17 Online File Storage Services Tested

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.

Data Dumps

[headkase]

Reminds me of a scene in The Turing Option [amazon.com] where the main character has to physically make a trip to an out of country data dump to retrieve some bad mojo. This leads to a question of where the posts data dumps are located? Which jurisdictions do they fall under and therefore what laws?
And relatedly when gigabit connections become common sometime in the future you could keep your mp3's or divx movies in a dump and not notice any latency accessing them when the net isn't down ( ;) ).

GDrive

[ironring2006]

So I started trying to read through all the 17 different ones they reviewed, but when I saw such small numbers as 50MB and actual dollar $igns, all I could think of was the Gmail space [mozilla.org] extension for Firefox. 2GB and growing storage in a single gmail account. Also, it's not like those that have gmail accounts don't have extra invites laying around. Mind you, it isn't quite as elegant a solution as some of these offerings, but the price is right and the storage space is always growing (to infinity + 1!!!! [elliottback.com]).

I know a lot of people that use their webmail accounts in this manner (yahoo, hotmail, etc) where if they think they need to be access a file somewhere else, they'll just e-mail it to themselves in an attachment. In all honesty though, the adoption rate for something like this for home personal users isn't going to ramp up until the average upload speeds of a home connection increases. Especially for large files, too many Joe Computer users are going to think their computer froze just because it's taking so long to upload their files.

Re:In the Clear

[Doc Ruby]

If I scramble my data with a password using well-examined software before I send it to the remote storage, I don't have to trust them at all.

Using remote storage with open-source local scrambling clients that many cryptologists have studied automates that process for the masses.

The security isn't a sticky problem. Publishing even minimally responsible journalism seems to be the sticky part.

Re:sounds like a security risk

[asuffield]

Anyone who takes thier data seriously would never think of doing such a thing. You have no idea what happens when your files get copied to some third party network.

I can't really say that I care what happens to my heavily encrypted data while it's on some third party network. If they can't give it back to me in identical form, they don't get paid any more, and they aren't the only place where I store it.

Not seeing your point.

Re:Slashdot

[Ed Avis]

I like to use Google. When I accidentally trashed most of my bin/ directory [membled.com], I was able to recover most of the scripts from Google's cache.

Another alternative is to make yourself a Sourceforge/Savannah/whatever project and use their CVS service. You do keep your important stuff in version control, right?

No mention of rsync.net ?

[arafel]

I'm amazed nobody's mentioned rsync.net [rsync.net] so far, particularly on Slashdot. Cheap storage, access via rsync, instructions for mounting it remotely on Linux/FreeBSD (as well as Windows), plus they've given some thought [rsync.net] to both the legal and privacy aspects: "rsync.net does not merely recommend that users encrypt their data, but provides resources, tutorials and unlimited technical support for such usage".

Re:No mention of rsync.net ?

[PEdelman]

I'm quite happy with raidarray.net [slashdot.org], which I've been using for the past year. Their offer is very affordable (100$ for 25 Gb a year long) and it has all the Unix bells and whistles you need (rsync, ftp, etc). They also have a very helpful support team who helped me out with a sticky rsync-problem.

Oh and for backup software I use Rdiff-backup [nongnu.org], which is able to make reverse incremental backups.

Is there any good (free?) back-up software...

[Kjella]

...that'll let my group of friends create our own back-up service? I could easily gather up half a dozen ADSL 24/7 users who would be willing to donate 5GB of space for 1GB 5xMirrored. It'd be a gentlemen's agreement, not a SLA and they could of course block/delete it at any time, but then you've made a poor choice of friends. With a swarm download (getting a few blocks from each friend) speeds should be good even with the low upload. Back-up services are a bit too much like insurance companies - they compete really hard to give you the lowest price - but then they're also a bitch to get money out of. I'd much rather have a bunch of friends I could call up and say "hey, I just had a disk crash so I hope you don't mind that I leech 24/7 for a little while."

Carbonite

[CopaceticOpus]

I'm surprised that there is no mention of Carbonite [carbonite.com]. In terms of $/GB it blows everything else away. I've been using it for a little over a month now, and here's my findings:

Pros

1. $5/month for virtually unlimited storage. Seriously!
2. Works without much thought on your part required.
3. Doesn't overwhelm internet connection

Cons

1. Requires Windows.
2. A bit too automated. The geek in you will want for options.
3. Initial backup can take a long time.

Carbonite does a slow-trickle upload of my chosen files and directories when the computer isn't in use. I've uploaded over 50GB in about 4 weeks. I still keep local backups of everything, but it's great to have an offsite option for so cheap.

Re:good idea, still too expensive

[balloonhead]

Find a like-minded geek. Slashdot seems like a good place to start.

Each needs:

- storage space
- high speed internet
- always-on connectivity
- high-level security (by which I mean encrypt your own data as much as you need to)

Offer a swap. 100 GB each. You now have secure-enough (assuming good encryption), free (cost of your connection, already paid for), always-on (assuming each is geeky enough to leave computer on 24/7) backup and data storage.

Of course, it all depends who you link up with. But you can get a few and have some multiple redundancy.

I admit it has faults - but there are a few people here with large pipes, storage space, technical know-how and inclination to make it work. It has the added advantage of encouraging good encryption and security practices (i.e. if you don't follow them, your data is wide open).

Don't like it? Pay for one of these data centres. Or stick it on P2P.