As of June 1st 2014 Ubuntu 1 is turning off. Bummer. I'd been using it for some time and found that it worked really well for me. I use multiple machines at home, and my work just moved (mostly) seamlessly between each machine with out me even thinking about it.
So what to do? Google Drive with Insync seemed good. I think it has 15Gb of free storage, though I've seen articles refer to 25Gb. The cost of extra storage is very low. And it looks like Goole is in it for the long haul. But I already use Google for other stuff and didn't want to mix Drive with my home stuff. (Mixing different types of "Stuff" can be bad!)
Dropbox is a market leader, which is a plus. But they only offer 2Gb of free space and compared to Google, the extra space is expensive. It also has the limitation that everything needs to be in the Drobox folder. A big "No Thanks" from me.
Lots of folk seem to like OwnCloud. If you run your own always on, always connected server then it looks great. And if the server is hosted in some far off data center so there's no risk of local fire or theft or other data loss disaster, then all the better. But that doesn't work for me either.
Then I found Copy. Copy has 15Gb of free storage, which is expanded to 20Gb if you sign up via a referral link. Both you and the referee get an extra 5Gb for free.
But the best thing about Copy is that you can use symbolic links, or in Windows speak, short cuts. That means you install the client, create the copy folder somewhere convenient, but not in a folder you want synced to the cloud. Then create a symbolic link (create a short cut) for each folder you want synced inside the Cloud folder. That's it. It'll start syncing and, depending on the speed of your connection, if a short while you'll be done.
In Ubuntu, that means your documents, Music and Pictures folders can be left as they are, and still be synced. That's really the same as the Ubuntu One service worked. Perfect.
When I first set up Copy it seemed a little slow to Sync, once running it quickly completed and has been fine since. Copy also has a local peer service. So if multiple clients are on the same local network the sync traffic doesn't need to go via the cloud, which can really wind up the data usage counts for those ISP's that are somewhat limited in metered allowances.
There's a client for Windows, Mac and Linux, but pretty much all the Cloud services have that now.
All round Copy looks like it'll be a contender in the Cloud Storage space. I'm sure they'll be getting a lot of Ubuntu One customers over the next few months.
Here's my link to referral service https://copy.com?r=vI3gAD . Get yourself an extra 5Gb and help me out with an extra 5Gb at the same time.
