The past several weeks I’ve been scouring the web in search of the best online storage, backup, and sharing services and applications. I have personally investigated and reviewed each and every one of these listed below. If you believe I have left an important one out of the list please let me know by commenting at the end of this article and I will review it for inclusion. In addition, if you work for one of the service providers listed below and any of the information (features, pricing, etc.) becomes outdated please bring this to my attention by commenting on this post using your work email (yourname@nameofserviceprovider) and I will personally update the information so it is current and accurate.
Compare Best Online Storage and Backup Services
SugarSync – One of my favorites because it does it all; online storage, backup, sharing, mobile applications for access via your cell phone (Android, Windows Mobile, BlackBerry, iPhone), remote multiple computer and file synchronization, unlimited bandwidth and file size upload, and desktop clients for both Windows and Macintosh operating systems. Other cool features include the ability to nativly upload and share photos to Facebook as well as earning up to 5 free GB of storage space for referring friends. SugarSync offers a free plan that includes 2 gigabytes (GB) of online storage. An upgraded plan costs a mere $0.25 per GB per month and the maximum storage plan is 250 GB with a low cost of only $0.09 per GB per month. SugarSync has an excellent support center that includes a dedicated knowledge base, FAQs, tutorials, troubleshooter, discussion forum, email, and support tickets.
Mozy – The most simple and one of the best automatic secure backup utility services for individuals, businesses, and enterprises. The free plan comes with 2 GB of online backup and the basic plan will run you only $4.95 per month for unlimited backup of all your personal data (MozyHome). They also offer business (MozyPro: Desktop Licenses; $3.95 + $0.50/GB per month, Server Licenses; $6.95 + $0.50/GB per month) and enterprise (MozyEnterprise) level plans. Features include outstanding security and encryption measures (e.g. 448-bit Blowfish, 128-bit SSL)and desktop clients for both Macs and PCs. Mozy offers excellent support features including FAQs, email, live chat, and phone.
Carbonite – Mozy’s primary competitor, offers a 15-day free trial for unlimited backup of your data. After the free trial, the unlimited backup will cost you $4.16 per month. They offer excellent security and encryption measures and a desktop client for Windows computers only. Their support features include FAQs, email, live chat, and phone.
Drop.io – A unique online storage service that allows you to easily and privately share anything (photos, videos, audio, documents, etc.). A “drop” refers to a chunk of space and each drop has its own email address (for upload via email) and phone number (for voicemail, conference calls), and you can fax into and out of a drop for free as well. You can also add links, comments, and notes too. More features/tools include a Firefox Add-on, bookmarklets, widgets, twitter alerts, email alerts, SMS alerts, and subscription via RSS or iTunes podcast. A free account include 100 MB of storage and files are deleted after 1 year. If you upgrade however, the basic plan costs $10 per year for 1 GB ($0.83/GB/month). Customer support is provided through emails only.
ElephantDrive – Great simple, secure, and powerful online backup and storage service for individuals and businesses that works great with both Macs and PCs. Their 30-day free trial included unlimited storage, 100 GB monthly bandwidth, and a 1 GB file size limit. After the trial ends, it (Home Edition plan) will cost you $4.95 per month. For $9.95 (Home Plus Edition), you can backup a total of 4 computers with an unlimited amount of storage (100 GB bandwidth limit, 2 GB file size limit). They also offer solutions for businesses as well (Pro, Pro Plus, Enterprise). The Pro account ($34.95/month) covers 10 computers and includes 1 terabyte (TB) of storage per account, 2.5 GB file size limit, 1 TB monthly bandwidth, and 10 workgroup sub accounts. The Pro Plus account ($99.95-$299.95/month) covers 20-100 computers and includes 2 TB of storage per account, 5 GB file size limit, 2 TB monthly bandwidth, and 20-100 workgroup sub accounts. The Enterprise Edition is meant to be used by large organizations but requries you to contact them for pricing and other storage details. ElephantDrive offer excellent support to its customers via FAQs, forum, feedback forms, support tickets, email, and phone.
iBackup – Provides an all-in-one online storage, sharing, and automatic backup solution for businesses and enterprises. They offer a 15-day free trial of their basic plan of 10 GB of online storage and backup that costs $9.95 after the free trial expires. Additional storage space is priced at approximately $1/GB/month. Features include mobile access , excellent security and encryption measures, workgroups, and desktop clients for Windows, Mac, and Linux systems. Support is provided via FAQs, email, live chat, support tickets, and phone.
iDrive – IDrive is iBackup’s sister service that provides automatic backup solutions for individuals and small businesses. The free plan (iDrive Basic) includes 2 GB and the iDrive Pro includes 150 GB for$4.95 ($0.03/GB). iDrive Pro for Business starts at $9.95 for 50 GB and goes up to 500 GB for $49.95. Features include security and encryption measures and desktop clients for Windows and Mac systems. Support is provided via FAQs, email, live chat, and phone.
Backblaze – A great backup solution that is seriously geared towards making it dead simple for you to backup and store the entire contents (except OS and program files) of your hard drive online. Backblaze provides a free 15-day trial that includes unlimited storage. After the trial period end, you can keep backing up your data with Backblaze for a mere $5 per month. This includes unlimited amounts of storage, unlimited monthly bandwidth usage, and a maximum single file size limit of 4 GB. Features include desktop clients for both PC (Windows XP and Vista) and Mac computers, automatic backups, and multiple computers per account. Customer support for Backblaze is provided by way of FAQs, user guides, tutorials, support tickets, and email.
