My “Free Online Storage” review of 10 different online backup services shows you how you can protect your digital photos, mp3’s, multimedia, documents, and more online (for free!)
A co-worker recently told me that he had two external hard drives that he’d been backing up photos and mp3’s to – and they were about out of storage space. He wanted to know what his options were for more storage space, and if tape backup were still a viable thing to invest in.
I think this is a good question, one that more and more people have as digital pictures start piling up – and as more of us buy music online vs. having a pile of cd’s lying around. It used to be the only thing you worried about was a fire destroying your precious family photos or music collection. Nowadays – I think that people are much more careless with “digital” versions of memories or paid music. Think about it, have you ever had a computer die, motherboard fry, or a hard drive go bad?
I few years ago my own daughter was heartbroken when over 2 years of digital photos were lost (in addition to he mp3’s) when her hard drive crashed. No matter what I did I couldn’t bring that drive back long enough to get data off of it. I should have done then what I told my co-worker to do now.
If you’re in a similar situation – you can of course buy more network storage as I’ve written about in the past. You could also get a wireless hard drive, or a Buffalo Drivestation – but by purchasing more hardware you still aren’t safe from a fire – unless you are backing up and then taking those external drives to a secondary location on a regular basis (like a safe deposit box).
My recommendation to my co-worker was to signup for “free online storage”. This way you’re protected from a natural disaster in addition to computer issues. In addition – you can also access your files from multiple computers if necessary, and getting at your files when you get a new PC or laptop is no problem. All this sounds expensive – doesn’t it?
There are 6 different online storage services featured in this c|Net review, but I decided to also add some services to this list that they left out. All in all, every online storage site listed below has a “free” option that you can use – and if you signed up for them all you could get more than 100GB of free online storage space combined!
We start with Windows SkyDrive, and they offer 5GB of online storage for free. It’s password protected storage, and I would be a bit surprised if this is something they don’t try and push as a “feature” of the next version of Windows. This services looks pretty simple, but I wouldn’t be surprised if was only completely usable from Internet Explorer (and most geeks I know use Firefox). You can make files public, personal, or shared.
MediaFire is a completely free online storage service that claims “completely unlimited storage”. Looks like their banking on that model of getting tons of online users and worrying about how to pay for it later (and maybe being bought for big bucks like YouTube!). They have options for making files public or personal. There is a limit of 100MB per file, but that shouldn’t affect the majority of people.
The XDrive has been around awhile – it was one of the first online storage services that I can remember. You get 5GB for free, then it’s $9.95 per month after that. XDrive was purchased by AOL some time ago – so you need an AOL username to login or create an account, but an AIM ID will do if you have one of those. You can upload files one at a time, or there’s a “java accelerator” for multiple files. You can share files and folders with this service as well.
You can get 2GB free online storage with MozyHome, or pay $4.95 per month for unlimited. Purchased by EMC, this service has been around about 2 years. Unlike the services listed so far, to use MozyHome you have to install an application that will backup your email, documents, and photos. You can choose (in “expert” mode) what files are or aren’t backed up, and how often backups occur. Mozy runs in the background looking for changed files to backup on a regular schedule.
Carbonite is probably the most heavily advertised online storage servies, with (currently) ads on the radio every hour. You get unlimited online storage space, but the cost is $4.95 per month, or $50 if you pay by the year. Carbonite is like Mozy, it’s an “online backup” service that runs in the background backing up your PC or laptop as you work. The difference between Carbonite and all the other online backup and storage services is that your files are encrypted before being securely sent from your PC to the Carbonite servers. That might not be important to some people, but as far as privacy and personal and confidential documents are concerned – it should be. Especially since most PC’s are riddled with personally identifiable information like resume’s, financial information, claimforms, and maybe even copies of paystubs or timesheets. If you own a home based or small business you would be smart to choose Carbonite for this one reason alone.
Box.net offers 1GB for free or 5GB for $7.95 per month. The free account limits individual file size to only 10MB per file. There’s also a 10GB per month bandwidth limit (if you’re repeatedly updating the same files), and they have a java drag and drop application that you can use. Even though this service seems a bit limited and restricted (for the free account), it does have uses that the others listed so far don’t. You can use this service to host blog or eBay photos and then placing the link on the appropriate page. It might be a handy account to have for just those types of uses, or for smaller short term online file storage.
ADrive offers 50GB of free online storage and they offer a “desktop backup client” as well. Something ADrive offers that the others don’t (or at least didn’t mention) was the ability to edit documents online. You can share files, and ADrive boasts a “search tool” as well, something I hadn’t seen any of the other services list in their offerings. ADrive sounds like a great service since it has lots of free space AND an online backup tools, but I hope that the intermittent problems I was having with their web site aren’t indications that their servers are maxed out (from too many users).
iDrive offers 2GB of online storage space for free with additional accounts starting at $4.95 per month. iDrive is advertised as working for both the Mac or PC – and you need to install their application to work with the service. You can select what to backup, or have true archiving and “sync” of updated files – and even access up to the last 30 versions. You can search and restore, or even explore your backed up files from a “windows explorer” like view.
Humyo offers 30GB of online storage space for free, which also includes the ability to edit files online. You don’t get a desktop client with the free version or encrypted file transfers (you can get 100GB and encrypted file transfers for $59 per year). You can send files via email with this service with no restrictions on size. The unique feature of Humyo is the ability to “publish and embed” media. You can put your media (movie file, mp3) on a blog or social networking site, and Humyo automatically embeds a “player” on the page – making it a snap to publish your media wherever you want. This would be a great feature for artists or bands.
Orbit files offers 6GB of free online storage space. You can edit your files online, and OrbitFiles offers a “tag and search” feature I’ve not seen in other services. You can add friends and share files, zip folders, and create public or private photo albums. Two features unique to OrbitFiles are the ability to enable RSS, and the ability to “sell files”. That’s right – you can sell your files online, whether it be PDF, eBooks, MP3’s, photos – you name it! They only charge a small 2% commission on the sale price – which really is quite cheaper than most options for selling digital content online!
There are all kinds of other online storage services that seem to do something different to set themselves apart. Like Omemo for example, which bills itself as the “world’s largest drive”. You sign up, and “share” part of your free hard drive space with others, for a huge “peer to peer virtual drive”. DropBoks offers 1GB of space in what appears to be about the simplest online storage interface I’ve seen. In.solit.us offers free online storage that you can even access from your iPhone. divShare offers 5GB storage and 10GB bandwidth per month and boasts integration with WordPress, Facebook, and iPhone. They have an API that can used to integrate their storage space with any online application. SendUit offers the ability to send files via an expiring download link that you can set from 30 minutes to one week.
Whichever service you choose – you should be able to find at least one online storage service that meets your needs!
