Copy Beats Dropbox in My Book
Use Cases and Deployment Scope
Copy is a cloud storage solution for individuals and businesses. It has tiered pricing that is incredibly reasonable, and their initial free storage space offering is bigger than any other I've encountered (starting at 15G out of the gate, with an addition 5G if you signed up with an affiliate link - 5G for you, 5G for the affiliate).
At my current school (and my previous one), I got fellow educators (both tech-saavy and not) hooked on it for its generous storage and ease of use. It's also a service I recommend to my students (for the same reasons as I recommend it to my colleagues).
Pros
- Copy is similar to Dropbox, in that you have a folder on your computer where you store the files you want to be able to access and sync via Copy's online service. It's very reliable about making sure files are synced across machines.
- You can create "shortcuts" to files on your main computer in order to access them from other locations without it impacting the amount of space you're using on your account. It seems to work almost like a VPN (but not quite).
- You can share folders and files with others, allowing various privileges and rights. This process is incredibly easy. It also sends your affiliate link in case the people you are sharing with want to sign up (bonus space!).
- Copy is attractive and simple to use. It's not complicated, and their support site is clear and monitored.
- Copy is great if you regularly need to upload or share video files. It allows a larger upload size than Dropbox which means that those videos you shoot on your smart phone can be uploaded and shared more easily.
Cons
- One thing Copy doesn't do is allow you to sync any folder on your hard drive (like Sugar Sync does). You have to save the file in the designated Copy folder. However, Dropbox and most other popular cloud storage services don't allow this either, so although this is a negative, it's so common that it's hardly a major drawback.
- EDIT: You can work around this by creating shortcuts in your Copy folder that point to the folder in its original location on your hard drive.
- There are a few areas of support (instructions, primarily, in regards to file shortcuts) that are a little vague (although at the time of this writing they may have been clarified and detail added).
- Copy isn't as well known as other cloud service providers, so your friends may need to be caught up on its awesomeness. This also means that it isn't as well integrated into apps and programs. I'm hoping time will change this as the service grows.
Likelihood to Recommend
I actually recommend this service to all my students and colleagues. It's got more storage space for free than any provider I've found (and for students and teachers, this is a BIG deal). It's wonderful if you want to upload video, too, because where Dropbox and other providers severely limit file upload sizes, Copy is much more generous. Also, since Copy is cloud-based, you don't even need your own computer to use it necessarily since you can access it online. I can't really think of a situation where it would be less appropriate unless you wanted to store classified documents (in which case I'd wonder why you're uploading them to a cloud-based server in the first place).