4shared – Offers a free online storage service that accommodates 5 GB of data, a maximum upload file size of 100 MB and no limitation for bandwidth usage. The 4shared service includes the following features: transfer and manage files, multiple file upload, anonymous file upload, share files/folder via a simple link, password protect folders, email files as a shared link, photo albums, play music files, stream video, add comments to files, and anti-virus protection. Their premium account costs $77.95 per year ($6.50/month) and comes with 100 GB of storage space. Customer support is provided via FAQs, user guide, tutorials, forums, support tickets, email, live chat, and phone.
Dropbox – Fairly new and recently out of beta testing, Dropbox offers simple solutions for online storage and sharing. They currently provide a free account with 2 GB of online storage and 50 GB for $9.99 ($0.20/GB). Dropbox has a desktop client for Windows, Mac, and Linux systems. Once the desktop client is installed, a Dropbox folder is created for which to easily add files to your online account via dragging and dropping the files into your Dropbox folder. Multiple computers can added to your Dropbox account by simply installing the desktop client to each system. Thus any files added to a given Dropbox folder will be sychronized and accessible on any computer for which Dropbox is installed. A public folder allows you to easily share files with everyone. To be more selective with your sharing, you can easily add additional folders and grant access to specific individuals. My only complaints are that the main Dropbox manager/folder are not password protected and you can only install one Dropbox account/folder per computer user account (issue for family computers without multiple user accounts). However, these are minor issues that can be worked around by making your computer user account password protected and by just creating additional user accounts on the computer and installing Dropbox on the new user accounts. Thus giving each user their own Dropbox account that is secured via his/her own password protected user account. Dropbox’s customer support is provided via FAQs, forum, and email.
Box.net - A great social and collaboration based online storage and sharing utility service for your personal and business needs. Their free version comes with 1 GB of online storage (10 GB/month bandwidth, 10 MB file size limit) and their basic plan (unlimited bandwidth, 1 GB file size limit) includes 5 GB of online storage for $7.95 per month ($1.59 per GB). Features include mobile access, an embeddable sharing widget, bookmark synchronizer, collaboration tools, web based editing of documents, photos, spreadsheets and more with their OpenBox Services (integrated third-party services: Zoho, EditGrid, Picnik, eFax, Facebook, Twitter, etc.), and integration with popular applications (Adobe Reader, Photoshop, Autodesk, Microsoft Office, OpenOffice.org) via Box Enabled Applications plugins. Box.net also offers business (15 GB, $19.95 per month, up to 5 users) and enterprise (15 GB, $15 per user, 9 or more users) plans.
MobileMe – Apple’s new online storage, backup, and sharing service gives you a free 60-day trial of 20 GB. After that, it’s gonna cost you $8.25 per month ($0.41 per GB). Additional storage will cost you $2.45 per GB. Features include mobile access (iPhone and iPod Touch only), a 200 GB bandwidth limit, desktop clients for Windows and Mac systems, and the ability to access, manage, and sync your email (Microsoft Outlook for PC, Mail for Mac), contacts (Address Book), calendar (iCal for Mac), photos, and files at me.com. Support features include FAQs, tutorials, forum, email, and phone.
DriveHQ – Offers online storage, backup, and sharing services. Their free service comes with 1 GB of storage space and their basic plan includes 2 GB for $2.99 per month ($1.50/GB). Features include unlimited file size, remote multiple PC access and synchronization, and a Windows based desktop client. Their premium service uses redundant high-end RAID-50 storage systems and their upgraded features include multiple backup file versions, faster upload/download speeds, and no advertising. They also offer excellent services for enterprises which Includes 4 total services: online storage, online backup, and FTP / email hosting. The DriveHQ Enterprise Service plan starts at 100 GB Storage + 400 GB monthly download bytes + 20 sub-users for $99 per month ($0.99/GB) and goes up to 10 TB Storage + 40 TB monthly download bytes + 1000 sub-users for $4999 per month ($0.49/GB). DriveHQ Enterprise Service now offers 25% off for educational and non-profit organizations. Drive Headquarters provides great customer support features that include FAQs, knowledge base, forums, email, and phone.
Tilana Reserve – An offsite storage, offsite backup, and sharing service provider. They offer 2 GB of free storage space and their basic plan includes 30 GB for $4.16 per month ($0.14 GB/month), unlimited monthly bandwidth usage, and no limit on the maximum file size per upload. Features include a desktop clients for Windows systems, sychronization technology, no maximum limit on storage amount increases, multiple computers per account, and mobile access. They also offer business solutions that allow for corporate branding and the scalability to handle an unlimited number of computers. Tilana Reserve has its own API for interested developers as well. Customer support for Tilana is provided by way of FAQs, user guides, support tickets, email, and phone.
