Sunday, June 14, 2009

Dropbox vs Ubuntu-One

My request for using Ubuntu-One Beta was approved by Canonical, so I immediately made a small (& un-scientific) test. I put 13 files, totaling 23,4MB, first in Ubuntu-One and then in Dropbox.
It took 5' 56" for Ubuntu-One and 4'25" for Dropbox in my ADSL line to synchronize the files. For the time being, Dropbox is faster. Furthermore it has the significant advantage of being cross-platform, while Ubuntu-One works only in Ubuntu. I use Ubuntu both at home and work, but I also use Fedora and rarely Windows and moreover I want to share files with people that don't use Ubuntu. So in my case I can only use it as personal cloud storage space and not for sharing. What's the point of having files in the cloud if you can't access them from every available platform? (I would also like to see both in Solaris and BSD, as well)
Ubuntu-One's speed will probably get better in the future, but unless Canonical makes it cross platform, I really don't see anyone (including me) to keep using it.

9 comments:

Don Birdsall said...

My Ubuntu-One request has yet to be approved (maybe because I asked for it from Hardy. Anyway I installed the beta of ZumoDrive and it works fine.

I can't report any speeds but ZumoDrive syncs with my iPod Touch which is very nice indeed.

L4Linux said...

My little test may not be accurate. Both server farms should be more than adequate to receive from my 1Mbit/s upload at full speed. Maybe there was a fluctuation in my ISP speed within the 10 minutes that the test lasted. I'll try it again today...
The main issue is not the speed, but being cross-platform.

Anonymous said...

Personally I'm a fan of SpiderOak. It's cross-platform and gives you more space for your dollar.

L4Linux said...

Guess that's the next article:
Dropbox, Ubuntu-One, ZumoDrive, SpiderOak, etc.

Unknown said...

There's also Mandriva Click'n Backup which is cross-platform : http://www2.mandriva.com/mdvbackup/

Anonymous said...

I had a shot at SpiderOak, but it simply wasn't fast enough. after 96 hours of letting it try to backup my files (only 15 GB), I switched back to Dropbox, which did it under 10h...

Dorival Pedroso said...

I can see myself using this since I don't share stuff with other platforms. It works great here! I think I'll drop dropbox.

Anonymous said...

IMHO DropBox is the best service I ever used!

KevQ (Gmail) said...

I've also pondered the same thing. Here are my thought:

http://blog.jingaling.co.uk/2011/10/ubuntu-one-or-dropbox.html