Cloud File Sharing Singapore

Are you looking for a reliable cloud file sharing for business?

Look, there are so many tools that can do file sharing.

Which cloud file sharing solution is the right fit for you? Every tool out there claims that they are suitable for you.

Today you’re going to see the trend, benefits and practical examples of how it works.

In fact:

We’re going to show you the same checklist that we used to seize the right business cloud file sharing for our customers.

And, you’ll be crystal clear of your needs.

Cloud File Sharing

Because all these new devices have communications built into them. They can all talk to the cloud whenever they want.
Steve Jobs

Start Something Today
traditional file sharing method

Traditional File Sharing Method (aka Caveman technology)

How do you know if your company is still using caveman technology? One of the ways is to look at the way how you share data. Imagine you need to share five files (2MB size each) with five colleagues.
email attachment

Email Attachment

Send an email to all colleagues and attach all those files. When you do this, what you are sending is a size of 50MB across the email (5 files x 2MB x 5 people). So you wonder why your internet bandwidth is so slow. If some files require your colleagues’ input, they reply all and send back. This unproductive process keeps going on until the final version of documents complete.
save in computer

Save in Computer

Store all crucial files in each computer. The same data of different versions are lying across multiple desktops. You got no idea who has the latest file version, as anyone can update the file contents at own computer. To make the situation worse, you can’t possibly stop intentional files deletion by an angry leaving staff.
thumbdrive or portable hard disk

Thumbdrive or Portable Hard Disk

You save those files to a thumb drive or big portable hard disk. How do you transfer data in this way? Well, you walk to your colleagues and pass it to them. Once the edits complete, they walk and give you back the thumb drive. This working habit is insanely unproductive when you need many edits.
workgroup sharing

Workgroup Sharing

You share your files from your computer. This method works fine if there’s only a handful of you. Imagine if you have ten staff or more and everyone shares something from own PC. The whole sharing structure is messy. You’ll have a hard time linking back when someone changes password or username.
windows file server

Windows File Server

A Windows file server can handle advance file permission under a domain. However, it has one BIG problem. It’s difficult for anyone who is always on the move to access these shared files. Imagine you need to access that critical file while you’re having a meeting with your customer. How do you access it from your mobile quickly even though you have a VPN connection?
simple nas

Simple NAS

When you got a cheap and simple NAS, it serves well for backup purposes. However, it’s not meant for file sharing as it does not have the capacity. How do you know if you’ve one in your office IT setup? Simple. Does it allow you to add a new app from NAS (just like iPhone adding new apps)? If no, it’s only a big hard disk.

What is Cloud and File Sharing?

Cloud and file sharing is a service to allow you to share files wherever you are. You place these files in a secured storage hosted either by vendors or yourself. Then you choose who can have access to the shared folders and files by giving the right permissions.
cloud storage

Cloud Storage

Whenever you see a cloud file sharing, it’s referring to cloud storage.

Cloud file sharing is an additional software feature when you store files in cloud storage.

Cloud storage allows you to retrieve your files anywhere. It is more than just big hard disk space for your data.

Most cloud providers bundle the storage with software features like backup and file sync.

Main Benefits
You Enjoy

Work anywhere you like

Cloud file sync & share provide seamless access to all your essential data from wherever you are

Contact Us
R

Get Your Files Anywhere

Today’s workers are more mobile than ever. With file sync and share, you have the latest information instantly, no matter how the file was updated. Even without the internet, you can view, share and edit any document, wherever you are.

R

Users and Security Settings

While accessing data on the move is essential for business, security is still the primary concern. With proper configuration, you can control over who has access and what they can do. Now you can share and collaborate on large files without the barrier of inconvenient FTP and other unreliable, insecure file sharing solutions.

R

Team Sharing

To get things done, you need collaboration. You can add, edit or move – everyone on the team can collaborate quickly and is always looking at the latest version. When the needs of your project changes, you can easily add or remove people.

R

Selective File Sync

What files to sync? You sync only the folders and files you’re currently working on. Besides, you save hard disk space too. Every team members in your company are kept in sync while your IT personnel has the admin tools and robust security they need to manage it all, quickly.

disadvantages of
cloud file sharing

It would be best if you didn’t store everything in the cloud.

Why?

No matter how secure a cloud solution, it’s a bigger target where a hacker wants to test on their hacking skills.

Furthermore, your confidential information replicates across several data centers for backup and redundancy. In other words, your data does reside in several locations if the cloud provider has a worldwide presence.

Also, the administrators in the data center to have access to your data if they need to do some form of troubleshooting.

What are the popular business cloud file sharing?

With a few clicks, you can set up a cloud file sharing for your company almost immediately.