HostedFTP – HostedFTP customers that sign up for the free account will receive 1 GB of free storage for the 30-day free trial period. HostedFTP offers three paid storage solutions: Personal Edition ($10/month), Group Edition ($40/month), and Enterprise Edition ($80/month). Features include off-site storage, off-site backup, sharing abilities, unlimited bandwidth, no maximum file size limit, desktop clients for all operating systems (Win, Mac, Linux), email notifications, mobile phone access, business branding, unlimited scalability for users, and much more. HostedFTP is somewhat unique because they only charge you for the amount of storage space you use. Additional storage for businesses is a available at an affordable cost of $0.50 per GB. Customer service for HostedFTP is provided via FAQs, tutorials, email, and telephony.
BeInSync – A great online storage and backup service that’s currently offering a 14-day free trial. Features include unlimited bandwidth, unlimited file size upload, remote multi PC access synchronization, and a Windows based desktop client. The basic plan will cost you $4.95 per month and comes with 5 GB of online storage space and can be upgraded to any amount of storage via additional increments of 20 GB ($19.95/year = $0.08/GB/month) or 50 GB ($39.95/year = $0.07/GB/month). Business accounts are charged $10/user/month, can support more than 20 users (15 GB/user), and extra storage is available for only $0.50/GB/month. BeInSync offers a special discounted education rate students and faculty members. BeInSync has excellent support via email, support tickets, live chat, and phone.
Xdrive – An online storage, backup, and sharing service from AOL. Their free account comes with 5 GB of online storage and the basic plan includes 50 GB for $9.95 per month ($0.20 per GB/month). They offer desktop clients for both Windows and Macintosh systems and their new Xdrive Desktop Lite client, is built on Adobe AIR technology which enables you to drag and drop files directly from your desktop, hard drive, or USB device directly into your Xdrive account. However, their customer support is lacking by merely providing a user guide and FAQs.
Omnidrive – Provides online storage and sharing services (no backup). They offer 1 GB of free storage space and their basic plan includes 10 GB for $3.33 per month ($0.33 GB/month), a 20 GB monthly bandwidth, and an unlimited maximum file size. Features include desktop clients for Windows and Macintosh systems, mobile access, and online editing of files (documents, photos, etc.). Their customer support is decent with a user forum, FAQs, and email.
Allmydata – Another all-in-one service for your online storage, backup, and sharing needs. A free account include 1 GB of storage (1 GB monthly bandwidth) and an upgrade to the basic plan gets you unlimited storage space and unlimited monthly bandwidth for only $4.99 per month per computer. AllMyData also provides a separate service plan for small businesses which runs $0.15/GB per month of storage used and $0.15/GB for data transferred. Great support for customers is provided via FAQs, forum, email, and phone.
DivShare – A very socially driven online storage and sharing service that offers a free account that includes 5 GB of storage and 10 GB of downloads/month. DivShare has also done a great job of integrating with other popular applications and services to let you add the power of DivShare to your web sites, blogs (WordPress plugin), phone (iPhone), and social network (Facebook App). They’ve even created their own API that allows developers to easily integrate its storage and sharing services into their own applications. Features include embeddable files, password protection for sharing files/folders, branding options, removal of advertising (paid only) and mobile access (iPhone only). A basic paid plan costs $7.95/month and includes 10 GB ($0.79/GB/month) of storage, a 2 GB maximum file size upload, and 100 GB of downloads/month. DivShare’s largest package includes 50 GB of storage and 500 GB of downloads/month for $31.95 ($0.64/GB/month). Their customer support is provided via FAQs, support tickets, and email.
FolderShare – Similar to Dropbox, Windows Live FolderShare is an online storage and sharing service that allows you to create dedicated publicly and privately shared folders that are automatically synchronized across multiple computers. In addition however, FolderShare also lets you import your favorite bookmarks and permits remote access to all computers (via access to desktop, all drives, all files) that are linked to your FolderShare account. Thus FolderShare is somewhat akin to Dropbox plus GoToMyPC.com but free (for now at least). FolderShare is currently still in the beta testing phase of development but works without any noticeable issues. To remotely access a given computer via FolderShare the computer must be turned on. Desktop clients exist for both Windows and Mac systems and online storage is limited to 10,000 files/library. A library represents the root directory of a set of created folders, so based on how you set up your account it should be plenty of space for one person. Since it is still in the beta testing phase, there is currently no upgrade/paid version yet. Customer support is quite lacking and is provided via FAQs and email only.
Live Mesh – Also in the beta testing phase of development, Live Mesh is an online storage and sharing service. It is intended to be an all-in-one hub for connecting your mobile devices, computers, and folders for access anywhere at anytime. They have plans for supporting both Windows and Mac operating systems as well. The only current available feature is the free 5 GB of online storage and customer support can be reached only through email.
SkyDrive – Design and functionality is exactly like FolderShare except that it doesn’t offer desktop clients to provide easy drag-and-drop uploading to your online storage account from your desktop. A Windows Live SkyDrive account includes 25 GB of free online storage space and customer support is only provided though email.
Wua.la – A very social online storage and sharing (via friends, groups) service that offers a 1 GB free account. For more storage space you can an either trade unused local disk space for more online storage (e.g., trade 50 GBs on your computer to get up to 50 GBs of online storage), or buy additional storage (per year: $25/10 GB, $95/50 GB, $160/100 GB, $630/500 GB, $1000/1 TB). Monthly bandwidth and file size is unlimited and desktop clients are provide for Windows, Mac, and Linux systems for easy drag-and-drop uploading. Customer support is only provided through email.
