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App review – Dropbox

In the spirit of reviewing things, I’ve turned my attention to some of the web applications I use on a regular basis. Here follows a run-down of my backup / synchronisation tool of choice: Dropbox.

Getting started

The beauty of Dropbox for me is it’s simplicity. After installation a new folder is created imaginatively titled “MyDropbox” (at least it does on a Windows system – can’t say what it does for Mac and Linux), which is where all the action happens. Once this is done it’s a simple case of dragging and dropping the files you want to backup or synchronise into said folder and Dropbox does it’s thing. But the killer is that it does its thing in the background and only taking up the minimal amount of bandwidth. It even slows down when you use bandwidth to ensure your web browsing is not negatively impacted! How cool is that?

So basically you have a backup tool that sits in the background, using minimal resources, that just does its job quietly and unobtrusively. I’ve come to change the way I work now and rather than use “My Documents” to store all my work files, it all resides in the Dropbox folder. When I edit a file and save it off it scurries to backup said file without me having to do anything. It just works.

Image found via Flickr

Remote access and sharing

The other killer elements to the system are three-fold:

1. You can access your data remotely from any machine with internet access via the Dropbox website. This is good for people on the move who need to access data when out of the office.
2. There’s an iPhone app so you can see your data so long as you have a decent signal on the iPhone.
3. You can install the client onto more than one machine to either use your data for yourself in multiple locations or even better share it with a team.

The best bit

As with all great systems there must be a catch. Well in this case there isn’t one really. You get up to 2gb of disk space free that you can use for as long as you like. If you need more then you can upgrade to a 50gb version for $9.99 per month (just under £6.20) or the 100gb version for $19.99 per month (a little over £12.30).

What’s more if you use the refer a friend feature, not only to you get an additional 250mb in space, but they do to! If you think this is a deal too good to miss out on, then please use my Dropbox referral link.

In summary – it’s great!

Simplicity is the key focus for the tool, in everything from the user interface, through to the pricing plans and sign-up process. All of this coupled with a tool that just sits there quietly getting on with it’s job makes it a no-brainer. Try out Dropbox for yourself.

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