Windows Live Sync vs. Live Mesh vs. SkyDrive: Which is Right for You?

I guess, the storage limit of Live Skydrive is only 25GB, I dont think it is 50GB.

I’m happy with skydrive for my sole use only, where I bakcup docs,files and mp3 too.

I thought Skydrive was only 25GB and that is what their website says even now.

Brilliant comparison with necessary and sufficient explaination.

Thanks Rohan and Alok - I incorrectly mentioned the storage limit as 50 GB. Fixed now.

Hey, my SkyDrive only gives me 25 GB of online storage… where did you find the 50 GB?

Very informative! Thanks for the advice.

Only M$ can come up with something as silly as having three overlapping services. Obviously, they haven’t thought this through and just pushed out internal projects on the same objective to a public release.

Awesome comparison! I think you explain it much better than how most Microsofties or fans do.

I think Microsoft should just combine them all into one product, but keep the processes separate between cloud storage and file synchronizing/retrieving (not everyone needs both). Maybe in Wave 4 perhaps.

They might as well integrate Office Live Workspaces too with SkyDrive. It’d be nice if you could just sign into SkyDrive and be able to edit an Office document, within the web browser (like a Mini Microsoft Office)? and collaborate with friends and add comments and edits and all that. Sort of like Adobe Buzzword and Google Docs.

Well anyway, there’s a bazillion stuff I’d like to see Microsoft fix with these file services, but they’re pretty neat as it is. I think you wrote a great write-up on this.

@Ankur. You guys really make laugh. You decided years ago to hate MS and its got so ridiculous that now you are giving them grief for having a choice. LOL. So entertaining.

Shhhhh Simon! Let ‘em go! MS haters spread the good word much faster than fans. : )

Thanks for a great comparison article to Amit! I’m a techie and trying to help a friend’s company come up with a good solution for sharing files across the globe without spending tons of cash. Seems like a combo of the MS Live services might do the trick!

Great review, yet it misses a CRITICAL POINT:
Live Mesh handle updates by creating a backup copy and overwriting the original file
Live Sync handle updates by copying the new file with a different name (+ e-mail and machine name) and therefore NOT UPDATING the original file.
This might work for documents, but it’s terrible for Application Settings Synchronization.
Yes, Live Mesh can do that too. Some programs use plain .ini files or something in their directory. Sync it, and you’re done. Also works for Google Chrome’s cache - open some tabs, close the browser, wait a few secs, open it on the other PC, voila, the same tabs appear :)

Couldn’t get any of the three services working. Not even SkyDrive. My Internet connection is pretty good and I permitted every service in my firewall settings still no luck.
Will try again or any other service.

However, it was a nice review that forced me to try them imediately (usually I avoid this :) )

“Only M$ can come up with something as silly as having three overlapping services. Obviously, they haven’t thought this through and just pushed out internal projects on the same objective to a public release.”
I echo what Simon says - the MS hater set really make me laugh. Surely the fact that they have multiple teams working on stuff that benefits us is a good thing. Sure there’s some overlap and I’m sure that will get cleaned up over time. However, would you rather have these services available now or wait until they’ve all been joined up into one?

Strange people!

Two many overlapping services indeed. I think they should kill live sync as soon as Mesh gets out of its beta state. Mesh works much better, and is more feature complete.

SkyDrive and Sync are full production releases and do not overlap all that much. Mesh is still a beta which I daresay is destined to supersede both Sync and SkyDrive but while Mesh is still in development MS would be stupid to remove its equivalent production applications.

Gates used to have a very solid “make sure it all integrates” philosophy.

Ozzie on the other hand seems to be going with a more Google approach of allowing a significant amount of unrestrained creativity.

It may be all a bit confusing but then again a few years ago Microsofts web services were mundane whereas in a post Gates world I am finding myself more and more impressed with MS creativity.

I’m still a fair way from becoming a MS Fanboy but I am becoming more intrigued in the directions that the Evil Empire is taking each day.