FilesAnyWhere – An all-in-one online storage, backup, and sharing service for individuals, small businesses, and corporations. Their free account comes with 1 GB of storage and their basic single-user plan includes 1 GB of storage for $3.95. Features include unlimited file size upload, unlimited bandwidth, remote multi-computer access and syncing, desktop clients for Windows/Mac/Linux systems, HTTPS, SFTP, FTP, WebDAV, Facebook App, corporate/company branding, excellent security and encryption measures (firewalls, 128-bit VeriSign SSL-encrypted transfers, SSL 3.1 TLS encryption, 128-bit blowfish algorithm, telco grade data centers), compression, address book, contacts, document management, photo print ordering, fax service, photo editing (via Picnik), document editing (via Zoho), capture handwritten e-signatures, high definition (HD) player, blog tools, collaboration tools, search within files, meta keywords, comments, photo albums, slideshows, streaming video and music, online document viewer, workgroup subaccounts, dedicated servers, file restoration, document version control, alerts, password protection, read receipts, drag-n-drop upload, multi-user editing, drive mapping, automated backup, folder synchronization, profiles, teams, and mobile access (Blackberry, Palm, Windows Mobile, iPhone, PocketPC, Smartphone). Customer support is accessible via FAQs, email, and phone.
MediaFire – An online storage and sharing service offers a very generous set of features and benefits for their free account including unlimited storage, 100 MB file size limit, unlimited uploads, unlimited downloads, unlimited bandwidth, embeddable sharing widget, and image galleries. Upgrade to the MediaFire Pro account and you also get direct/hot link to files, a 10 GB file size limit, redundant backups, no advertisements, rollover bandwidth, SSL encryption, advanced statistics, and priority support. The MediaFire Pro accounts come sizes of 100 GB for $6.97 per month ($0.07/GB/month), 250 GB for $14.97 per month ($0.06/GB/month), and 1000 GB for $49.97 ($0.05/GB/month). Customer support is provided via FAQs and support tickets only.
MegaUpload – Offers 50 GB of free online storage which can be upgraded to 1000 GB for $9.99 per month ($0.01/GB/month) with no limitations on monthly bandwidth or max file size. A web browser toolbar (Internet Explorer, Firefox) is provided for easy uploading and sharing of your files as well. Customer support is provided through FAQs and email only.
Badongo – An online storage and sharing service that offers a free account with unlimited storage space. However, the free account includes restrictions such as download speed of 500 kbps, download-limit of 12 GB/day, advertisements, delays, only one maximum parallel download, and inactive files are deleted after 90 days. Upgrade to their premium plan for $5.95 per month and those restrictions are removed. Features include sharing widgets, music player, and a desktop client for Windows based OS. Their customer support is provided by FAQ and support tickets.
In.solit.us – Gives you unlimited disk space and bandwidth usage, allows you to store an unlimited number of files, and share your files (documents, images, music, applications, etc.) in numerous ways (private, public, by user, by group or by generating private download links). Features include RSS feeds (by user, both public and private or by category), groups, file comments, file analytics, categories, tagging, folders, subfolders, ajax powered live search, WebDAV, file embedding, mobile access (iPhone only) private messaging, and forums.
Steekr – Web based storage and sharing service that allow you to store, view, and distribute your files simply by using an internet browser or the free client software for Windows or Mac OS. Their free version includes 1 GB of online storage and their basic plan cost $2.91 per month and includes 5 GB of storage space ($0.58/GB/month). Steekr customer support is provided via forum and email.
eSnips – A social networking and content-sharing site that offers 5 GB of free online storage space to publish and share any type of media. Steekr allows you to share your thoughts, files, documents, pictures, playlists, widgets, video, music, voice, folders, web pages, links, web snippets, and also create your own voice and video content as well. They offer no additional storage or paid accounts and customer support is limited to email only.
Yuntaa – An all-in-one backup, online storage, file synchronization/restoration, and sharing service that offers 1 GB of free storage space. Their basic paid plan offers unlimited storage and backup for $15.53 per month. Yuntaa customer support is provided through FAQs, email, and live chat.
DropBoks – A simple online storage only solution with no bells and whistles. Your account includes 1 GB of storage space and you can upload/download files (any format) as large as 50 MB. They use authentication and encryption to ensure your files are secure and plan to be offering the option to upgrade your storage for a small monthly charge ($1/GB/month).
Omemo – An open source social storage platform that allows the user to share and store files online and browse Omemo’s multimedia library. In essense it is a peer-to-peer (P2P) virtual hard-drive that makes the unused space on the hard drive donated by each user available to other Omemo users for storage. Omemo requires a Windows desktop client installation of their software for use of their service. Customer support is provided by wiki, forum, and email.
Openomy – Gives you 1GB of free space and allows you to store, share, and embed your files online. They also offer an open API that’s available to developers and unlimited storage available through Amazon S3. Customer support for Openomy services is only available through email.
Yahoo! Briefcase – Offers 30 MB of free online storage and that’s about it. I’m not even sure why Yahoo! provides this service because it can’t even compete with any other competitors on this list. It is by far the worst of the bunch here. Customer support for Yahoo! Briefcase is only available through email.