The business cloud file sharing tools that we are examining are Google, OneDrive, Dropbox Business, and Box.

popular business cloud file sharing

source

These are, from our experience with many cloud file sharing tools so far, the strongest contenders currently in the field.

We chose these four contenders because they are among the very few that don’t fail when we do practical file sharing.

Based on pricing and storage space alone is not enough. There are many factors to consider too. For example, upload speed and file permission capacity.

We’ll now walk you through 4 business cloud file sharing tools to compare how they handle file sharing and permission from both desktop and mobile.

U
How does the backend look?
U
How does the front end look?
U
What’s the price plan?
U
How to do sharing with internal and external?
Dropbox Business

If you want to give your colleagues a straightforward, slick file sharing experience –

Dropbox Business delivers.

dropbox business

For a monthly or yearly fee, Dropbox Business has 3 plans (Standard, Advance and Enterprise) that give you the power to do file sharing.

The variation in these plans differs on the number of advanced administrative features you need like better support, security and useful insights.

That’s pretty awesome because you can gain visibility on all Dropbox usage and even can control the number of connected devices.

icon_00DEDICATED LIVE SUPPORT
icon_00MORE THAN 300K CUSTOMERS
icon_00ADVANCED SECURITY FEATURES

Your Dropbox Business Backend Experience

Connecting Dropbox Business and do file sharing is fast, streamlined and easy. The overall experience feels like a lot like a guided tour, which is enjoyable.

 

Dropbox business provides you with usage analytics by your team members as well as numerous types of activities reporting (including any deletion of file and link created) from their online dashboard.
As an administrator, you can set some permission on each primary and subfolder folder.

Your Colleague’s Frontend Experience

From your colleague’s perspective, the Dropbox Business file sharing experience will look similar to free Dropbox basic. All the personal content will stay the same — your files will remain where they are, and all your settings.

 

However, there are two significant differences:

First, Dropbox gives your colleague the option to send share link for team members instead of just asking for email input. This feature becomes especially useful as you’re sending to the frequent internal users.

Also, second, you can invite partners, clients, contractors, or vendors to upload files to your Dropbox, even if they don’t have an account.

How Permission Works for Dropbox

There are two methods to share a file with your team members or external parties.

Web or Dropbox Sync method.

If you’re sharing a file or folder, you should be giving at least view permission.

File Settings

When you share a file, you can show viewer info to your team members and people who can edit.

What Dropbox Business Will Cost You

Dropbox Business offers 2 yearly subscription plans ranging from $12.50 per user per month up to $20 a month.

Dropbox Business Wrap-Up

The most critical service Dropbox business provides on top of its cloud file sharing tool is its simplicity, shared link settings, 120-day versioning, and reporting features.

The only real downside to Dropbox is that you cannot set up a complex folder structure. You have edit and view options. Moreover, Dropbox assumes that if you give someone access to the top folder, the same user should have access to the subfolders as well.

However, if you’re okay with a standard folder permission structure, Dropbox business is likely the best and easy solution for you to facilitate cloud file sharing for your team members.

Google Drive

Google Drive for Business is a pioneer in the cloud business.

It’s a popular IT solution for collaborating in real-time, all under one suite. With the suite, you can create content, store files, chat and control security. Best of all? You can do everything in an internet browser.

google drive
icon_00ALL IN ONE SUITE
icon_00MARKET LEADER
icon_00BUSINESS-GRADE SECURITY

Your Google Drive Backend Experience

After the setup of Google drive, the file sharing setup and overall settings take place from within your internet browser. It works best on Chrome, which is another Google product.

From the dashboard, you can set up your global drive sharing settings. You can choose if you allow your team members to share files outside of your organization.

Google Drive offers excellent security control to your storage. Unless your organization has a tight security policy, the default settings are good enough.

The backend setup experience requires some technical knowledge on DNS as it ties in with your company web domain. Honestly, it can be a bit overwhelming for a non-technical person. You might end up messing up your email records.

However, once you complete the whole Google drive setup, it’s easy to use especially if you already have an existing personal google account.

Your Colleague’s Frontend Experience

Your team member’s default frontend experience with Google Drive looks similar to a personal account.

When your team members share a file, they can allow edit, comment, and view.
Instead of sending links through email, you can get a shareable link and communicate over a chat.
If you want only authorized people to have access to your shared files, click on who has access.

What Google Drive Will Cost You

Google drive offers three monthly subscription plans ranging from $5 per month up to $25 a month.

Google Drive Wrap-Up

The essential service Google drive provides on top of its cloud file sharing is its whole suite features like chat, email, and tools to create content.

This niche is most suitable for industries with mobile workers. For example, property, insurance, and part-timers. It also makes sense to use Google suite if your company does not intend to buy any Microsoft office software for each colleague.

