Sync.com review: Superb online device sync and backup

Price When Reviewed

5GB: Free / Solo Basic 2TB: $8 a month (approx £6.20)/ Solo Professional 6TB: $20 a month (approx £15.50)

Best Prices Today: Sync.com

Where online storage services such as Dropbox, iCloud, and others only allow you to sync data across devices, Sync.com adds discrete unsynced storage to the mix via its Vault folder. This makes it particularly well-suited for backup. I like the approach, and I think the company should take it even further.

Read on to learn more, then see our roundup of the best cloud backup services for comparison.

What are Sync.com’s features?

Sync.com is an online storage service that sports a web interface that you can use to drag and drop files to and from your desktop, as well as a virtual drive folder and context menu commands for transferring or adding files. MacOS is supported similarly and there are Android and iOS apps for backing up data from your portable devices.

The free and personal account lack some features found in the Solo and Solo Unlimted accounts such as document previewing online; the ability to selectively choose what files in your Sync folder you just want kept locally or cloud-only; and the ability to grant a non-user permission to upload files to your Sync folder and Vault.

The Solo Unlimited tier goes even further with advanced features for branding (using your own logo, etc.) and high-priority tech support. File recovery of deleted files (aka versioning) is 60 days for Personal accounts, 180-days for Solo accounts, and a full year for Solo Unlimited accounts. That means you can get deleted files back, if you realize your mistake in time and move with appropriate alacrity.

How much is Sync.com?

Sync.com offers a free 5GB account available (not to be mistaken for the free trial of the paid tiers). End-users can upgrade to 1TB for $8 a month, 5TB for $16 a month, and unlimited for $54 a month.

Those are substantially higher rates than were in effect in our last look a couple years ago. However, you can lessen the financial burden by going annual for 1TB at $72 ($6 per month), 5TB at $168 annually ($14 per month), and unlimited for $540 ($45 per month).

There are also business-oriented Team accounts for three or more users. Entry-level for this type of account is $3 a month per user (a minimum of two users) with 1TB of storage per user, while for $7.50 monthly per user you get unlimited storage, branding, and phone support. If you can find a couple partners in crime, the Team plans make a lot of sense. Ask around.

Note that as with most online storage services, the discount expires and the regular price kicks in after the first year — an important economic consideration when you’re thinking long-term storage.

Sync.com’s web interface is generally easy to use, and Windows Explorer integration is top notch via virtual folder and context menu commands. Luckily, you won’t need to visit the preferences dialog very often as it suffers scrunched tabs and a pedestrian design. It works, but it could be prettier.

Most users will use Sync.com by dragging files to and from the folder/virtual drive it creates in Windows Explorer. The status of these files (online/local and online) are conveyed by an icon in a column to the right of the file/folder name as shown below.

By default the Files folder behaves just like any other sync service’s. Any files stored there will be kept there and subsequently distributed to any devices running the Sync.com app. Drag-and-drop is fully supported by the web browser interface, which is what I used for my first couple of tests.

However, you can save local space by designating files and folders as “cloud files.” There’s even an option to make all of them cloud-only in preferences. To avoid downloading all these files to another computer, leave the checkbox shown in the dialog below checked when you install the client.

A bit oddly, instead of a Sync folder context menu for files saying “Make this online only” or “Make this a cloud file,” there’s a “Free up space” option. That’s of course the intended result, but a bit inconsistent with the nomenclature found under preferences.

If you want to back up files without transferring them to the local Sync folder, you use the “Copy to Sync Vault” option that’s also integrated into the Windows Explorer context menus. Files in the Vault remain unchanged until you delete them using the web interface, or they are replaced by newer versions. Retention of older files is time-limited as discussed in the pricing section above.

Alas, the Vault copy can’t be automated so it’s not as useful for backup as it could be. I tend to forget, be lazy, etc., so I use the sync function and limit Sync to the computer I want backed up. What might be nice is to have a Sync Vault folder that you could copy files to using a local backup program. Just saying.

Sync.com’s performance will obviously vary by the bandwidth of your internet connection. My initial transfers using a web browser and drag-and-drop were reasonably quick and of course started immediately.

Syncing 3.5GB of images with the Sync.com folder was complete within a couple of hours. Copies to the Vault commenced in good order, and my initial upload was available online within an hour. Note that my upstream bandwidth is approximately 500MBps.

I did have one minor issue while booting macOS in my initial review: Sync.com would throw a message about being disabled. Choosing the Re-enable option from the dialog fixed the issue temporarily and providing Sync.com full disk access in Security eliminated the issue. This was not an issue in this latest look at the Mac client.

Should you buy Sync.com?

Sync.com is as easy and secure as any service I’ve tried, and splitting the multi-device sync and non-synced storage for backup gives you the best of both worlds. Again, the Team plans are the sweet spot for Sync.com if you can grab a couple other family members or pals to team up with. Just remember it’s full boat after the first year.