box vs. dropbox

[nature boy]

instead of jacking that other thread like *ahem* other people would, i wanted to see what you guys thought about box.net vs. dropbox.
aside from the obvious size issues and upload issues, what other advantages are there for either?

from what i gathered so far (in my 30 seconds of looking), i find that to use box i actually have to navigate to the box webpage while dropbox installs directly into my documents on my computer. and although i can access dropbox on my phone and computer, i can only download from dropbox on my playbook. but since box is web-based, i could upload from any device (but it doesn't seem to be a standalone app for my phone, but there is one for my playbook... which is actually pretty good).

what do you guys use?

[tyson]

box gives you a stupid amount of storage that you likely will never use. they used to have a desktop client (like dropbox) but they changed it so it's only available for pay users. this is the deal breaker for me. sure i can go to a website, login, browse to the folder and download, but dropbox just syncs auto.

unless i am mistaken, no tablet/smartphone platform will allow you to stream off of dropbox/box.net so it's sort of pointless uploading media files. You may be able to copy from dropbox/box.net to your device and then play it, but at that point, why go through all that trouble and just copy it from your computer in the first place?

so then 50GB on box.net to store.....docs? you'll never use it, and they are banking on you never using it. there's no way they could support as many free users as they have signed up if they maxed to 50GB.

Dropbox only downside is the amount of storage. My dropbox is almost always close to being full, but i am too cheap/can't justify paying 10$ per month for space i mostly wouldn't use.

[Duncan]

[joel]

how come just hosting your own ftp server isn't an option here? i guess i am too old school...

[jeSteR]

[Wetundies]

the webhosting service i'm using for $3 per month gives unlimted storage.

[tyson]

yea i have an ftp server as well, but that's a solution for a file repository not file syncing.
for example at work i require login/password for many servers, network hardware, websites etc. i encrypt backups, and encrypt parts of my dropbox and my password manager (keepass) has a database file that is on my dropbox. so, from home, work or my mac i can access this at any time without having to download the db first.

i had also considered getting a pay dropbox account to put my itunes library in the cloud as well so that i can listen to my mp3 library wherever i am, but i decided not worth it for the 100GB plan.

uploading photos and such is not bad i guess for box.net, but those auto upload to icloud for me (but i guess if i do that a lot i will chew up all my free icloud space). i never tried streaming .mp4 which is prob my issue. i know i can't stream .avi and .mkv from dropbox for sure.

it's also the fastest way for me to share small files among my computers. it's faster than email, it's faster than usb drive..
i usually use dropbox to import ebooks into my ipad as well since i don't really sync it with itunes.

[joel]

i just googled ftp sync freeware and saw a tonne of hits.

[nature boy]

i only use dropbox for documents anyway, and the occasional picture, but that's really rare.
sometimes i put media on there to share, but i usually delete it right after it's be used. apparently, the blackberry "app" for box is just a bookmark for the website, which is freaking lame.

i guess i'm going to stick with dropbox since i already have it on all my devices and it's all set up. i'm nowhere near my max storage, and i never stream media on my phone/tablet. the only thing i don't like is that i can't save files from my tablet to dropbox, but i guess i can upload it to my phone and do it from there. long ass roundabouts way of doing something, damn all the blackberry haters (dropbox, skype, every game developer in the world, etc).

[tyson]

[Wetundies]

how about this box?

[Duncan]

lol, that reminds me of dick in a box...

man, with all the push and pull cloud development, i'm so glad i have 6gb of cell data a month... i don't know how, but over the past month, i've racked up 2.5gb of data usage and i don't think i really did anything diff from what i normally do! usually i at most hit 1gb of usage a month... ios5 is a data killer...

[nature boy]

probably because ios5 is sending all your infoz to the apple wizards. i only get 50mb a month and i've never gone over. but then, i only check email on my phone and im and check the weather. that stuff doesn't take too much data.

can you even access an ftp with ios? i was reading somewhere that you can't. android yes, ios no.

[Duncan]

there might be an app for it, but i don't really see much point in accessing ftp from ios unless you're using it to upload and download media...

it can't really do all the cloud stuff like push/pull/stream

[joel]