MyBloop – Lets you store all of your files for free and there are no limits on storage, bandwidth or the number of files you can store. The maximum size per file is limited to 1 GB and they offer desktop clients for Window and Mac systems. They allow movies, music, and videos to be uploaded to the site as long as it is marked private and is not shared with anyone else. Permitted content can be embedded into other popular websites (i.e. your MySpace, Facebook, blog) through use of embed code and their sharing widget/player. Customer support is only available via email.
SwapDrive – Recently acquired by Symantec, SwapDrive offers no free accounts and their basic service will cost you $30 per month for 1 GB of storage, backup, and recovery solutions. That comes with easy installation of their Windows-based desktop client, automatic backups, web access, security measures (SSL, FTPS or AES encryption, authentication, firewalls, etc.), fast data recovery technology, and Symantec’s great reputation. Customer support is great and provided via FAQs, email, and phone.
JungleDisk – An online storage, backup, and sharing service powered by Amazon S3 that allows you to store an unlimited amount of data for only 15¢ per GB with no monthly subscription fee and no commitment. You simply pay as you go and pay only for what you use per month (no minimums). The installable desktop client (Windows, Mac, Linux) works just like a local drive allowing your to drag and drop, copy and delete, and share files across multiple computers (one-time installation fee of $20). A single Jungle Disk license can be used across an unlimited number of computers with a single Amazon S3 account. File archives and restoration is quick and easy as well. JungleDisk also offers a business edition in the form of Jungle Disk Workgroup Edition which is an application designed specifically for workgroups or office environments that lets you store files and automatically backup data securely to Amazon.com’s S3 Storage Service. Thus business workers/groups can create private or shared network drives for their own specific backup, storage, and sharing needs. JungleDisk’s provides excellent customer support that is offered via FAQs, user guides, knowledge base, forums, email, and phone.
Orbitfiles – Provides online storage, backup, and sharing services with a whopping 6 GB of storage for their free account. If you upgrade to their basic plan (Zeus) for $5/month, you get unlimited storage space, 200 GB monthly bandwidth, 1 GB max file size limit, mobile access, automated backups, scheduled backups, and no expiration date for your files. Customer support is provided by FAQS, forum, email, and phone.
HOW THIS LIST WAS GENERATED:
After compiling a tentative list of all service providers, I personally researched each provider to identify their current status (see if they were still in operation) and the features and prices they are currently offering. The tentative list of service providers was compiled using Google as well as the following sources:
http://www.techcrunch.com/2006/01/31/the-online-storage-gang
http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/online-storage-services-with-free-account-option
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0%2C1558%2C2098943%2C00.asp
http://websearch.about.com/od/web20/a/online-storage.htm
http://www.pcworld.com/article/125949/online_storage_extend_your_hard_disk_to_the_web.html
http://mashable.com/2007/07/28/online-storage
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/03/11/dropbox-the-online-storage-solution-weve-been-waiting-for
http://www.lifehack.org/articles/lifehack/introduction-to-90-online-file-storage-services.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File_hosting_service
Memopal – An all-in-one solution for online backup, storage, and sharing of your precious files. Memopal offers a 7-day free trial of their service. Their basic plan includes 150 GB of storage space that costs a mere $4.08 per GB/month that includes unlimited bandwidth with no limitation on file size. Business solutions are also available and can be purchased based on need with no maximum storage limitations or user accounts. Features include WebDAV, FTP, desktop client for all operating systems (Win, Mac, Linux), mobile access, and drag-and-drop file allocation. Customer support is provided via FAQs, tutorials, support tickets, email, live chat, and phone.
Syncplicity – Currently still in beta, Syncplicity is a favorite of mine for offsite storage, offsite backup, computer synchronization, and file sharing that offers a free account with 2 GB and a basic plan that includes 50 GB of storage space for $9.99/month ($0.20/GB/month). Paid acounts will feature unlimited bandwidth, no maximum files size limit, and no limitation on the available max storage space that can be purchased. Business solutions are available and include corporate branding options with no limitation on the number of user accounts. Syncplicity has implemented online editing abilities (via Zoho) and a desktop client for Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Mac OS X. Other features include mobile access, drag-and-drop, and a Facebook App. Furthermore, Syncplicity has its own API that developers can take full advantage of to customize and extend upon Syncplicity’s current abilities. Customer support is provided via FAQs, user guides, tutorials, forums, and email.
ADrive – An offsite storage and backup solution that provides an incredible 50 GB of free online storage for their free account. Their basic plan gives you the same amount of space for $6.95/month ($0.14/GB/month) but it also includes 24/7 support, removal of ads, WebDAV, SSL encryption, and geographically diverse backup. There is no limit on bandwidth and max file size. Available maximum storage is limited to 1 TB of storage per account. Other features include WebDAV, FTP, desktop clients (Win), online editing of files, and drag-n-drop. ADive is now offering online storage and backup services for enterprises. Business features include dedicated servers and corporate branding. Customer support is provided via FAQs, manuals/user guides, tutorials, support tickets, email, and phone.
