If you've used Dropbox, then you're probably going to love Copy! Ultimately, it's an almost identical product, but with a few features that will have you ready to switch by half way through this article. I like to think of them as Space, Interface and Sharing, even though Sharing doesn't rhyme. As far as online storage and backup goes, Copy seems to have raised the bar in many areas, and I'm excited to see where it goes from here.
If you haven't used Dropbox or any of the other competitors out there for storage and backup, they are a great way to simplify the transfer of files between coworkers and an amazing tool for ensuring that certain files are always accessible to you no matter where you are. Here's an overall run through of how these systems work.
1. You are given a certain amount of space on their servers, on which you can have your files stored and synced with multiple computers.
2. You have a folder on your computer that is automatically synced with the online space, and as you drag files to that folder, they are added to the online space, and to the corresponding folders on all other computers that you are logged in to.
3. You can also create individual folders that can be shared between yourself and another user so that you don't have to be logged in to your account on their computer.
4. You can view, share, and manage these files and folders in the Finder (for Mac, Explorer for PC) or in a web browser, or from a portable device.
Copy is a relatively new product that is currently in it's launching phase still. The best part about that is that they're feeling generous over at the Copy headquarters and they're giving away TONS of free space. They are currently offering 15GB of storage to any new users, with the added bonus of 5GB of storage for any referred clients. This means that you can quickly get to 30GB of free storage with a simple Facebook post spreading their name. You essentially are their marketing, and I like that! In fact, I posted one single post on my Facebook page about switching over to copy and within minutes I was at 65GB of free space because of all of the sign-ups under my referral link.
Like I mentioned earlier, there are 3 main ways in which I find Copy is really leading the way when it comes online storage products.
Space
Copy is giving out comparatively large chunks of online space for new clients, at 15GB with the possibility of quickly adding more at 5GB per referral. This is compared to Dropbox's 2GB free account starting size, with 500MB added for every new referral. This is a pretty straight forward advantage, and may not be completely scalable for Copy as they continue to grow, but that's not really our problem is it? I would suggest jumping on the free account now so you can get the best deal available and help a promising new company get it's legs.
Interface
I am loving Copy's interface on all mediums so far. You will likely use Copy in three ways; Desktop, Website, and Mobile. The iOS app is very intuitive and beautiful, with tons of functionality built right in. Saving images, pdfs, mp4's, and more straight to your device is extremely straight forward and lighting fast. Videos even play right within the program once they are loaded. Something you may want to consider is creating a separate account for your mobile device so you can have a shared folder with your desktop that will only contain things that you want to have accessible on your mobile device. This way you won't fill up space on your iPhone with unwanted documents that you're just storing in your heaps of new online storage.
Here is a quick snapshot of the process for uploading images to the Copy system from your iPhone.
The interface on the website is also equally easy to use and pleasing to the eye. You can do almost every functionally that Copy offers straight from the website interface. One aspect that I've found to be very useful is the way in which Copy sends public links of videos. Often, videos are huge files that you can't add as an attachment to an email to send to someone, but with Copy, you can upload the video and send it with no problems at all. In fact, they can even watch the video right in the email that you sent them. Then will be given a link to either watch or download the video, and the presentation is very professional and sleek. You definitely won't be getting emails from confused users not knowing how to get their video download.
Sharing
This is an interesting point that Copy is marketing as a benefit to using their system over others. They call it "Fair Storage For All", and I think they've hit the nail on the head with this one. What they're basically saying is that the competitors will overcharge you for sharing with other users, while they will divide the space usage between all parties. Watch this video to see their perfect analogy for this system.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m36ZMdE-vro&feature=youtu.be
With Fair Storage, you are able to really take advantage of sharing between users while not having to worry about your space dwindling away faster than it should. That is, if you don't have way more space than you need anyways because of all the free space you can get with Copy!
I would highly suggest that you take a second to create an account, after all, it's free! Once you've done that, I also highly suggest you spread the word if this is a product you would like to support. By doing so, you allow others to enjoy the great products you are, you help the company grow in market share, and you get more free space! Win-Win-Win!
Leave a comment below with your thoughts on Copy. I'm sure many people could benefit from hearing how you use online storage systems like this in your every day life and business.
nice - thanks for the tip Matt. As a suggestion, it would be great if you were transparent about the fact that the 'create account' link is a referral link that will award you more space...
What difference does it make? I was happy to go via the link as a thank you for sharing the article. Get a grip! Its not costing you anything.
as did I. just saying that full disclosure is appreciated. no grip getting needed here. perhaps you should relax yours?
