Many companies offer free accounts for their Cloud Storage, i.e. virtual spaces on the Internet in which to save files and data on your computer so you can have them available, online, from any device, PC and mobile phone. We have already seen together the best cloud storage services in comparison and we have noticed how, by adding the storage offered by the various programs, you can increase the space of the Cloud services at most for free up to 100 GB or more . Unfortunately, there is no way to consolidate all that storage space into a single account (although it is possible to use services to unify cloud storage by managing space from a single program ), therefore, the best way to use these services is to to separate the types of files stored by exploiting the strengths of each of them.
In this guide we will show you the best ways to use cloud services to save music, videos, photos, documents and larger files, to have them available on PC and mobile phone.
Save files to the cloud for backup
As a service to be used to save files, we will have to choose the one with the most space available and that offers a more comfortable management client .Who uses Windows 10 already has the OneDrive client integrated in the system : we will only have to log in with the Microsoft account, so that we can always have an online space where you can save your important files. As a first alternative we can use Google Cloud Drive, but the space is not very large and is shared with other Google services (15 GB end quickly). Dropbox is excellent, it wins over others for the number of applications and different uses that can be made of Dropbox, but the free account does not offer much space.
If we need more space, we advise you to consider the service offered by MEGA, which allows you to save up to 50 GB of files in your personal cloud.
Using this service we will be able to save a large amount of files, with the possibility of quickly upgrading space, by subscribing to a subscription at very low prices (5 € for 200 GB and 10 € for 1TB of space!).
Synchronization between computers on the same LAN
We know that PCs can share folders on the LAN, but if we want to achieve effective synchronization between all shared folders on the LAN, we can use the free program FreeFileSync.
Using its double window interface we can synchronize one or more folders from one device to another, using synchronization also towards the most famous cloud services and any other type of FTP or WebDAV server. We can create a mirror synchronization or save only the new files, so as to always keep a backup of the old files (which will not be deleted).
In addition to the manual commands, we can create automatic synchronizations, which will act automatically every time we start the computer.
Synchronize the music
To synchronize music, the best service we recommend to use is Google Play Music, which allows you to upload up to 50, 000 songs to the cloud.
Using this service we will be able to upload our music collection to the cloud and listen to it from any other device (PC or smartphone) even offline, downloading the songs and albums we want to listen to from time to time. In another article we have shown you the best methods to keep music synchronized between PCs, all valid alternatives to Google Play Music (which is undoubtedly the best method).
It is also interesting to note that among the Android streaming music apps there are some applications that allow you to take advantage of Dropbox or Google Drive as online archives to listen to music.
Synchronize photos, images and videos
We have already talked about cloud services to save photos to be kept online, and Google Photos wins hands down.
With this service (available as an app and as a PC program) we will be able to save all the photos in a completely automatic way, taking advantage of an unlimited online space (the app will save the photos on the cloud to a predefined quality). In addition to the images and photos taken, it also allows you to save videos (which however take up space on Drive) and also to choose any other folder containing images, so as to synchronize also other types of content (for example, screenshots or photos shared on Whatsapp).
Synchronize folders between PCs even far (remotely)
If we have multiple PCs in different areas or even in different cities, we can keep a folder always synchronized by taking advantage of Syncthing's P2P service.
By properly configuring this powerful program we will be able to create our personal cloud space, reserving files to a server always connected to our network and on which we can synchronize any type of file and folder. In addition to a central server, Syncthing also allows you to synchronize the folders between two different PCs, simply configure both to be able to receive and send the files (with the ID code provided by the program itself).
It is currently one of the best solutions to be able to synchronize files and folders between different devices without necessarily relying on an external cloud service (which could always have problems related to privacy and space management).
Conclusions
In conclusion, all these services and the programs that we have reported to you allow you to achieve the same purpose: to provide online storage space to store all kinds of files, with synchronization and sharing functions. If we don't trust cloud sites very much, we can also set up our personal and secure cloud service, synchronizing folders and files with the help of a data server always connected or synchronizing all PCs connected via the Syncthing service (the best, because free and open source).It is not necessary to use them all together, but based on the space available and specific needs, it is possible to create various combinations by using more than one for each specific purpose.
In another guide we showed you how to Synchronize files between the various Cloud services to double them . If, on the other hand, we particularly care about the security of files and folders stored in the clouds, we recommend you read our guide on ways to encrypt files uploaded to cloud storage .
