Online Storage--A Good Idea?

Over the past few years, the cost per gigabyte of computer storage has dropped siginificanty. Good thing, too, because over the past few years people have been storing record amounts of stuff on their computers. A number of options are available these days--dump it on your massive internal hard drive, buy an external hard drive, burn it to a DVD (or soon a Blu-ray disc!), or, perhaps, store it online.

Online storage is nothing new. I remember when I had my first computer, back in the days of 28.8 kbps modems, that online storage was available, 500 MB for the modest price of 20 bucks a month. Since then, though, technology has improved. Now it is possible to store all sorts of things online without paying a cent. Is this a good way to go?

When I opened a Gmail account a few years ago, I learned one of the great advantages of online storage--your stuff is available from anywhere. This may not seem like much of a perk at first, but as time goes on, you realize it really helps. As any computer owner quickly learns, computers are frail things. From ashes they come, to outdated technical junk they return. Although you try to be dilligent about moving your stuff from one computer to the next, things inevitably get lost along the way. If your documents are backed up online, they will be available from any computer at any time, without your having to do anything to get them off the first computer in the first plaace.

However, this ability comes at a cost, namely, bandwidth. Unless you happen to be blessed with a T1 connection, you will quickly find that uploading and downloading files of any serious size takes forever. Online storage will obviously not prove to be a solution to your everyday storage needs. However, for long term storage of important files, it remains an option. Lets look at some places where you could potentially store your files.

At www.xdrive.com you can get a free five gigs of storage. Xdrive comes with its own software that enables you to back up and upload your files, and access them when you want. It has no limit to individual file size, and, as it points out, is safe and secure. Possibly worth looking at.

Other websites such as www.box.com offer paid storage, and a few, such as www.freewebspace.net offer smaller amounts of free space, but in my experience, nothing seems as easy to use as xdrive.

Short of using web services designed to store your junk, some have turned to their Gmail accounts. An obvious solution, right? Open as many as you want, and load in your two and a half gigs. Download it from anywhere. Unfortunately for these people, google is onto them. To get these people back for tying up their server space, Google has instituted the attachment size limit, which is currently 20 mb. Not too much. Obviously not too well designed for the purpose either.

Having looked at the options, it seems that online storage does make sense in some cases, for frequently accessed files or important back ups. However, it would seem that you'd do best to keep burning your television shows to DVD.