Your video files and stacks of photos might take up a lot of space. So,
when you receive that dreaded “failed upload” message, you might panic,
thinking you’ve just lost a precious memory thanks to some crappy cloud storage provider.
But fret not, my dear cloud storage seeker, for better cloud storage
platforms are out there. Naturally, you might ask the next question,
which happens to be our topic of discussion: What is the best cloud storage for photos and videos?
Hi, my name is Josh with The Cyber Lab, and by the end of this video,
you’ll figure out what you should be looking for if you want to keep your videos and photos
safe on cloud storage and our picks for the top cloud storage providers for photos and videos.
We’ll be starting from the best to the worst,
starting with… *read the list below, with small pauses between each list item*
pCloud IceDrive
Sync DropBox
Google Drive And OneDrive
And by the way, you can get special discounts on almost all the products
we will cover in this video, using the links provided in the description box.
Some of these deals are exclusive for The Cyber Lab viewers, so don't forget to check them out!
I’ll rate these based on what we normally review: helpful features, security, pricing,
and ease of use. But in this video, we’ll also look at speed, based on our personal experience.
Why speed? Well, video files can take up a lot of space,
which is especially important if you create content on YouTube, like us.
But, over the years, it can also be just as important if you hoard family pictures and videos,
like a dragon… Only your pile of gold is replaced with a pile of precious memories.
Either way, the last thing you want to do is waste time waiting for your photos or videos to upload.
But beyond speed, what else makes a good cloud storage provider for photos and videos?
While this might seem like a copout… the best cloud storage provider depends on your needs.
Alright, fine, I get it, “It depends” is the laziest answer you can give in a review. But
don’t blame me. Each cloud storage provider emphasizes different things.
If you want to secure your photos, you should look for a cloud storage provider that emphasizes
security or makes sharing stuff with family and friends easy. But because easy sharing doesn’t
always make it secure, you won’t often find those two in the same provider. But don’t worry,
my friends, if you stick with us, you’ll find a solution later in this video.
Now, if you want something that uploads videos, that’s trickier than finding
a place to store your photos. Video files tend to be huge, meaning some cloud storage
providers might not work for you because they have individual file size limits.
This can be frustrating if you record high-quality videos,
which are becoming more common as 4k is adopted across different households. Although,
I’m not sure why that would be, because who wants to see high-definition puberty?
You might feel more pressure to upload these high-quality videos if you run
a YouTube channel. After all, you want to ensure your channel looks the best it can,
and you won’t do that if your video looks like a bowl of oatmeal.
The bare minimum quality standard for YouTube is 1080p, which is still considered HD,
so it takes up a lot of space. If you upload a lot of content, you’ll quickly fill up your storage.
In addition, if you create videos all the time and put them in your cloud storage,
lifetime storage might not be for you. This is because lifetime storage providers often
impose severe data limits so they don’t lose money from you overloading their servers.
So, if you are considering lifetime storage and backup videos often,
check to see if your cloud storage provider has monthly data limits.
Thankfully, the first provider on our list doesn’t limit their users.
pCloud is considered the best overall for our list because it's built for media.
Its most important feature is the ability to play videos without downloading them.
This makes it similar to YouTube… Minus all the fighting in the comment section.
It also helps that pCloud supports file sizes of up to 5 TB. So,
unless your video is massive, you can upload it without a problem. But this raises an
important question: *hand on chin, thinking* How long does it take to upload your videos?
We tested the speed results by uploading a roughly 4 GB video. The upload went by
with no problems, taking about 24 minutes and 20 seconds to complete. Your time may vary,
but we aim to compare this to other providers to determine whether they are slower or faster.
But, based on their size, Do you think pCloud will be slower or faster than
our other providers? Let us know in the comments.
Once your video is uploaded, you can use pCloud’s awesome sharing features. You can
share videos through direct links or email like you can through larger providers. However, you
can also set up an expiration date, which means your videos aren’t out on the internet forever.
pCloud is also known for not having data leaks, and leverages the gold standard in security:
AES-256, which you’ll hear about again in our top three providers. However,
it limits some privacy features to those who pay extra, such as pCloud Crypto.
pCloud Crypto is an optional feature that offers zero-knowledge encryption,
which means only the person with the secret key, that’s you, can access their files.
This allows you to move your most sensitive items into an encrypted folder, which is nice
because if it is applied to all your files, you won’t be able to stream your videos. However,
you can move those videos into a secure folder when they aren’t being shared.
pCloud is also easy to use, sporting stellar platforms on their web app,
desktop, and mobile devices. The desktop app is particularly impressive,
as it makes it easy for you to backup files. It’s also easy on the wallet, and you can
make it easier by checking out our discount codes, taking up to 80% off of your purchase.
