Should I Use Free Online Storage?
This article is copied from http://askbobrankin.com, a website well worth visiting
Short of hard disk space
? Fortunately, there are
numerous free online storage options that you can take advantage of. If you're
looking for a way to free up space on your hard drive while still being able
to access your files on demand, then consider signing up for a free online
storage account. Here are a bunch of the
best...
Googlemai (Gmail) allows over 7 gigabyte of space for emails and attachments. This space can also be used as storage. All you need is a small program from http://download.cnet.com/GMail-Drive/3000-2248_4-10671687.html which will create an item in Windows Explorer called Googlemail Drive. It will appear as an item below your other drives when you click My Computer. It is not accessible until you sign on to your Googlemail address in the usual way. From then on it looks like any othr drive and you can copy and paste or drag items to it. You can delete them or download them. You can right click on the Googlemail drive and click Properties to see how much space you have left. Within your All Mail box in Googlemail the items look like emails with attachments and can be deleted from there also
Google Docs
Google
Docs is a pioneer
in the free online storage market. This program allows you to store up to
5,000 documents and/or presentations with file size limitations of 500K for
the document and up to 2MB per image that is embedded in the file. You can
also store up to 1,000 spreadsheets in Google Docs with a maximum
spreadsheet file size of 200,000 cells or 100 sheets.
This program has several valuable features including the ability to lock
your spreadsheets so people accessing your files can’t make changes,
XLSX importing capabilities, complimentary themes for your forms and the
ability to create and add drawings to your documents. Google Docs also works
with Microsoft Office programs.
Microsoft has their own
free online storage program
called Sky Drive. This program
gives you up to 25GB of free storage. It is integrated with Xbox Live, Messenger
and Hotmail,
so if you have an account with one of the programs already then you can use
your username and password from one of these accounts to access your
Mozy is another first generation program
that offers free online storage. The free version of this program gives you
up to 2GB of storage and is compatible with Windows 2000, XP
and Vista,
as well as with Mac OSX 10.4 and 10.5. Mozy allows
you to store any type of file you want and gives you the option of setting
up an automatic backup schedule.
A
Drive is a simple
free online storage option. You are given 50GB of storage space to use for
movie files, documents and music files. Not only can you store your files
on this site, but you can also edit documents and other files from the A
Drive website.
Badongo is a free online storage program
that is set up like a social networking website. Not only do you get an unlimited
amount of storage, but you can also
create photoalbums,
music playlists and publish documents to share with other
Badongo users. This site also offers free widgets
that you can add to your blogs and websites.
Box.net is unique in that
it caters to businesses as opposed to a general audience. This program offers
remote access, mobile access and desktop access to the files that you store
in your Box.net account. The free version of this program is compatible with
PCs, iPhones and Blackberries. It allows you to
create five different collaborative folders, it gives you 1GB of free storage
and allows you to upload files that are up to 25MB
each
MediaFire is one of the few free online storage
programs that gives you unlimited storage. File size max is
100MB.
Omemo.com is
designed for social data storage. This means that it is designed for people
who want to upload files to share with other people. There are no size limits
imposed by this program, however, you do have to deal with third party
advertisements. Omemo.com is compatible with Windows NT through
While all of the above free online
storage programs give you great storage and backup for your data files, it
can be a bit of a hassle to access these files when you need them. Typically,
you have to login to the online storage website, find your file, and download
it to your hard drive. Not a big deal, but wouldn't it be much easier if
you could treat your web-based storage like a local hard
drive?
One solution to this problem
is to use a cloud integration program
like Gladinet.
This program will provide you with a quick link between your desktop and
the files you are storing online. Gladinet allows
users of Google Docs, SkyDrive,
ADrive (and a few other online storage services)
to access their web-based files just as if they were in a folder on a local
hard drive. This program also offers extra encryption and upload/download
acceleration for added convenience. Gladinet works
on Windows XP/Vista, with Mac support coming soon.