Overall, the upload speed of many huge files to Google drive is the best among the rest of contenders.

The only real downside to Google suite is that, if you operate your office internet has an outage, that can bring a halt in your business.

Also, if you open a high formatting content created by Microsoft office in Google drive, the appearance may differ. After all, both Google and Microsoft use different formatting for her tools. The interface can be messy when you have many files and long names.

Sharepoint Online

Sharepoint online is mainly a sharing platform. This tool separates itself from other platforms with its site feature and advanced permission.

Onedrive serves as the cloud storage for Sharepoint online. It works seamlessly when you share files between Microsoft office tools.

You can subscribe Sharepoint online as a standalone or purchase as a bundle from Office 365.

sharepoint online
icon_00SEAMLESS COLLABORATION
icon_00MORE THAN 200K CUSTOMERS
icon_00CONTENT MANAGEMENT

Your Sharepoint Online Backend Experience

The Office 365 dashboard is the place for an administrator to add new users to the Sharepoint Online. Here enables you to allow external users to access the Sharepoint sites.

The Sharepoint Online backend feels clunkier than the rest of cloud solutions. After you’re done with Sharepoint sites and creating the files structure, you can further tweak the Sharepoint settings.

Sharepoint by itself is a powerful solution. That said, it can look very overwhelming to a non-technical person.

Although Sharepoint online comes with many functionalities, many of these features may require a skilled IT personnel to make full use of it. For example, you can stop subfolders from inheriting permission.

Your Team Member’s Sharepoint Frontend Experience

When your team member arrives on your private Sharepoint site, they experience like a forum style whereby they can access the shared files and news update.

You can share an entire folder or a single file and enter the name of your team member.

If you are sharing a file to a person outside your company (e.g., IT outsourcing vendor), Sharepoint reminds you again of this action.

This sharing is only allowed provided your administrator has permitted such sharing permission.

What Sharepoint Will Cost Your Business

Sharepoint Online offers two yearly subscription plans ranging from $12.50 per user per month up to $20 a month.

It’s more value for money if you get the whole 365 plan if you want to use the generous mailbox of 50GB.

Sharepoint Online Wrap-Up

If you want a cloud file sharing tool that can do advanced file permission, use Sharepoint online.

Setup is complex. It is challenging to install it on your own, and you may need to engage an IT specialist. In the beginning, it takes training and time to understand how Sharepoint works. However, once you got the hang of it, it’s quite easy.

Microsoft support is top notch, and they usually get back to you by the next working day. Upon your request, the support does remote access to your PC to resolve the issue.

This tool is most suitable for companies that are already a heavy user of Microsoft Office and does not have an on-premise file server. Sharepoint is suitable for planning multilingual sites too. Using Sharepoint concurrently can increase work productivity.

The web interface is not always smooth. Sometimes you’ll be prompted to re-login again, which is quite frustrating.

We notice that once you have tens of thousands of files to be sync, sometimes the sync stopped working. You’ll need to reset the syncing again.

Box

Box delivers a slick, well-thought cloud file sharing experience for business users. Moreover, you can view 120+ types of files, including Word, Excel, PDF, AI, EPS, PSD, photos and more—without downloading a single file.

Surprisingly, Box has advanced access rights over file sharing. It does provide a high level of security and governance.

Moreover, Box integrates with thousands of applications that let you share, edit, manage, analyze and collaborate with all types of data. For example, integrate your company website with box. 

box
icon_00INTEGRATE WITH YOUR APPS
icon_00FOCUS ON ENTERPRISE
icon_00REAL TIME NOTES TAKING

Your Box Backend Experience

Creating a new Box account and setting up users and files structure is fast, streamlined and easy. The overall Box experience feels a lot like Dropbox.

Box provides you with an overview of roles/permissions that you want to allow folder owners to choose from when collaborating on items. This feature gives you better control apart from edit, view and no access.

Your Team Member’s Frontend Experience

Like the rest, Box gives team members an easy way to share files and folders.

Box also allows you to set password and expiration date for a link shared.

When setting up your link in Box, you give it a name if you don’t like the long default link provided.

What Box Will Cost You

Box offers 3 monthly subscription plans ranging from SGD$10 per month up to $45 a month.

Box Wrap-Up

Box account is set up in no time, and the interface is also very user-friendly. The box is great for sharing files with the whole team, to any location. Box has made it easy to store, transfer, and track online processing of applications and data we need to use from multiple locations.

The level of user privileges can be modified. The security-related features are quite powerful, as it allows you to set users as editors, reviewers, etc. it can be viewed online without the need to download the documents, thus streamlining the process,

The real downside of the box is sometimes there can be conflicts when two or more people are editing the same file online simultaneously. There are no easy ways to search for things. Although, to be fair there is a folder grouping tool that you can use to organize the content and documents.

