The cloud is full of free storage, if you know where to look.
From Box to DropBox, Google to Apple, there’s plenty of free storage to be had in the cloud. Many companies use free cloud storage as a way to entice users into their clouds in hopes that they will pay more for additional storage.
Below, in alphabetical order, are 18 free cloud services – but a word of warning: The market for free cloud storage is volatile and offers from these vendors can change frequently, including being eliminated with little or no warning.
+ ALSO ON NETWORK WORLD: 7 ways to supercharge your personal cloud storage+
Amazon Cloud
The deal: 5GB free in S3; free unlimited photo storage for Amazon Prime customers.
Details: Amazon Web Service’s business-oriented cloud storage service named Simple Storage Service (S3) has a tier of up to 5GB of free storage. On the consumer side, Amazon Prime members get free unlimited cloud storage for photos in Amazon Cloud Drive with their subscription, which costs $99 per year and includes free two-day shipping on eligible Amazon.com products. For non Amazon-prime members, unlimited photos can be stored for $11.99 per year after a three-month free trial. For $59.99 per year Amazon offers an “Unlimited Everything” plan, which allows any file or document to be stored.
More information: Amazon Cloud Drive and Amazon S3
Apple iCloud Drive
The deal: 5GB of free cloud storage
Details: Apple iCloud Drive comes with 5GB of free cloud storage. Users looking to bump up their storage can do so for $0.99/month for 50GBs; $2.99/month for 200GB; $9.99/month for 1TB and $19.99 for 2TB. ICloud is meant for Apple users, but there is an iCloud app for Windows. A third-party app is needed to access iCloud storage from Android devices.
More information: Apple iCloud
Backblaze
The deal: 10GB free cloud storage
Details: Backblaze offers personal computer backup and business cloud storage services. But it also has an offer for 10GB of free cloud storage. Additional storage is $0.005/GB/month. There is a limit in the free version of 1GB downloaded per day. Mac and PC backups are $5 per computer per month, or $50 per year. Business plans start at $5 per computer per month, or $5 per month per TB.
More information: Backblaze pricing
Box
The deal: 10GB of free cloud storage
Details: Box offers a number of plans, but the basic, single-user free plan comes with 10GB of free storage, with a 250MB file upload size limit. A Personal Pro plan is $10 per month for 100GB of storage with a 5GB upload limit. The company’s other plans are targeted at teams and businesses and include more stringent security measures. A starter package for $5 per month comes with 100GB of storage and a 2-GB file size limit for up to 10 users. A Business account for $15 per month includes unlimited storage with a 5-GB file size limit. Custom-priced enterprise plans are also available.
More information: Box
Dropbox
The deal: 2GB of free cloud storage
Details: Beyond the 2GB of free storage, other plans start at $9.99 per month or $99.99 per year for DropBox Plus, which comes with 1TB of space. DropBox Business offers companies 2TB of storage for $12.50 per user per month, or for $20 per user per month the company offers “as much space as you need.”
More information: DropBox
FlipDrive
The deal: 10GB free cloud storage
Details: FlipDrive’s 10GB of free storage comes with a 25MB file size limit and up to 10 share links. For $5 per month users get 25GB; 100GB for $10 per month or $20 per month for 250GB. FlipDrive offers online photo albums to organize pictures and a contact management system for storing contacts.
More information: FlipDrive pricing
Google Drive
The deal: 15GB of free cloud storage
Details: If you need more than the 15GB of free cloud storage, for $1.99 per month customers get 100GB of storage, and for $9.99 per month customers receive 1TB of storage. Any data associated with your Google email account counts against your Drive storage limit, but anything stored in Google Docs, Sheets or Slides does not count against the 15GB limit. When using Google Photos, images stored in “Original Quality” count against the 15GB storage limit, but storing them in “High quality” mode does not count against the quota.
