So, World Backup Day was yesterday, and I’m taking my chance to optimize my own backup strategy (more on that in separate post once it’s all done). But one part is to fix my online document sync strategy. By now, everyone has heard of Dropbox, and I have them and recommend them. They are by far the most widely adopted, and have an API that have been integrated in numerous iOS apps – they are on the way of becoming the de-facto standard.
Problem is, you only get 2GB for free, and referring others takes effort and only gives 250MB each. For me, 2GB is nowhere near what I need to store my documents. You may choose to pay for this, and I wouldn’t hesitate to do so when the value was obvious, but it’s not yet there.
There is a more generous alternative: Sugarsync. This is a more feature rich (but less minimalistic) alternative to Dropbox, where you can get a whopping 8.5 GB for free, and more with referrals (I have 13GB now 21GB now 42GB for FREE). Here’s how to do it:
- 5 GB: Get a free account
- +0.5 GB: Getting the free account through referral (like link above)
- +0.75 GB: Run through all Getting Started tasks on the website
- +0.25 GB: Download the iOS or Android client, and follow this article
- +2 GB: Send referral email to 20 people from the Getting Started page (this is for the sending only… yes, you can send to dummy addresses as long as they are in the Address Book) Limited time offer, so take your chance!
- +0.5 GB: For everyone that signs up through above referral, or by using the link from your referral page
= 8.5 GB without any accepted referral, and a lot more if you have understanding friends đ
There are also other benefits with SugarSync. For me the huge one is that in SugarSync, other’s shared folders does not count in your quota. This is a dealbreaker. If a friend shares 1 GB of photos with you in Dropbox, half your quota (and your friend’s!) is gone. In SugarSync, it only takes quota from the owner. That means you can pool storage with friends.
So, go get SugarSync! (and yes, there are referral links throughout this article, which is part of the strategy – but you can get 8.5 GB without selling out like me! đ )