How do I store and manage my 'data' / 'files'?

In this day and age, taking and storing digital data especially documents is trivial. It’s inevitable and everyone has to do it at some point or the other.

I like keeping things organized neatly and avoid storing unecessary files, books, documents, items and even redundant information. I hate storing my data locally; Cloud is the way to go, it makes the data easy to acess from any computer and keeps the working environment consistent and clutter free.

To be able to do this, I need an application / software / method which is

• Sync - ability to sync across all my devices. That includes all my Linux OS, Windows OS and Android OS.
• Clean - void of unecessary distractions and options; Clutter free U.I
• Easy - Adding / removing / updating of data must be easy and intuitive.
• Flexible - Editing / backups / upgrading / future-shifting must be easy to do.
• Indexed - what’s the point of storing files if you can’t access the contents at the right time?

Keeping the above points in mind, I chose the following services:

• Dropbox:

  I was torn out between Dropbox and Evernote for my note taking requirements. Evernote provided tons of features including OCR, searchable files and tons of other features. But it had some major flaws:

  • It wasn’t available on linux natively. Yes, the web app worked but it was slow and clunky.
  • Most of the things which made Evernote awesome was locked behind a paywall of $5 per month (cheaper in India ~₹240 per month).
  • Even after trying out premium for a month, I wasn’t satisfied because Evernote lacked Markdown support. I’m a huge fan of writing stuff in markdown. It’s easy, future-proof and flexible. This was a huge factor for me to avoid Evernote.

  Whereas Dropbox was available natively for Linux, Windows and Android, supported any type of files and was extremely flexible (specially when used with a shell/terminal). Thus, I decided to store all my notes in dropbox which then instantly got synced everywhere. Even though Dropbox has a limit (currently ~4.5 GB for me), it can be upgraded to 16GB worth of free space by referring friends or completing tasks, which I believe is more than enough for notes, files, documents and code.

• Google Drive:

  All the data apart from text will be stored in google drive. Since I have a couple of gmail accounts and google provides a total of 15 GB free space (for all their services), storing media and other heavy files should be no issue for the near future. If ever I do need more space, Drive provides 100 GB of extra space for only $1.99 per month which I believe is a better bang for buck when compared to Evernote Premium.

• Hard Drive:

  For everthing else, i.e: old photos, family videos, phone backups and pretty much anything which is rarely used; I prefer a good ol’ Western Digital 1 TB HDD. It’s cheap, effective but risky. Which is why I have a backup of that data on other HDD’s :D)

Recently Amazon Drive released a new plan of allowing to store unlimited data for only $59.99/YEAR, which I think is absolutely mind blowing. Let’s see how it goes and how it affects pricing of it’s competitors, especially Google and Dropbox.