Online Storage - Revisited

2006-05-04T20:22:00.000-07:00

Offlate there has been so much coverage of online storage's second coming (web 2.0?) with MSN and Google news snippets about LiveDrive (from Microsoft) and GDrive (from Google) making rounds with little or no details on time lines for release of these product offerings.

First let us take a look 6 current offerings, with a short summary on each.

1. IBackup : Offers online storage and backup. Provides browser based access and sharing. Has webfolders within browser session. Network drive client called IDrive for mapping as a network drive , one can do direct editing and drag-n-drop. Has a separate desktop client called IBackup for Windows for scheduling backups. Offers great performance (within limits of your connectivity of course!), plans start at 9.95/5GB/Month. There is a separate version called IBackup Professional that does encrypted versioned backups (30 versions to be precise) and a real time backup application for financial data. Most reviews by PC Magazine, PC World and others rate it near the top.

2. Connected: Offers online backup only, but does a better job at it than most others. Offers scheduled encrypted backups, has automated options to streamline backup process. One of the very few who offer system state backups (image a virus attack that wipes out your system!).
Most reviews including PC Magazine rate it near the top. Pricing is around 17.95/4GB/Month.

3. XDrive: Offers online storage and backup. While its most recent coverage was related to AOL's purchase of the service, it has made little news since. Offers network drive application similar to IBackup's, pricing is similar too, but has a great yearly plan for 50GB for some $200 change. Performance is rather poor, but usability is great, if you are not doing large transfers.
Some reviewers rate is near the top, but others rate it average.

4. box.net: A simple to use service, has a great free offering and beats others in price, but lacks in feaures. Its APIs may appeal to some for integration with third party applications. Not many have reviewed this, probably due to lack of features.

5. Streamload: A multimedia focussed online storage service, offers storage at great prices. Performance is rather poor, reviewers rate is average. But if you have large video files that you need to store and share, this may be a good alternative.

6. briefcase: Outdated service by yahoo, offers very little free storage, and pricing is more expensive compared to others. Even features are limited. Very few reviews on this service, probably due to lack of features.

Livedrive and GDrive are both expected to offer a network drive client similar to IBackup and XDrive, with a free offering that may beat everyone in this segment. Google, as expected, may have text ads to the right to pay for the service or at least substantially subsidise it, while Livedrive may keep it purely fee based. In terms of sheer market strength, they may wipe out many of the current players in the online storage field.

But as with many segments of Internet based applications, some may survive or even thrive with their speciality applications. I personally found the easy to use webfolders a great tool to work with (IBackup offers this), and the backup or sync performance was critical for my personal use, and IBackup along with Connected bested the rest. For sharing, I would choose either xdrive or IBackup. box's API's were a great tool for my sample integration work. For my critical financial data, I would choose IBackup Professional or Connected for their storage encryption features. GDrive or Livedrive are unlikely to better these offerings from these providers.

My guess is that peer to peer online storage that is completely free will probably catch up real fast with someone delivering a great punch that may beat all the above including GDrive. But I have not seen a true peer to peer online storage provider yet.

Online Storage - revisited

Online Storage - Revisited