ZumoDrive – An online storage, sharing, and multi-device sync-like utility that comes with 1GB of free storage space. You can upgrade to 10GB ($0.30/GB/month) or all the way up to 500GB for as little as $0.16/GB/month. ZumoDrive does not have a bandwidth or max file size limit at this time. Drag-n-drop, photo albums, and mobile access (iPhone only) are just a few of the many features available to users. Tech support is provided through the community forum and by email only.
CloudBerry – CloudBerry Online Backup provides a backup/restore program that works with Amazon S3 storage to ensure your data recovery is simple, inexpensive, and reliable. CloudBerry offers a 30-day free trial for their basic service which includes unlimited bandwidth and no maximum file size limitations. Storage fees after the 30-day free trial expires are only $0.15 per GB/month. Features include file synchronization, a desktop client (Win), and easy drag-n-drop placement of your files. Support for customers is provided via forums, email, FAQs, and a user guide.
TrueShare – An all-in-one offsite backup, storage, and sharing service that provides cloud based solutions for the individual, business, and enterprise level customers. They offer a 7-day free trial of their 5GB storage solution priced at $30 per month ($6/GB/month) which includes an allocated bandwidth usage of 10 times the user’s storage plan, a max file size of 2GB, and a maximum storage limit of 200GB. Features include desktop clients for Windows systems, drag-and-drop functionality for adding/removing files, a file sharing widget, synchronization of files/folders, multiple computer accounts, and mobile access for Blackberry, iPhone, Palm or Windows Mobile devices. The enterprise solution includes dedicated servers, corporate branding, and a dedicated URL. Customer support for TrueShare is currently provided via phone, email, FAQs, and user guides.
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Wow. Amazing work.
We haven’t seen anyone else compile as detailed a review of as many services as this. With your permission, we’d like to link to this post from our blog at http://cloudstorage.wordpress.com.
Thanks for providing such valuable information…
Kevin reply on September 1st, 2008 7:50 pm:
Sure, thanks.
That is some great work. I use Mozy for my backup and only checked out like 3 others before I decided.
Kevin reply on September 1st, 2008 9:49 pm:
Thanks, it took a while to get all that information compiled. I hope it is helpful to someone
Great post, but I’ve got a couple questions and a comment…
Q1: Are iBackup and iDrive the same company?
Q2: Isn’t Omnidrive toast? (I’m pretty sure that they were relegated to the dead pool, per TechCrunch, but then again, I suppose that isn’t exactly the best source)
Comment: My two cents are that SugarSync is the sweetest sync tool (if you’ve got an iPhone especially), ElephantDrive is the best backup solution, and Box is the best for web publishing.
Kevin reply on September 2nd, 2008 8:05 am:
Q1: Yes, to my knowledge iDrive is targeted towards individuals and small businesses whereas iBackup is for larger businesses and enterprises.
Q2: I remember reading that on TechCrunch but I haven’t seen anything officially.
I agree with your opinion on SugarSync, ElephantDrive, and Box.net; they are some of the best I’ve reviewed so far for those particular needs.
Nice work, thanks for sharing. Don’t forget Syncplicity (http://www.syncplicity.com/) and BingoDisk (http://www.bingodisk.com/).
SugarSync, Syncplicity and Carbonite are probably best for the average user or those who want something easy. But for those who want advanced options and total control, you can’t beat Jungle Disk combined with SyncBackSE/SyncBackPro (http://www.2brightsparks.com/)
Kevin reply on September 2nd, 2008 7:58 am:
Thanks for the insight. I’m taking a look at Syncplicity now. I’ll check out BingoDisk.
Great work. Maybe you want to check out Tilana Reserve, Syncplicity, Memopal, Driveway and FogDrive.
Kevin reply on September 2nd, 2008 7:56 am:
Thanks, I’ll give them a look.
Thanks Rachel, I’ll check it out!
I didn’t, it’s in there. Look for “SkyDrive” in the far left hand column
I found this very helpful. Thanks very much for all your work.
Two other excellent $5/mo, unlimited storage services worth noting are BackBlaze and KeepIt. They both seem robust. A third, HP Upline, seems a bit clunky.
There are a couple of features here that would be nice to fill in on the table: Drag & Drop, File Search, Mobile Access, Sub-Accounts [public & private].
Kevin reply on September 19th, 2008 9:28 pm:
Thanks, I’ll take a look at those you suggested for possible inclusion in the list. I actually already have Drag-n-Drop, Mobile Access, and Sub-Accounts included. File search is not as of yet though
Wow. This is the best review I have found. An excellent range of products covered.
I use Mozy and Dropbox and have had good experences with them over the past months.
Thanks for your hard work! Very helpful indeed.
Kevin reply on October 2nd, 2008 12:51 pm:
Glad you found it helpful
Hi, this is Sean over at Box.net. Thanks for mentioning our service. If you or readers have any questions or suggestions for us, please feel free to reach out to us anytime. We love hearing from the community.
Kevin reply on September 29th, 2008 11:55 am:
Thanks Sean, please update us if your pricing or set of features change and I will make the changes to Box.net’s listing and its info for the comparison spreadsheet
Thanks for your hard work; your review and format are very helpful
As i was also searching reliable alternatives, i happened upon Humyo.com. They offer a 30g free account, as well as premium accounts with a wide range, all w simple user interface and decent protections. So far, i am happily surprised with their service. Perhaps you will be, too.
