Free Online Data Storage - Backup To Protect Your Files

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Dear Microsoft, Invite Your SkyDrive and Live Mesh Teams Round For Coffee

Free Online Data Storage Options by SoftwareGuru It always surprises me how quickly I can fill up a computer harddrive with files. Word documents, Excel Spreadsheets, PowerPoint presentations, Expression Web files, Adobe Photoshop graphics - the list is endless and that's just the day to day stuff. Your digital music and movie collection will really start to take up space after a while. Sure, you can look at the external harddrive and USB stick sitting on your desk and feel reasonably confident that you've made backups but is that the best long term solution? USB memory sticks are easy to misplace and external harddrives are not much more reliable than internal drives. A lot has been written about cloud computing and how it will change how we use computers. So when my laptop started to fail on me last week it got me thinking, "isn't it about time I started syncing my harddrive with an online storage service?" Before I knew it, I had jumped in with both feet at the deep end and made a few interesting discoveries.
	Dear Microsoft When it comes to creating, editing, sharing and collaborating with Microsoft documents then OfficeLive.com should be your first port of call. It's like having an online desk where people can share ideas and get really productive. That's great but the service is very much designed with businesses in mind. For home users it's not exactly the easiest user interface I've ever experienced. For general file storage, Microsoft have created SkyDrive which is a useful place to start. Key points to note: - 50 MB individual file limit - 25 GB capacity (increased from 5 GB previously) - installing the SkyDrive upload tool enables users to 'drag and drop' files into online storage folders - Clicking the "help" link on the SkyDrive page will bring up a table of contents and FAQ which should answer all of the most obvious questions people might have The only criticism I have is that so much emphasis has been put on sharing online content, no mention is made anywhere on SkyDrive of syncing up content. There isn't even a link to Microsoft's Live Mesh facility at Mesh.com! Live Mesh also provides online storage and allows you to sync folders and content but only 5GB worth. It's as if someone decided that home users would not be interested in syncing up their harddrive content automatically and would prefer to only have the option to add files manually. OK, Live Mesh may still only be in beta mode but I expect a lot more from one of the biggest software corporations on the planet. Online storage and syncing content goes hand in hand. I can only guess that SkyDrive and Live Mesh are managed by two different teams and they have yet to all get on the same page. Naturally, this glaring omission of synergy has allowed others to steal ahead in the race for early adoption of this type of service. Let's meet our contestants...
Online Storage With Sync Options Having a decent UI (user interface) for a new online service can be the difference between success and failure. See Google's homepage for example. It's only fair to say then that Live Mesh causes more frustration than England during a penalty shoot out and Microsoft need to sort it out quickly. Alternatives are easy to find. - humyo.com - livedrive.com - dropbox.com All 3 of these services offer more functionality and ease of use then Microsoft. Humyo offers a free 10GB account which will sync your files without making you break sweat. Their website is easy to navigate and they go to great lengths to reassure people about the security and privacy of their files. LiveDrive offers a free 14 day trial period after which paying users must choose a package. Only the more expensive option provides the virtual drive on your computer which is the most appealing aspect of the service. Whether it is worth the monthly fee is up to individual users to decide. Lastly, is my personal choice: Dropbox. Dropbox is incredibly simple to use, they offer 2GB of free storage initially and is native to Windows, Mac and Linux. If I was in charge, I'd invite the SkyDrive and Live Mesh teams round for coffee. After introducing the teams to each other I'd ask a few simple questions. - Why can't Microsoft match what Dropbox is doing? - Why isn't this functionality built into Windows 7 by default to sync my harddrive online? - Why are there three teams, if you include LiveOffice, handling online storage with zero synergy? - Will Windows Mobile 7 confuse the issue even further by creating a 4th place to store files online via mobiles? As a computer user, I only have one type of data: My Data. I don't differentiate it based on whether I'm using a computer, mobile device or whether it's a Microsoft Office document, photo jpg, mp3 or movie. Windows 7 lacks a key default feature: To access all of Microsoft's free online storage space via a virtual drive on your computer with the ability to sync your files within that drive. Is that really too much to ask? Click on the following link to visit our Windows 7 Student category.

Free Online Data Storage - Backup To Protect Your Files

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