With an avatar like that, it's easy to see why he's uptight...
It makes a difference in that the author is receiving a benefit from the referral (which may colour some people's perception of the piece.) Is the author being positive about the service because of its merits, or because he stands to gain from people signing up for the service? Not suggesting that's happening here, but that's why disclosure is useful, so people can judge for themselves.
I think you guys need to think about this a little more. If Matt didn't like the service, he wouldn't care about the extra space gained from the referrals. So his motivation to write this massive article couldn't only have been for space. In that case, who cares is it's his own referral link. If you don't want to click his, click mine :P
https://copy.com?r=K9nMtk
I'm curious, Matt - how much space have you earned from this article? :P
It's a matter of whether this is a product review, or an advertisement.
I LOVE how people will bitch about the objectivity of media, unless it benefits them. Then subjectivity is perfectly ok.
Thanks Chris, definitely a review :)
Nice! In only a day and a half FStopper's account is pushing 5TB and they're generously distributing parts of that to all of the writers as well.
Oh my gosh!! Hahahah!! That's insane.
Wow - with that kind of response in just a day and a half, I hope you won't mind if I share my link here as well ~ 2 months later?
Please join copy using: <!-- br {mso-data-placement:same-cell;} -->https://copy.com?r=SibHov and we will both get an extra 5GB!
I see both sides. I was happy to hit the link even after finding out it would benefit the author, but would have appreciated the transparency as well. A good review either way.
Thanks Jeff
Thanks for your confidence in my motivation for the article Nathan. That was definitely the intent, and no "sneakiness" was intended. It's a shame that we couldn't have "FStoppers" as the name on the referral link, but that's just what we get I guess. Hopefully no hard feelings.
Not only that, but I got 5GB free also! It works out in both favors!
No one is complaining about the referral link. They're complaining about NOT MENTIONING that it's a referral link.
I didn't like the way he did it, it seemed very unfair to me so I just used www.copy.com. Shame on you Matt.
I'm sorry you feel that way Gargara, but you're definitely entitled to do that. Happy to see you're using it, and I hope you have good success building up your account.
Considering Copy's stance on referrals, clicking his link gives you a bonus 5 GB as well. Because they actually give you 5 GB for using it apparently. I actually got an extra 5 GB for using his referral. I'm guessing you didn't.
But, I guess some people just want to piss in everyone's cereal.
Then you just lost 5GB for registering without being referred by anybody.
That was very sneaky of you. I'm excited about the new cloud service, but I agree that transparency would have been better in this case.
Hey Jordan, glad you're going to use Copy. Just to clarify, it's an FStoppers account that's getting credited, my name just shows up on the referral system as I setup the account for them. Ideally we would have had "FStoppers" come up on the Copy system as the referrer, but I think it's a pretty minor detail.
I never post comments on this site because some of the malcontent whiners are just unreal... but you sir have won, "The Complaint Award" of the year.
Hey Eduardo, Thanks for the comment. To be fair, it's an FStoppers account that is getting space because of the referral link, it just happens to have my name as the source as I setup the account. I am still happy with my 75GB from my facebook friends referrals and love to support Copy in their launch. Affiliates and referral systems are a great way for FStoppers readers to help the FStoppers team to continue to bring great content at no extra cost to the reader, so I'm glad to see so much interest in this and other products!
I think you've missed the intent behind Eduardo's comment. The specific account that benefits is not the issue. Rather, when posting a referral link or any sort of link that will net the writer a gain of some sort, I believe that it is customary to include a disclaimer for the sake of transparency.
I'm personally more upset with how you have responded to these concerns by your readers. In my opinion, the mature way to deal with the situation is to acknowledge the readers concerns, and then address them by making an edit and a disclaimer into the original article rather than focusing on meaningless nuances such as a personal accounts vs a business account.
Considering Copy's stance on referrals, clicking his link gives you a bonus 5 GB as well. Because they actually give you 5 GB for using it apparently. So you can be all "disclosure" all you want. I actually got an extra 5 GB for using his referral, and have an email stating it.
But, I guess some people just want to piss in everyone's cereal.
I've no intention of using it right now (dropbox does everything I need), but I'll sign up for all the free space :p
I imagine they'll drop the amount of free space down when they have a decent amount of people signed up
I couldn't recommend Copy any more than you have done here ! I'm impressed by how difficult it is to stay #1, even with an innovative idea, now that I'm simply migrating all I have from Dropbox to Copy. As long as Dropbox doesn't innovate any more, Copy wins with the free space, desktop UI and mobile app, which I think are much better.