Kevin reply on October 2nd, 2008 12:48 pm:
Thanks for the heads up on Humyo. 30 GB free account is one of the most I’ve seen. I’ll have to take a closer look.
Soooooooooo many choices…. wow! Box.net is one of my favourites. Clean interface, big storage space, and looks quite professional.
Definitely bookmarking this page. Good work!
Twitter/Share/BookmarkTry this one :
Fliiby : your file library (http://fliiby.com), an easy-to-use free service for multiple file uploading, publishing and aggregation, enabling automated file conversion to playable web formats, with built-in options for online file sharing.
Kevin reply on October 2nd, 2008 12:44 pm:
Great thanks, I’ll check it out.
Hi!
Some words to dropbox: They now are available for linux as well. Additionally the free option is 2 GB (they dropped the plan to only give 1 GB). And there is a plan for 50 GB for 9.99$/month or 99$/yearly.
Michael
Twitter/Share/BookmarkHi Kevin, I would like to thank you for this very informative post. Full disclosure: I am the online marketing manager of NomaDesk (www.nomadesk.com) and I would really appreciate if you added our product to this list. NomaDesk offers storage, backup and file sharing (unlimited file size, storage and bandwidth).
NomaDesk offers a free personal and public fileserver. Feel free to check us out: I am looking forward to your remarks and suggestions.
Keep up the good work.
Twitter/Share/BookmarkThanks Tom, please review my comparison spreadsheet and email me back with your company’s specs so I can add NomaDesk to the list.
Hello Kevin,
Our company is OPENRSM and we provide CloudBackup (http://cloudbackup.openrsm.com). We have a fully featured system for Win/MAC/Linux that also provides NAS and can backup (even sync) single machines or a whole network of them with a single account.
Great comparison set you have here.
Twitter/Share/BookmarkWhat an outstanding and comprehensive list of online storage and backup services! Well done. If someone can’t find the information they need in order to make a decision, they are incapable of making the decision. I’ve Stumbled, Dugg and bookmarked this post on Delicious. Well done!
Kevin reply on October 22nd, 2008 6:37 pm:
Wow, thanks so much for the compliments and bookmarking
You’re quite welcome! Very well-deserved. Like I said, a very comprehensive list and I believe a lot of people will find the information useful.
Twitter/Share/BookmarkAwesome list, thanks for all the detail. I’m still looking for something suitable. I scan in most of my paperwork (like bank statements), so it would be great if a service like Box offered a metadata search on uploaded files.
Twitter/Share/BookmarkYou might try Evernote. I believe they possess the ability to search within text of scanned paperwork Luke.
lukeoconnell reply on November 9th, 2008 3:40 pm:
Thanks for the heads up Kevin,
Evernote seems like a good solution, but they are mainly offline; not really a document storage solution as such.
I’m sure that soon enough, a service like Box will release an interface like Scribd’s for accessing / searching files… and then I can rest easy!
Luke,
I agree and welcome that day. I would like to go almost totally paperless if I could. It’s nearly a constant struggle to keep things around in case I might need them later. Thus I end up storing paperwork that I rarely ever revisit and it begins to accumulate over time. The searchable scanned documents solution kills two birds with one stone really by reducing physical storage necessities and making it easier to quickly find things.
lukeoconnell reply on November 9th, 2008 5:48 pm:
You bet… maybe a service like Box will offer integration with Google Docs (some solutions are already offering that), then I think we would be set… although Google Docs does need to add support for PDF metadata searching.
Well I signed up just so I can comment here
I appreciate all your hard work for putting this list together. I’m just starting to try Elephant drive since I am now an ex-XDrive user. The transfer process went pretty quick but I didn’t have very many files and I wasn’t on the queue list for very long. Now for the reason I wanted to comment in the first place. In.solit.us is very buggy. The WebDAV is garbage and hardly works for anyone. The owners don’t respond to anyone on the forum the blog is out of date and even though it has ALOT of potential it just isn’t being well taken care of. Next time you should really check sites out if they have Free sections and make sure they really are worth the trouble. Second site: Mediafire – I adore mediafire BUT it is not a place for Storage AT ALL. If was meant for hosting and as most hosting sites are, your files (non Pro) will eventually go missing. No idea if this happens for Pro users though. I have learned the hard way, Which is why I’m trying to make backups on files I have on Mediafire and adding them to other free sites and when I’m able to, I’ll back it up to a CD/DVD since that is really the only actual reliable option.
Thank You for your time
Twitter/Share/BookmarkBye!
Kevin, Which of these services do you think has the best combination of business plan + security + simplicty of use? Thanks for all your hard work, very imformative data.
Twitter/Share/BookmarkKevin,
You’re list of online storage solutions is excellent. I have a macbook pro, and a WD my book 300 GB, and I’m looking for an online storage alternative. I’m leaning toward Mozy, I have about 150 GB of Music.
This might be a dumb question, but on your chart what does it mean when you say Mozy and others, carbonite and idrive have no online storage capabilities.
Thanks for your help.
Twitter/Share/BookmarkYou didn’t mention GoDaddy’s onlinefilefolder?
Twitter/Share/BookmarkRemember: You get what you pay for. Irreplaceable data is something I wouldn’t gamble with.
