Analysis and comparison of the mainstream personal cloud service

With the development of the post-internet era, cloud storage has become the hottest tool in the IT world, and in the western market, the technology giants have long been engaged in the confrontation of various kinds of cloud storage, such as Apple's Icloud,google Picasa, Google Music and Google Docs , Amazon's Cloud Drive, Microsoft's SkyDrive and Dropbox's five big cloud storage services have almost monopolized the foreign cloud storage market, and cloud storage services are changing our lives, whether from capacity, ease of use, or unique features.

First, in terms of storage capacity, the cloud storage product is free and premium based on the size of the storage capacity, such as Apple's icloud, which uses free 5GB and 640RMB maximum 55GB per year, and Google is based on the stored files, A distinction is made between unlimited capacity free and limited-capacity charges, where photos and music are free of storage capacity, while Google Docs for free 1GB and 20GB five to 16TB 4,000-dollar multiple-price storage services; Amazon's Cloud drive is free 5gb+ 1USD per GB per year, the highest 1TB strategy, Microsoft's SkyDrive for free 25GB, while Dropbox for free 2G (can use a variety of activities to increase free capacity up to no more than 23G) +9.99USD monthly 50G or 199USD annual 100G.

In terms of ease of use, Apple's icloud inherits the user experience characteristics of Apple products, which require no complicated steps and faster transmission, while the Google series products have the most capacity in the top five products, and the storage of pictures and music is unlimited, but it is more cumbersome to operate, At the same time because some network ports are blocked, it often occurs intermittently inaccessible; Amazon Cloud Drive function is relatively single, so that users have no difficulty in operation, but the relative transmission speed in the domestic very slow; Microsoft's SkyDrive is also easy to operate, can be linked to the picture , the future is more likely to be integrated with Windows 8, but the SkyDrive fatal flaw is that it restricts single files to a maximum of 50M, the speed of transmission in the domestic general; Relying on the Amazon S3 Cloud storage Dropbox, although a single function, brings a simple operation experience, But its transmission speed depends on Amazon's face, but if the server has the same file, its second pass function can play an instant upload complete advantage.

Featured features, icloud has a deep integration of Apple products that can back up purchased apps, documents, and music on itunes, while Google Docs's online version of Office provides users with almost Microsoft Office 2003 Functions of 90%, if the network is stable enough for businesses and individuals can save huge costs of software purchases, and Amazon E-commerce closely linked to Amazon Cloud Drive can store the music purchased by consumers in Amazon free of charge in Cloud Drive, And does not calculate in the free capacity and so on, more support handheld device and PC to play music online; Microsoft's SkyDrive can be used to chain various documents through technology, while it also has a compact version of the office2010 to facilitate users to process simple documents, tables and PPT While Dropbox is not rich in features, it focuses on file sharing and synchronization.

Although the above five products each have their own characteristics, but they have a fatal problem for individual consumers: are public cloud, the need for Internet access and third-party services for us, the resulting personal privacy security issues are urgent.

The so-called catches, because the hacker malicious attack caused personal information leaks, April 2011 Sony's PSN network suffered hacker attacks, more than 70 million of users of personal information stolen, the same year December, China's largest developer it community CSDN Server was hacked, a large number of user passwords were exposed More users data leakage 8 million, tianya leakage of 40 million user information, Jingdong Mall user Information leakage, Dangdang 12 million user data leakage, Guangdong Provincial Public Security Bureau of entry-Exit government service network data leakage 4.44 million information.

The fact that there is no absolute security on the Internet, private clouds are less likely to be attacked than public clouds, and the latest study by Gartner, a well-known analyst, points out that while public cloud providers offer a rich range of cloud computing services, But in the near future private cloud services will inevitably be the key to small and medium-sized enterprises and even individual consumers to solve various problems.

In fact, as far as private cloud services are concerned, the Chinese are no less forward-looking than the Western technology giants, the well-known High-tech enterprise of the company will soon be launched in March this year Bubble Cloud Server (Popobox), bubble Cloud as one of the few have both personal Cloud server and provide private cloud software cloud services products, it advocates the security, Convenient and inexpensive solutions for small and medium-sized enterprises and individual users have considerable charm.

According to the relevant personnel disclosed that the product power consumption of only 3 W, than an energy-saving lamp also province. It can work 7x24 hours without worrying about downtime. USB powered hard drives with two USB2.0 interface maximum support 4T (next to Google's 16T) have no maximum capacity limits for independent power supply (beyond the largest Google 16T). Use high-speed Ethernet card access (faster than the average home or even gigabit fiber) without worrying about bandwidth shortages.

Although bubble cloud server has not yet officially listed, but it through the hardware and software perfect integration, the personal cloud into our lives truly. And standing in the market point of view, bubble cloud security, convenience, high efficiency advantage is obvious, it has the opportunity for the Chinese cloud to provide a better future.

(Responsible editor: Lu Guang)