17 Online File Storage Services Tested 186
prostoalex writes "PC World reviewed 17 online file storage services. According to the summary: 'Of the 17 services we tried, our favorite backup service is IBackup, while the GoDaddy Online File Folder is our pick of the storage sites. And for sharing files, we like the free 4shared.com service.'" They're also thoughtful enough to include a warning about the pitfalls of saving your data online.
And thankfully... (Score:5, Informative)
I'd also note that Apple's
Re:And thankfully... (Score:5, Informative)
I'd register a dotmac account in a second, if they didn't max out at two gigs of storage.
Re:If you're going to pay for something.. (Score:5, Informative)
We use iBackup. Nightly pgp-encrypted backups, and we sleep soundly knowing that if the bottom-most server on the rack catches fire and slags everything above it, that we can get new gear running, pull the data back down, decrypt it (after manually typing the key in from the printout stored in one of two offsite vaults, if necessary) and be live again in days.
what about eSnips? (Score:2, Informative)
Sharepoint (Score:3, Informative)
Re:And thankfully... (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, I just checked, and .Mac currently maxes out at 4GB of storage.
It's possible this still isn't enough for your needs, but in case it is, I thought a correction was in order.
Yaz.
Missing the obvious... (Score:4, Informative)
Streamload has been my option for 4 years now. (Score:5, Informative)
- Basic Account - $4.95/month or $44.95/year - Unlimited Storage
Download Up to 2 GB/mo.
- Standard Account $9.95/month or $99.95/year - Unlimited Storage
Download Up to 25 GB/mo.
and it goes all the way up too:
Premium Account $39.95/month or $399.95/year - Unlimited Storage
Download Up to 100 GB/mo.
Or even terrabytes for businesses (a state university in America, I believe, Uses a fair percentage of streamload)
http://streamload.com/ [streamload.com]
Stremaload also allows you to host files for people that do not have Streamload accounts. The downloads are cheap and the uploads are quick. (By the way. My streamload account has more then 40 terrabytes of things that i can download.)
All of these do waaaay more than I ever want (Score:2, Informative)
Re:If you're going to pay for something.. (Score:2, Informative)
Amazon.com's S3 and JungleDisk (Score:4, Informative)
Oh I forgot ifolders. (Score:3, Informative)
real backup services allow private key encryption (Score:3, Informative)
Re:And thankfully... (Score:3, Informative)
raidarray.net (Score:1, Informative)
A. ftp backup
B. Driveletter mounting in Windows
C. Normal SMB mounting
D. NFS Mounting
I signed up for their middle plan, $15/mo, 50gig storage. Their higher plan is $25/mo for 100gig, or $10/mo for 25gig.
They're fast, seem to be stable. I was forced into using an offsite backup when the company I was working with was forced to downsize, and my dedicated server with them was going to be pulled. I was able to completely back my user data up within under an hour (30gig of data or so).
And yes, I did apply to be an affiliate, but it'd be tacky for me to try to get money from fellow
Re:In the Clear (Score:3, Informative)
Re:good idea, still too expensive (Score:1, Informative)
Strongspace (Score:2, Informative)
Re:good idea, still too expensive (Score:4, Informative)
They Offer a dedicated server with 160GB of HD, your OS of choice, 100MB bandwith and unlimited data.
You can SSH, FTP, VNC, whatever you want. How does that sound?
Price is 30/month.
.Mac is not encrypted == It's useless. (Score:1, Informative)
Here's my bullet point summary:
* The Windows iDisk client simply does not work (I've yet to get the client to connect).
* iDisk traffic is not encrypted.
* Backup archives are not encrypted. From the help file: "Backup doesn't encrypt information it backs up."
* iSync does not use encryption.
* The
Maybe I'm spoiled by having access to an encrypted IMAP mail server - but their lack of security seems absolutely terrible.
I also don't like that Apple can casually view all the data that I upload to iDisk (since there's no encryption).
Encryption tools (Score:4, Informative)
A more user-friendly approach would be to use an encrypting file system, such as TrueCrypt [truecrypt.org], which presents a single file as a drive on your machine, and backup the encrypted file regularly.
Apparently the domain got recycled... [Re:MySpace] (Score:3, Informative)
The old Myspace.com closed it's doors back in 2001 [nytimes.com]. The new MySpace beast is unrelated to that old site. (Google link doesn't require soul-sucking registration... [google.com])
Re:No mention of rsync.net ? (Score:2, Informative)
Unfortunetly when you go to sign up you get: "Ordering is closed temporarily. It will return in 1 weeks time." To bad, I for one will check back in a week to see if it's up. It almost seems to good to be true, I tried doing a couple of google searches on it and came up with essentially nothing. Anybody use these guys?
Free Alternatives (Score:3, Informative)
The one I use is RoamDrive [roamdrive.com]. It's free, it no longer has ads (it used to have a banner at the bottom), and it works with Gmail or Hotmail.
They've been promising a pro version that lets you link an unlimited number of gmail and hotmail accounts for a virtually unlimited amount of free storage, but it's been over a year and nothing has been released yet.
Still, the free version works really well. No limitations on file names or types, it automatically compresses files when necessary, and the only limitation for how much you can store is how much free space you have on the e-mail account in question.
Re:rsync.net - alone with duplicity and rdiff-back (Score:2, Informative)
But rsync.net is going to become known as _the_ choice for unix/sysadmin folks (and the generally clueful).
They are the only ones that offer advanced backup and encryption services such as duplicity and rdiff-backup support, in addition to their basic protocols such as rsync, Unison, WebDAV.
Also, and this is huge, they are the ONLY offsite backup provider with geographical redundancy. I have my data backed up automatically to both San Diego and Denver, and this is being expanded this summer to Switzerland, India, and Japan.
rsync.net is going to be the "kleenex" of offsite storage, at least for sysadmin/Unix people.