrive is the better solution IMO. Especially if you are on a Windows PC.

Files-on-demand is a killer feature. Automatic backups and excellent search capability. My wife, and my friend both piggy back on my account and get Office and storage as well. Even if it were just storage, I'd still pick OneDrive.

 

[Philip Oswald]

I use both and I wish that weren't the case.

I'm a professional photographer, and so I had hoped to use OneDrive for backing up my RAW files back when they offered unlimited OneDrive space to Office 365 members (like me!). Now that we're back down to 1 TB max, I've blown well past that limit and needed to look for a service that could handle unlimited storage. OneDrive has been rock solid and dependable for me as far as interface on the web and phone app, as well as in consistent file syncing.

I also happen to be an Amazon Prime member, and since Prime members get unlimited photo storage (not all files, just unlimited photos) I figured I'd try it out. My experience has been poor so far. The Windows App for the Amazon Drive is slow, error prone, and often fails to complete my syncing process. I use this app because it is required to sync files to my computer, but the syncing often breaks and Amazon tech support hasn't given much help along the way other than asking to see my error logs in case they can find a solution for the future. The app also occasionally creates a lot of disk activity, slowing down my machine significantly while it is syncing.

Keep in mind that I'm talking about storing and syncing a large number of files. But I will say that OneDrive has seamless, while Amazon feels shaky.

Hope that helps!

 

[Guytronic]

Amazon isn't the best I found it difficult to use and ultimately expensive with the prime subscription.
OneDrive was easier to use however I don't use it either after having to pay up to access older files after my free 1TB expired.
My original MS account was somehow wiped resulting in a loss of around 3000 images and files so it's a bit difficult for me to trust MS services at this time.

 

[Wevenhuis]

I would choose onedrive. Amazon is not a common household name in Europe. You get a onedrive with every microsoft account you open. It is well integrated in the windows ecosystem. Price is a personal choice, but in terms of convenience it is a no brainer.

 

[redevall]

One Drive, but like some others ha enough noted, MSFT has a history of reducing storage space, "on the fly", as it were after marketing it, and surprise, people using it.

 

[onlysublime]

Amazon or Google is not a great place to store quality photos if quality is your thing. Amazon and Google do not let you keep the original photo quality. All photos get "optimized" and compressed through their services. That is how they offer a lot of storage space. Not a big deal if all you take are smartphone pictures. But if you value quality and have a DSLR or mirrorless camera, then you want a repository of your photos in their original size and format so Flickr becomes a fantastic option. Flickr gives you 1 TB for free.

I think the Office/OneDrive deal is a much better deal than what Amazon offers.

I don't like Google because of compression but what really riles me up about Google is how they count Google Drive space and photos against your Gmail. So you get 15 GB through a Google account. So once you run out of space, you are locked out of receiving new emails or composing new emails. My father has to routinely go through and delete emails which takes hours as Google has no easy way to rapidly save and delete bulk emails sorted by size. It's a blatant push toward paying for additional Google Drive storage. Microsoft doesn't do the same with Outlook.com and OneDrive.

I also use OneDrive for photo archiving but only as a desperation situation. I don't trust OneDrive like I don't trust most photo archival cloud solutions in retaining original quality. It's just there in case my phone or computer dies and I didn't feel like uploading to my Flickr which retains my high quality images.

As for the comment that Microsoft lowers storage capacity while others do not, for one thing, other services never offered "unlimited storage". The ones that did are no longer in business. So to go from unlimited storage to industry levels of storage capacity is reasonable. So 1 TB or 1000 GB is still immensely large compared to the typical levels you get with DropBox, Google Drive, etc. After years of DropBox referrals, my DropBox size is still tiny.

 

[Guytronic]

Could be wrong here, yet I see cloud storage becoming not a popular option for the non professional user.
I'm preferring local storage lately since I can OTG to other drive options or move photos from my camera via app or USB.

 

[Adventurer64]

I subscribe to Office 365 ($99 plan with 5 accounts at 1 TB each) and it's the best deal out there. Works great with all my devices including PC's, tablets and Android phones.

 

[Tjarren]

Onedrive is $69.99/yr with Office 365, not $79.99.

 

[Mauro Cutrona]

I prefer OneDrive. I have a Windows pc and a phone, so it's very convenient to have everything synchronized. The service is great, always available, the files are downloaded quickly, the files are loaded slowly. Access is quick from Bing or Outlook. I have never had any problems, the space is ample and the offers are good.