For most of us, online storage is the best place to save the huge quantities of photos, videos, and documents we’ve all now acquired.

When those files are stored in the cloud, you don’t have to worry about which machine they’re on or whether they’re properly backed up: They’re available to any device from almost anywhere, and you don’t have to worry about losing them if one of those devices goes down.

The only trick has been to figure out which of the many cloud services — from Microsoft, Google, Apple, and others — and which of their ever-changing offerings is right for you.

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Microsoft made those calculations a bit trickier this week, by killing its most compelling deal: It had been offering subscribers to its Office 365 suite an unlimited amount of online storage for just $7 per month — and that included the software.

But according to Microsoft, some people were abusing its generosity by saving upwards of 75 TB of data on their OneDrive accounts, which presumably put a strain on the company’s resources. Turns out some people got the crazy notion that, when you’re offered unlimited storage, it’s actually unlimited.

So Microsoft has pulled back on that deal (as we’ll detail below). Where does that leave you? Here’s how we see the online-storage landscape now, in the wake of Microsoft’s decision.



Microsoft OneDrive

After offering limitless cloud storage to every Office 365 subscriber, and then finding that some customers took that literally, Microsoft is now offering 1 TB storage space with each Office 365 subscription for the same $7 monthly fee. That’s still a pretty decent deal when you consider that you’re getting Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote as well as a lot of storage room for your photos, videos, and music.

(It’s worth pointing out that even the base version of OneDrive gives you free access to Microsoft’s Office Online. But Office Online is relatively barebones compared to Office 365.)

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If 1 TB option is a too much storage for you — and chances are that, realistically, it will be for many, many people — Microsoft also offers a 50 GB storage plan for $2 per month. That, however, doesn’t include Office 365. Unfortunately, the company is no longer offering 100 GB or 200 GB plans, which means your options are either 50 GB or 1 TB. That’s not a lot of choice.

If you don’t want to pay for cloud storage at all, Microsoft also provides 5 GB of free space, though, that’s a step down from the 15 GB it used to provide OneDrive users for free, though, again, that doesn’t come with Office 365.

Microsoft does offer a OneDrive app that lets you access your OneDrive folder directly from your computer’s file explorer, as though it’s just another drive, making it easier to transfer files to and from the cloud.

Microsoft also offers mobile apps for iOS and Android, so you can access your data from any of your devices.

Google Drive

Got a Gmail account? Then you’ve already got Google Drive. And with that, you’ve also got 15 GB of free cloud storage. That’s the largest amount of free space you can get from any of the major cloud-storage providers. In fact, Google also offers the most storage plan options.

If you’re like me, though, and you save a lot of photos and videos online, then 15 GB probably isn’t going to cut it for you. In that case, you can opt for Google’s 100 GB plan, which costs $2 per month.

For folks in need of more storage than that, Google also offers a 1 TB plan for $10 per month. And it goes on from there: There is a 10 TB plan for $100 per month, a 20 TB plan for $200 per month, and a 30 TB plan for $300 per month.

Most people will never need anything close to 10 TB, let alone 30. Still the fact that Google offers such options could be helpful for small business owners and the like.

It goes without saying that Google Drive also includes its own productivity suite — in the form of Google Docs, Google Sheets, and Google Slides — for free. This isn’t the place to do a comprehensive comparison between Office 365 and Google’s online apps. Suffice it to say that Office is the more fully featured of the two.

Like Microsoft, Google also offers a Google Drive app that you gives you access to your files from your computer’s desktop.

Of course Google offers Drive apps for both Android and iOS.

Apple iCloud

Apple’s iCloud, like Microsoft OneDrive and Google Drive, is a one-stop shop for all of your storage and productivity needs.

Every iCloud subscriber starts with 5 GB of free storage — similar to what Microsoft offers with OneDrive, but less than Google Drive’s 15 GB. From there you can pay $1 for a 50 GB storage plan, $3 for a 200 GB plan, or $10 for a 1 TB plan.

It’s strange that Apple doesn’t offer a storage option between 50 GB and 200 GB. Sure it’s only a dollar a month more than Google’s $2 per month 100 GB plan, but I’d prefer the option of a 100 GB plan, as most people will probably never need 200 GB of storage. After all, a dollar is still a dollar.

Apple’s iCloud also features a desktop component that lets you quickly drag and drop your files into your iCloud account, as well as free access to Apple’s Pages, Numbers, and Keynote productivity apps.



The company doesn’t, however, offer a mobile app for competing platforms like Android, which means if you have a MacBook and Android phone, you won’t be able to sync the two via iCloud.

Dropbox

While Microsoft, Google, and Apple provide you with both storage and productivity apps, Dropbox is all about the storage, but also offers some excellent third-party integration with services like Microsoft Office and Hipchat.

Dropbox is also working on its own built-in productivity app called Paper, though it’s still in beta and you can only use it by applying for an invitation.



As for storage space, Dropbox provides you with 2 GB free, with the ability to increase that amount by 500 MB every time you recommend the service to a friend or run through Dropbox’s tutorial, up to a total of 16 GB. And like its competitors, Dropbox also has a desktop app.

Unfortunately, Dropbox doesn’t offer much in the way of storage plans: Once you’ve outgrown your free allotment, you have to move up to the company’s 1 TB plan, which costs $10 per month.

Or you could opt for Dropbox Business, which costs $12.50 per user per month, with a minimum of 5 users. The latter is a lot of money compared to some of these other plans, though it does come with some added, business-friendly benefits.

Dropbox also includes a desktop app that integrates it directly into your computer’s file explorer, so you can use it like any other folder.

Naturally, Dropbox offers mobile apps for both Android and iOS.

Box

Another storage-first option, Box doesn’t offer much in the way of productivity tools beyond its Note app. The latter is not on the same level as Google Docs or Word Online, but it gets the job done when you need to jot something down in a pinch.

Like the above services, Box has a desktop for syncing files from your computer without having to visit the Box website.

Box starts you out with a relatively generous 10 GB of free storage. You can then upgrade to the company’s 100 GB option for $10 per month. That’s pretty pricey when you consider that Google offers the same amount of storage space for $2 per month.

Outside of its 100 GB option, Box doesn’t provide any other options for individuals looking for cloud storage.

Box, like its competitors, also includes desktop and mobile apps.

The bottom line

Here’s the thing, if you’re an Android or iOS user, you’re probably going to stick with Google Drive or iCloud, because those services are so directly integrated into your phone’s operating system.

But if you aren’t satisfied with either of those services, or if you’re more platform-agnostic, your best deal overall is still Microsoft’s OneDrive. For $7 per month you get a whopping 1 TB of storage space — $3 less than comparable deals from the competition — and access to Microsoft’s Office 365.

So while Microsoft may have been in hot water with users upset about losing that unlimited storage option, it still has the best cloud-storage deal.

Email Daniel at dhowley@yahoo-inc.com; follow him on Twitter at @DanielHowley or on Google+.

