Pop quiz: How do you coordinate a team of remote workers? Remote work benefits the immediate productivity of the employee immensely.
But once that employee has to work with a team, their remote status can be an obstacle. How can we solve that problem while keeping them remote?
This is not just a problem for the worker. It is a problem for everyone working with them, the team leaders above them, and even the business owners who are above the team leaders.
The businesses that answer this question will expand and produce more, capitalising on demand.
Those that fail to answer this question will find themselves stuck in the past. So, what’s the answer?
Currently, one of the best ways of connecting remote workers who are working in a team is cloud storage platforms similar to Sync.com.
Cloud storage platforms allow people on the same team (or even in the same company) to share files with each other easily. But how good is Sync.com in particular?
Table of Contents:
The Features of Sync.com 📑️
How Much Does Sync.com Cost? 💰️
Using Sync.com is all about uploading your files to a server, and then accessing them (or letting other people access them) from somewhere else. There are three essential benefits to using Sync.com.
- Sharing your files with others
- Keeping your files secure
- Accessing your files remotely
Sharing Your Files with Others
This is the main reason people go to Sync.com. How it works is that after you upload your files, you can either give someone permission to access the files themselves, the folder those files are in, or the server on which all the folders you own are stored. The files are the individual documents, while the folders contain those documents, and the server is the place where all of these are stored.
You can share a link to any one of those methods of holding files. You can also send files directly to someone, up to and including sharing access to the entire server that you store everything on.
Keeping Your Files Secure
File security means two things: First, you keep your files safe from being lost. Since they are on the “cloud”, that means they are stored on several servers at once as backups. Even if the computer you uploaded them from is damaged, destroyed, or wiped clean by a virus, your files will remain.
Of course, there is also “security” in the more conventional sense. Files on the Sync.com servers are protected by encryption, as well as passwords and two-factor authentication. It is basically impossible for someone to get access to those files without your permission due to these features.
Accessing Files Remotely
For some industries, remote file access is all they need. But for others, they need to go a bit deeper. Sync.com provides for that by allowing you to not only access files on their servers remotely, but also files on the computers that use the service. You can even set up remote desktop control.
By doing this, you expand the use of Sync.com to not just be about storing files. It also means you can use it to facilitate tech support within a company, since support agents can use Sync.com to help resolve problems on company computers. It’s good for individuals as well.
The cost of Sync.com is what really made it competitive on the marketplace. If we are going to be honest, the real test of any cloud storage platform is how it stands up to Dropbox.
Sync.com’s prices are highly competitive in that respect. They have four plans in total, with two of the plans being designed for individuals while the other two are designed for teams.
Solo Basic - $8 a Month
The standard single-user account. Includes 10 terabytes of storage, as well as the file sharing features. They all use the same security, so you are not getting less security for the cheapest option.
Solo Professional - $20 a Month
When most cloud storage platforms separate out their default plans from their premium plans, they do it by withholding features from the default plan. Not so with Sync.com. What they do is focus their premium solo plan on people looking to present their shared files in a certain way.
For example, the solo professional plan allows you to customise the links you send to people when you share your files. It also gives you the ability to customise the pages people land on when they click the link. The customization runs deep, and you can get a lot out of it with some programming knowledge.
On top of that, your storage space is tripled to 6 terabytes, with a few other features for fine tuning.
Teams Standard - $6 a Month
This package is the cheapest of the bunch, and accordingly it comes with the least storage space. It is tempting to get it instead of the solo basic package, but you should know that even though it is cheaper, the team's standard plan is simply focused on other features. For instance, file sharing over a network.
Imagine you are making a movie. You have your film crew, your editors, and your sound crew. They all have different disciplines that interact with the same video files. The team's standard plan lets you organise those different groups on a network so that edits to files made on one computer are reflected on the others. This is critical for tons of industries, such as game development, architecture, and so on.
Teams Unlimited - $15 a Month
With Teams Unlimited you get (as the name implies) unlimited storage, the same networking and admin tools offered by the standard plan, as well as the customizable branding offered by solo professionals.
Like with team standard, the price is on a per-user basis.
What are the Drawbacks of Sync.com 👎️
The features are up to par and the price is good. But nothing is perfect. What are the issues Sync.com has? Well, there are three main drawbacks, one of which you might have already figured out.
Drawback #1: The Different Plans are Confusing
You will surmount this problem eventually as you use the service more and more, but anyone curious about the system that doesn’t have a review or guide to tell them how it works might get lost trying to navigate the different features that each Sync.com plan offers them.
Confusing marketing is rarely that much of a problem, but in this case Sync.com sabotages itself by making all of its plans appealing in some unique, exclusive way. For example, their team's unlimited plan gives you unlimited storage. That might be exactly what many people are looking for. Then they actually get the plan and find out that most of the file sharing features they wanted work differently.
One of the worst things an app can do is surprise the user. Ideally, a service will be aware of your expectations going in, communicate its message based on those expectations, and then directly satisfy them. In this case, expectation and reality find themselves at odds when choosing a plan for some.
Drawback #2: No Third-Party App Access
Admittedly this is a niche problem, but for the people that are affected by it, a lack of third-party app access can be a deal breaker. Essentially what it means is that any application you have to organise your files for you will not work with the program. This is primarily a problem for huge tech companies.
Drawback #3: Not Highly Unique
Sync.com is highly streamlined when compared to other cloud storage services, but that can also make it feel relatively basic. If you already have a cloud storage service you like, then read carefully to see if Sync.com offers anything you are not getting elsewhere before you switch.
Even though Sync.com will be cheaper than most services, you still might want to go with a more expensive service if it offers a feature that you cannot get from Sync.com.
Key Takeaways 🔎️
Sync.com is a relatively standard package in many ways. It does not try to reinvent the wheel, and anyone who is already using a different cloud storage service will likely not see any immediate reason to switch unless their existing service is lacking some pretty critical features, especially for a team.
But where Sync.com shines is in the finer details of its features, along with the price. Every plan that Sync.com offers is cheap, and they all have their place.
If you are looking to just store things and send them to people, then you have the solo standard plan for that, offering little fuss and no customization.
But if you want (or need) customization, then there is a plan for that. And once you get into working with a team, then administrator tools will become critical, as will network-based file sharing. And all of that becomes more appealing when you can invest in it without breaking the bank.
Conclusion
We recommend Sync.com for its ease of use and low cost. Just be sure that you are getting what you mean to get, and consider whether or not third-party applications are critical to your business.