Twitter/Share/BookmarkHi Kevin – Nice comprehensive article, but you’re just missing the best one!
We publish Backazon (http://backazon.com) which currently backs up to the Amazon S3 service in both the US and the EU. We are positioning ourselves as the “Service Provider Agnostic” software because we plan to support a number of online providers. We think this is critically important so that users can use a single tool to backup to local drives (USB, NAS, etc) or to online providers (Amazon S3, MS Azure, Google, etc). Please feel free to contact me (dougc@douglas-associates.com) with any questions.
Twitter/Share/BookmarkKevin,
This is still helping me out, 6 months later.
Can you suggest any sites that include a FREE fax service with a FREE account? You used to be able to get one with AOL’s XDrive before they folded. Drop.io has one, but it’s only for the pay accounts. Might be nice to include a column for this.
Thanks!
a.k.a.
Twitter/Share/BookmarkKevin-
Next time you get around to updating this great list could you look into adding Microsoft Office Live Workspace? Some standout features include 5GB free online storage, simplified online collaboration, and templates that can help you plan a trip or manage a group project.
Cheers,
Twitter/Share/BookmarkJeff
MSFT Office Live Outreach
@Office_Live
Kevin,
Thanks for including FilesAnywhere.com!
This is a very detailed list of providers and you obviously did a lot of work compiling this info. We've been edging out the competition since we started in 1999. The only surviving competitors from that era are gone – Xdrive and Yahoo Briefcase – and we are still growing, stronger than ever!
Any of your readers here can call our sales desk and mention your blog article here to get an additional 10% discount on any of our plans.
Thanks again,
Tim Rice
http://www.FilesAnywhere.com
Kevin Eklund reply on May 29th, 2009 12:41 am:
Your welcome Tim
Hi,
Talk about choices. Seems like allof these online solutions serve different purposes, but which woudl be best for establishing a virtual drive so at most three users coudl access several online folders. I currently have a Maxtor NAS drive that is getting buggy and I think a virtual solution might work best for me. Bascially I just want to click on a desktop link to open the virtual shared folder and save to it and access files in it etc. Any help greatly appreciated.
Kevin Eklund reply on June 17th, 2009 1:58 am:
At the top of the list is SugarSync. That sounds like the best online storage match for you George.
George reply on June 17th, 2009 10:22 am:
Thank you, I will check them out, my Maxtor NAS is giving me the yellow blinking light of death so I know it wont last too much longer
great work! I appreciate the details on each provider. One I did not see was Intronis. I would like your opinion and review. http://www.intronis.com
Twitter/Share/BookmarkThanks!
Hi Kevin, thanks for the excellent review. You may also want to check UbuntuOne, a solution for Linux users, as is Dropbox. Including the platform these providers work with would also be helpful.
Twitter/Share/Bookmarkhttps://ubuntuone.com
Kevin, I’d like to suggest that you include Cucku Backup on this excellent list (http://www.cucku.com/). Cucku is a social backup product – probably closest to Wuala but we use a trusted partner model (friend, family member, etc) instead of an anonymous one. This means you can send your first backup on an external hard drive after which you only need to send new and changed files over the Internet. This solves the speed problem with online backup for people with a sizable amount of data to backup.
We have two editions. Cucku Backup Free offers unlimited backup to a single partner. Cucku Backup Pro costs $49.95 (license for three installs, no subscription) and supports multiple partners. Pro is aimed at families and small businesses.
Twitter/Share/BookmarkI wanted to mention our website for your next review http://www.mydatanest.com. We released it to the public this year. In addition to online storage we have integrated a desktop uploader, sharable files with read/write or preview control, an online photoviewer, and music player.
We have integrated it with many of the most commonly used online apps and are adding features based on customer feedback.
We will be releasing the Enterprise addition soon.
Twitter/Share/BookmarkThanks
What about spideroak? It supports Linux/Mac/Windows and $10 per 100GB per month sounds appealing
Twitter/Share/BookmarkHey, Kevin. I’d just like to commend you for such a great review. I’m currently using ADrive and will look into other online backup options posted here.
Twitter/Share/BookmarkBeen using Syncplicity since before Beta last year and it’s a dream. There are a lot to choose from though and the list has only grown since I first started looking into this kind of service.
Not sure of all the capabilities of the other products (though I did try about 8 of them) but the one thing that won me over to Syncplicity was the ability to sync to different directories on different machines.
Ex:
File/Directory A saved on Home machine: c:\stuff
File/Directory A saved on notebook c:\MoreStuff
File/Directory A saved at work: C:\OtherStuff
I believe the one big downfall for Sync’ is that it does not support Linux and I believe support for Mac is about to be pulled. Not a biggie for me but I can see how that would affect some.
Anyways, great review/summary Kevin. Kudos on a job well done!
Twitter/Share/BookmarkHi!
Twitter/Share/BookmarkIn your opinion, what are the top four storage servers?? Im looking for one that is compatible with mac, fast, cheap (around $5 per month), has unlimited storage and unlimited restraints on sizes of files? (Not sure how important that is to me right now but maybe sometime It will be. ) Also something that is very easy to use!!
This is all new to me but I need to do something with all of my photos quickly.
Thank you soooo much!!
Monica