Online data storage
A recent development in the constantly changing world of the internet has been the proliferation of data storage services. Placing documents, pictures, music or videos online used to involve a convoluted process of file transfer using specialised software and it required the user to have their own domain.
That led to the creation of social networking sites such as Flickr and YouTube where people could easily upload and share their files.
People who wanted to confidentially save personal files online still had to use their own domain, or more sneakily, set up a gmail account for that purpose and take advantage of Google’s generous email data limit.
Today there are quite a few services offering large amounts of space free of charge. It’s easy and intuitive to upload whatever you like through a web browser.
I’ve looked closely at three of these services in the past week. One is called MediaMax, another is Box.net and there’s also Protectmyphotos.
Box.net offers 1GB personal storage for free while MediaMax provides a whopping 25GB – which is the size of a computer hard drive to give you some idea.
Why would anyone want to use one of these services? The main reasons are for universal access, file sharing and backup.
There are certain documents I like to have access to from home or work, or even on the road. These services enable me to access important files from anywhere with an internet connection.
MediaMax also enables users to synchronise data between their computer and the web site, making it a handy backup tool. I must say though that I haven’t got this to work yet. Upload time was also very slow.
But having lost some photographs previously in a computer meltdown I uploaded 430MB of pictures to MediaMax this week and know they’re not going anywhere. I’m able to share those photos with other people if I want to.
I’m now using MediaMax to host some files that I want to share.
Is it secure? Probably. If you possessed the secret recipe to Coca Cola it may not be a good idea to upload it to one of these sites. The risks are that someone could crack your password and the service provider could feasibly take a peek themselves.
These articles might be of interest:
Tags: email, google, internet, life, media, music, PR, software, video, war, work, world
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