And kudos to you using your referral link in the article. You and whoever clicks it get 5GB free and Copy gets a new user. Everyone wins and no one should be complaining, since the service is so great. I have done the same and am at 212GB, and haven't heard any complaints from anyone.
Thanks Joao!
It's great that all those mobile apps which have driven Dropbox's success by using the API they developed will now support Copy too.
Oh hold on.
P.S. CLICK HERE TO GET ME MORE SPACE
Good stuff, I'm in!
I use both and sorry to say but Will stick to dropbox. The upload speed is a bit faster but copy has a bad thing and That it works like First in and First out. Whey you Ret to sync stuff and Ret to download at the Same time the desktop app won t Work. You have to want until the First batch is ready with up or download before it Will continue to It's next task.
Dropbox does all the jobs in the Same time and even with a slower speed It's Much faster the copy. The ammount of space is great but having a vast product is key here.
Second problem is sharing. Whey you want to share images with dropbox your client gets a great thumbnail overview (hope Theo Will incorporate a photo wall). With copy you Will not get That at all. As a Photographer sharing with thumbs and download all files with One click is also very important.
Thanks Stefan; those were issues I was unaware of, that matter.
I think people who want to use this as an FTP are in for a disappointment... Much like dropbox.
But for keeping stuff readily available between devices...
like ummm... Lightroom catalogs...
It's great and a perfect solution IMO.
I'll stick to my personal FTP to send clients their stuff, and use Copy for all the in house work.
I love dropbox, they gave me 50 gb free after activating my used Samsung S3 I purchased from craigslist. I don't really see any advantage using Copy over dropbox apart from the space, which I'm more than happy with the 50gb+ that I have right now.
is that dropbox or box? box had a deal offering a bunch of space for activating an account on mobile apps, but you were limited to ~250mb file sizes
It's dropbox, although I'm reading their TOS, https://www.dropbox.com/help/297/en, seems like it expires after 1-2 years. We'll see.
I have DB, I don't have 50gb. I have 3.2. I dont' have a Samsung S3 to activiate and get bonus 50GB. So while DB may be great for you, you're the exception, not the rule.
I got more bonus space for using the link here, then I do as a whole signing up for DB. And they limit how much bonus space you can get.
Shameless plug...
You could always use my referral link instead: https://copy.com?r=BBy7B6
Thanks!
I used your code, Matt. It's the least I could do for getting rid of Dropbox.
FYI — There is an issue with Copy (current version) CPU usage in OSX 10.8.4. Open Activity Monitor and watch CPU usage. In Copy.app > Preferences > Network, "allow local peer discovery and syncing" is enabled by default, which is apparently responsible for the constant (and unacceptable) ~4-5% CPU usage. I wrote to the developers about this; they suggested disabling the local discovery / sync option. Disabling this preference lowered CPU to a fluctuating 0% to 1-2%...still unacceptable. The developers say this will be fixed in a future release.
dropbox space distribution? you can easlily selective sync, problem solved.
need space? - bitcasa has unlimited cloud storage 99/yr
pice of sjt..... tried to get some free stuff from us....
you can´t trust nobody these days..... sure no bloggers....
It didn't cost you anything, and its truly an amazing product....
So where do you find the need to complain?
You do realize that by clicking that link, you get bonus space, right?
So YOU actually get free stuff for it as well.
So, it was a Fstoppers account that was credited. But, why the lack of transparency, though? People felt cheated...
You get 5 bonus GB for using the link. Where is the cheat? It didn't hurt anyone for clicking it. Did you have OTHER referrals you could have used instead?
Seriously, why is everyone so butthurt over this?
Taylor, you're gonna have about 100tB of storage after everyone joins from your link... !
When we photographed a prominent NYC blogger, she had noted in her post that "{I was not compensated for this post. I received a complimentary maternity session for review purposes. I am under no obligation to endorse or write about it. All opinions expressed herein are my own.}
http://www.glamamom.com/2012/06/michael-kormos-photography-glamamom.html
I know nothing about editorial guidelines, but I thought her comment went a long way towards establishing integrity, trust and non-bias amongst her audience. And it's the audience, in the end, that matters most I think.
all the bitching and whining .... it's a free product, who cares whether or not you know if someone else benefits ... and to the chap that went to copy.com so that no one would benefit from you signing up, i hope you stump your toe in the morning, because that is just ridiculous!