Growing Trend of Cloud File Sharing

Should you place all your data into the cloud or on-premise storage? The type of cloud file sharing solution depends on what are you storing in the cloud.
growing trend of cloud file sharing
Question for you:

Are you comfortable to place confidential information like your login, salary, company financial data, and tender quotations in the cloud? Or big file size like Autocad drawing and software? Probably not.

On the other hand, do you have any IT skilled person to take care of your on-premise storage? If there’s fire in the office, do you have an offsite backup for your data? Probably not too.

Hybrid Cloud

Hence, you can consider a hybrid cloud file sharing based on the type of information that you have. Hybrid cloud refers to a combination of both cloud and on-premise solution. Here’s our recommendation:
hybrid cloud

Suggested files to be placed at the on-premise storage

Big file size (Anything more than 100MB)
Software
Email backup
Company photos
Company videos
Confidential logins
Autocad drawings
CCTV video recordings
Confidential tender projects
Financial reports

Suggested files to be placed at cloud

Frequently accessed information that is shared by your internal team members. Eg. Quotation, Data Sheet

Small size (Preferably less than 20MB)
Frequently access files by remote colleagues or those that are always on the move. Eg. Outdoor salesperson
Non-confidential documents
Administrative forms like leave form, purchase order, delivery order, interview, claim, useful contacts, training materials.
private cloud vs public cloud

Private Cloud vs. Public Cloud

There’s two main types of business cloud file sharing: private cloud and public cloud. Both allow you to access your share files remotely.

Private cloud refers to dedicated cloud storage for your use only.
For example, the on-premise file server with remote access, network attached storage (NAS) or file server hosted in your own data center.

Public cloud storage refers to shared cloud storage open for paid subscription. For example, Sharepoint and Google drive.

Should you use a private cloud (e.g., NAS) or a public cloud (e.g., OneNote) for business cloud file sharing?

private cloud

Private Cloud

Private cloud is suitable if your company has an IT person to set up and maintain the private cloud. Moreover, you want a vast storage space and prefer a one-time upfront investment over recurring payment.

Pros:

Cheaper provided hardware last more than three years and big headcount

Full control and reduce unauthorized data replication.
Able to unleash the full features

Cons:

Limited hardware warranty (typical warranty last for 2-3 years)
Require maintenance (e.g., firmware patching, troubleshooting)
No redundancy (if you didn’t invest in backup solution)
High upfront hardware cost
public cloud

Public Cloud

Public cloud is suitable if you want the solution and don’t like the idea of maintaining own hardware. However, you need to pay a recurring subscription as long as you want the services. The moment you stop paying, the services stop as well.

Pros:

You can turn on services – almost immediately

No need to spend IT maintenance cost on hardware

Zero huge upfront cost

Cons:

Depending on your level of subscription. Support is usually available in email or live chat only.
Your data resides in an unknown location and often being replicated for redundancy purposes.
Storage space belongs to service provider.
More expensive in the long term. Especially if your organization has a very big headcount because the subscription counts based on per user per month.
overall recommendations - cloud file sharing

Overall Recommendations

When it comes to selecting a business cloud file sharing tool to share your files quickly, the right solution comes down to understanding three things about your company needs:

How many resources do you want to spend on setting up file sharing?
Do you require standard or advanced file sharing permission?
Where are your users mostly located?
Does the cloud file sharing integrate well with your existing infrastructure and software?

After learning about the pro and cons of cloud, and top cloud file sharing services, which solution feels like the best fit for your business needs?

Here’s a checklist you to check if your organization has such needs:

Z
The ability to protect shared folders and files from the web or app interface.
Z

Able to send upload links to outside clients or vendors.

Z

Good desktop app that preferably integrates with Outlook.

Z

Large upload file size limit.

Z

Access from tablets/mobile easily.

Z

Can connect with a third-party application

Z

Has the ability to notify when two or more people open the same file.

Z

Capable to block mobile devices from leaving colleagues.

Z

Prompt support response time.

Z

Friendly to work worldwide, with no blocks.

FAQ

Is Dropbox or Google Drive Better?

Google Drive wins if you need bigger free space and familiar with the Google ecosystem. Dropbox wins if your focus is on user-friendliness and it works great no matter what platform you use.

Case Study

Successful roll-out of file sync & share to a leading merchant exporter completed. The deployment delivered an enterprise file sync and share the solution to their team of 15 staff, which enables their mobile staff to work even without Internet connection. Connectbit was responsible for all aspects of the project, including planning, file sync & share setup, data migration, deployment, and end-user training.
Send an Enquiry Now