Six Free Online Storage Services : Final Thoughts
Six Free Online Storage Services
discuss Discuss this now (6 posts)
Final Thoughts
If you're running low on hard disk space, and just need somewhere to store nonessential files, or if you have a need to access your files from different computers in different locations, these services are a welcomed relief. Other key reasons to use them are to share documents with others around the web and to back up those precious memories stored in media files against the possibility of a local disk crash. And if you don't have a huge library of files, the free space of at least 1GB offered by all these services won't cost you a dime.
All of these services reliably stored our test files, without any evidence of file corruption. The trend was for services that offered more advanced features to be more quirky and at times even buggy. If you just want no frills storage, choose DropBoks or openomy. If you need subfolders and would like a prettier interface, look into box.net.
One thing we missed in many of these services was actual OS integration—with the sole exception of OmniDrive, which lets you upload files via a right-click option in Windows Explorer. Some of the other services, such as openomy and box.net do allow developers to build such functionality.
If your files are very confidential, you should probably stay away from online storage. Online storage could also be something to avoid if you're a serious digital photographer who has a large collection of multi-megabyte RAW files or if you store and want quick access to high-quality audio or video files. It all depends on the upload speed of your internet connection; for those with low-end DSL connections, it's not a great idea to store huge media files online, but if you're a business or if you just pay a lot for a faster connection, you may as well go for it.
