Digital file sharing has become a crucial aspect of daily life for small business owners across the planet. Incredibly efficient cloud systems have helped untether workers and redefine the limits of what companies can achieve.
But recently, businesses have been jumping ship and abandoning free cloud sites in search of more dynamic file sync and share (FSS) services. FSS goes above and beyond ordinary cloud storage by enabling companies to share files across multiple devices both internally and externally. Shared files can be copied and amended by multiple individuals simultaneously, which can be extremely helpful when collaborating with creative agencies or partner organizations.
At present, there are over 100 FSS solutions out on the open market. But as always, not all of those services cater to small businesses. That’s why the backup and recovery specialists at Datto have decided to launch abrand new service designed specifically with small companies in mind, the company says.
Introducing Datto Drive
Launched in May, Datto Drive enables users to store a dizzying amount of data on the company’s secure, purpose-built 250 plus petabyte cloud and enjoy 24/7 access, support and a wide range of configurable options. For example, businesses can take full advantage of Datto Drive’s explosive upload and download performance, centralized auditing functions and unique enterprise features like Web Distributed Authoring and Versioning (WebDAV).
Datto Drive also benefits from a global license agreement with ownCloud, an established open-source provider in the FSS industry.
And according to Mark Kulacz, Datto’s Director of Product Marketing and Competitive Intelligence, this new service is on offer for a fraction of the price big companies are paying out to household names in ‘freemium’ technology like Dropbox or Google Drive.
In fact, Datto has already announced that the first million small business customers to sign up for Datto Drive will receive one terabyte storage for 12 months free of charge. After enjoying a free year of storage, businesses will then be asked to pay $10 per month per terabyte for an unlimited number of users.
“The pricing is unique since others in the market charge per user which can become expensive,” Kulacz told Small Business Trends. “For a 600 person company, estimating a 35 cent per gigabyte per person rate at Dropbox, costs would be about $9,000 per month.”
“Once you start looking at thousands of dollars per month, that becomes cost prohibitive for small businesses,” Kulacz adds.
Bearing in mind the ever-increasing relevance of FSS in maintaining efficiency, Kulacz argues widening access to these services is crucial in order to help foster small businesses.
“Small businesses in particular can benefit from FSS because it helps employees be more productive and effective day to day through easily accessible files,” he said. “FSS also assists with employees being more mobile, and does provide increased data protection — although it is not a replacement for a thorough data backup solution.”
[“source-smallbiztrends”]