More information: Google Drive
HiDrive
The deal: 5GB of free cloud storage
Details: Beyond the 5GB of free cloud storage, up to 100GB cost $6.30.month and 500GB costs $12.50 per month. HiDrive is hosted by Starto AG, a German technology company.
More information: HiDrive
HubiC
The deal: 25GB of free cloud storage
Details: HubiC is the commercial storage arm of French business cloud provider OVH, which offers a broader set of features related to hosting. HubiC’s prices are in Euros, but 100GB of storage is about $1.06 per month, while 10TB is $5.30 per month.
More information: HubiC pricing
IDrive
The deal: 5GB of free cloud storage
Details: Users can get additional storage by referring friends; or a 1TB plan is available for about $52 per year. There is also a business service with additional granular security controls that starts at about $75 per user per month.
More information: IDrive
JumpShare
The deal: 2GB of free cloud storage
Details: Jumpshare offers 1TB of storage for $9.99 a month, or $99 per year. Jumpshare offers a series of advanced features, such as links to documents stored in the cloud that expire after a certain amount of time and ‘self-destruct’ features that give customers the option to delete data after a pre-determined time. Users can also get customer URLs and branding, scheduled sharing, as well as analytics of how many people have consumed information that’s been shared.
More information: Jumpshare
Mega
The deal: 50GB of free cloud storage
Details: Founded by famed internet provocateur Kim Dotcom, Mega offers one of the must lucrative deals in the cloud: 50GB of free storage. Users can get 4TB for about $9 per month (the company uses Euros). A word of warning: New Zealand-based Mega does not store users’ passwords, so the company recommends you keep a secondary backup of files stored in the service. Basically this means that if you lose your password, Mega can’t help you recover it.
More information: Mega
Microsoft OneDrive
The Deal: 5GB free storage
Details: Microsoft OneDrive (formerly SkyDrive) comes with 5GB of free cloud storage (which changed from 15GB of free storage in mid-2016). Additional storage is 50GB for $1.99 per month, while 1TB costs $6.99 per month. Microsoft offers other goodies too, including an extra 15GB of storage when you backup your camera roll to OneDrive, and customers can get an extra 5GB by referring friends (refer up to 10 friends at 500MB free for each friend). Microsoft Office, which gives access to Microsoft apps such as Word, Excel and Outlook, costs $6.99 per month (or $69.99 per year) and comes with 1TB of storage.
More information: Microsoft OneDrive
pCloud
The deal: 20GB of free cloud storage
Details: pCloud offers initial customers 10GB of free cloud storage space, and users can get up to an additional 10GB by inviting friends to the service. For even more space, pCloud offers 500GBs for $4.99 per month or $47.88 per year; or $9.99 per month or $95.88 per year for 2TB. pCloud started in 2013 and is based in Switzerland.
More information: pCloud
OziBox
The deal: 10GB of free cloud storage
Details: OziBox is built on the idea of a community of self-proclaimed SuperCoders who have built the platform. Beyond the 10GB of free cloud storage, users can get 200GB for $8.33 per month for 180 days, or 1 TB for $24.99 per month for 180 days.
Sync.com
The deal: 5GB free cloud storage
Details: Sync positions itself as a business-oriented file synch and share platform. A pro version for $8 per month, billed annually, includes 2TB of storage while a business plan is $5 per user per month billed annually that includes 1TB of storage per user.
More information: Sync.com
Syncplicity
The deal: 10 GB of free cloud storage
Details: Syncplicity offers an enterprise file synch and share service (EFSS), which is meant to compete with Box. It offers a personal plan that comes with 10GB free per month and has other business-oriented plans starting at $60 per month, which comes with 300GB, plus 5GB for each user.
More information: Syncplicity
Yandex.Disk
The deal: 10GB free cloud storage
Details: Yandex.Disk is the cloud storage arm of the popular Russian search engine Yandex. For $1 per month. users can get an extra 10GB, or for $2 per month 100GB. One TB is $10 per month.
More information: Yandex pricing