If you’ve seen our past videos on IceDrive, you already know we love them for their security.
All of their files are protected with AES-256, zero-knowledge encryption. So,
even if they were to be attacked, which they haven’t, your files would not be at risk.
Speaking of files, IceDrive does not have any limits on file sizes. So, in that way,
it’s better than pCloud. So naturally… You might ask why IceDrive is number two.
Well, let’s get into that:
First, IceDrive doesn’t have high-quality video streaming features. If you want to
share using IceDrive, users might find downloading it more stable.
This is fine until you find out that Uncle Tim decided it was time to save
money by buying a Toaster instead of a regular laptop.Did I say Toaster? I
meant Chromebook. I don’t know what to tell you; they have the same computing power.
Second, It has a bandwidth limit. But, that bandwidth limit is in the terabytes,
which again means you must upload massive videos to meet this limit.
But, when you do upload those videos, it should be fairly fast. It’s comparable to pCloud,
uploading at a speed of 24 minutes and 6 seconds with our 4 GB video.
It’s also easy to use, as all the apps are incredibly fast.
But you might find these apps to be a bit lite on features,
as it doesn’t provide the ability to backup other cloud storage providers, as you get with pCloud.
This makes sense when considering the pricing, which is cheaper than pCloud. So,
you give up a few features but save some money, so IceDrive is number two on our list.
But what features do you need for your cloud storage? Let us know in the comments.
Sync is our number three stop on this list. And much like the other providers,
it has the familiar security-friendly focus and no history of leaks. It’s also as easy to use,
but the web app could use a huge update, as it looks like it belongs in the Windows 95 era.
I’d consider it DropBox’s ugly cousin, which will make sense later in this video.
Sync is a winner on this list because it’s the only provider that offers unlimited storage.
That means that you'll have room with Sync no matter how big your video size gets. Ensure your
individual files don’t exceed 40 GB, which should be fairly easy for most sane people.
that to get this unlimited storage, you need to pay for a business account. This costs $30,
which you can split with a friend, making it more expensive than most
other providers. Individual plans don’t exceed 6 TB and can get expensive. However,
there’s a lot of value here, and you can get some sweet discounts on Sync in our description.
Its value comes in the form of collaboration features. It integrates with Slack,
Microsoft Word, Adobe, and other providers. If you run a YouTube channel, Sync offers
some excellent features that go above and beyond what you might want from sharing.
But one feature that Sync doesn’t offer is speed. When checking in at about the
15-minute mark, Sync’s transfer was barely a fourth of the way done. So,
it was clear that this would take more than an hour.
But because they have servers based in Canada, they’re far from our testing site,
so this might be a unique circumstance. We’ll let you off with a warning this time, Sync,
but be sure to get faster by our next review.
But to be honest, Sync is a bit much for casual users. So, we recommend sticking with pCloud or
IceDrive if you want something that appeals to regular usage. And, of course, you can
get up to 80% on cloud storage in our video’s description, so snag that before it runs out.
So, normally, at this point, we start bringing in the large storage providers. But,
in the interest of your time, we’ll take a quick
look at what makes them great and why you should avoid them like the plague.
First of all, what you might know about big companies is that they can afford
to put their servers everywhere. This means most of them are faster than our
top providers. Google Drive and Dropbox are close at 22 and 23 minutes, respectively.
Meanwhile, OneDrive is only faster than Sync,
taking about 30 minutes to handle our large test file.
This doesn’t necessarily mean that they are better. This means that they have
money to invest in a larger server infrastructure. And they make that
money from popularity and… you guessed it… selling your data!
Oh boy! What do I win!?
A complete invasion of privacy where large corporations buy and
sell you on a marketplace like you’re a slab of meat
Also, DropBox might not have the same reputation, but they sure do like not being great at security.
They’ve lost numerous passwords in leaks dating back to 2016, with more recent leaks as soon as
2022. So, while DropBox might not sell your data, they give it away for free.
Ignoring that, Dropbox would be number four on this list,
with Google Photos as number five, and OneDrive as number six. So, why is that?
Of course, you might not be looking for a cloud storage provider. I recommend you look
at our other video on the best overall cloud storage providers. But why are you still here
without looking for cloud storage platforms that work with photos and videos? Are you sleeping?
Of course, we still love you, and before you go away,
could you please sleep “leave us a like on the video and subscribe to our channel?”
That’s a weird set of things to do in your sleep, so you can do it awake if you prefer.
But if you are here for the best cloud storage for photos and videos,
don’t forget about our discounts of up to 80% off in the video’s description. We
hope this video helped you out, and we look forward to helping you in the next video.