As compared to gdrive how skydrive is better?
Can you provide me detailed differences of both including advantages and disadvantages. please

I am curious why you used the “vs” in a list with Live Sync, Mesh, and Sky Drive.

It seems to me Sky Drive is another application domain.

Mesh is superior to Live Sync. In fact Live Sync is a subset of Mesh.
SkyDrive is other kind of service.

I use Mesh every day and I must admit, it is quite good. However … i would agree with a few others posters here: only MS could be so stupid as to make Mesh and Live Sync almost identical and release them as 2 separate programs. The only reason I hit this page was because of the confusion MS caused me by having 2 so-similar programs.

If MS had half a brain, they would make ONE program and make it work properly. Mesh is good, but its implementation is close to disasterous. I seriously doubt whether these guys have actually used the programs themselves. Try it yourself and see.

So, I read all about sync programs, but they never seem to cover the particulars of what I would like to do.

I have a pc (with WindowVista Home Premium) at homes in each of two cities. I do not leave these c2 omputers on if I am not in residence. I have a portable drive (Seasgate FreeAgentGO) that I use to transport and update files, pictures, bookmarks, and contacts between the two computers. This gives me 2 duplicate backups at anytime and 3 most of the time. The Seagate driver only will sync with one computer. Currently, I manually copy each time but my files are too spread out to make this efficient and too easily leads to missing files.

I want to be able to easily sync the portable drive TO each computer and FROM each computer each time I change residences. This means that I have to be able to sync one-way and two-way on each of the two computers AND on the portable drive. I typically have about 10-15 GB of data. I prefer not to use data storage online, if possible, but I would be willing to do it.
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I cannot determine whether the programs you have been discussing will do this. I am hesitant to arbitrarily try these programs because, I created havoc with experimenting with Seagate. Chalk it up to my lack of skills, but I’m now skittish.

Do you know of a program that will do what I need?

Hi Barbara, that’s a good question (about your computers in the two different cities). I’m new to all this, but I think that Windows Live Mesh can do exactly what you’re asking for. The down side is that its “Live Desktop” feature offers only 5 GB of online storage space, and you mentioned that you have 2 or 3 times that amount. Maybe you could solve that problem create 2 or 3 different Live Mesh accounts.

Both Live Synch and Live Mesh offer a synchronization feature (two-way, as you said) that connects your two computers into a peer-to-peer network. If you were to use that feature as opposed to online storage, then your two computers would be synching directly with each other and therefore you wouldn’t have any limitation on the amount of data (since none of it would be residing on Microsoft’s servers). That would have been a perfect solution for you were it not for the fact that you turn off your computer before leaving each city.

If you change your mind and decide that you’re open to leaving the computer on before you leave a city, then you could use either:
1. Use that synchronization feature
OR
2. Use the “Live Desktop” (as opposed to “Live Remote Desktop”) feature of Live Mesh to browse your remote computer from ANY computer and then selectively copy and paste certain files. However, this option is probably not good in your case, since you said your files are so spread out that manual copying is both inefficient and error-prone.

Either way, the good news is that you no longer need your external Seagate drive, since Microsoft’s servers would be replacing it.

All your veterans out there, please correct me if I’m giving Barbara any bad advice.

Barbara,
I have been using Live Mesh since it became available. Live mesh will do everything you need. All you have to do it sign up for the account and add each computer to your Live Mesh. It handles the rest. I too have the same set up and with only 5 Gig on live I can’t store it all in the cloud. So my workaround is add all the folders on each device but not to Live desktop and it will sync them when they are online. To work around having to have both PC’s on to sync, when I leave town, I leave the PC on until I get to the other in another place. Then I start up PC 2 and let it sync with PC 1 that is still running. Once synced, I remote desktop (feature of Live Mesh) into PC 1 and shut it down. Start the process again once I go back home. Works very easy for me.