Peeping through the clouds...in the FREE sky!

Peeping through the clouds...in the FREE sky!

By: Dhruv Sapra, 2nd year PSCT

Innovation in electronic gadgets from desktops to laptops, phones and the latest tablets has sure changed the way we listen to music, catch a movie or do the office work, and at the end of the day we find ourselves working on these different devices switching from one to the other in no time, portability of our information has been much of a problem due to many factors like security and affordability, not many of us can keep an external hard disk at all times in our pocket, so this week we bring a cool collection of the free online cloud space providers, a virtual hard disk that can be accessed by different computers all over the world:

1. Microsoft windows Live SkyDrive

SkyDrive is one of the most impressive service by Microsoft, it offers a free 25GB online storage space, with is way more than what others offer, moreover Office Live adds more glitter to the service as it helps create, edit and store MS office documents online directly. Skydrive also allows sharing albums, controlling who all can see it, and for sending 100s of photos in a single email. All these great features makes it a really useful choice, and Microsoft's brand name issues like security and backup across online servers need no special mention I guess. It can be used to sync files and folders between two or more computers using Windows Live Mesh.

2. ADrive

ADrive comes as a really good surprise with it's out of the ordinary 50GB free space allocation on the cloud, easy synchronization and with the ability to access and edit files anywhere it sure promises to be a good freebie.

3. Dropbox

Dropbox is another cool one which provides only 2GB free space, which can be extended upto 100GB with different subscriptions available on its website, one of the advantage of using Dropbox is the ease of sharing data as people can share picture galleries/videos , customize viewability. Moreover, it works with Windows, Mac, Linux, Ipad, Iphone, Android and Blackberry, thus it can be used easily no matter where you wanna work next! Other good features include the ability to set bandwidth manually , keeping one-month work history, ability to undo changes like undeleting and it's well protected with Secure sockets layer(SSL) and AES-256 bit encryption, which ensures safety of data.

4. IDrive

IDrive sure is a cool name, and so is the fact that it provides 5GB free data space on the cloud. What makes this one stand out is the fact that it is one of the cheapest subscription plans with 150GB cloud space @$4.95/month and 500 GB @$14.95/month. Nice choice if you are looking to backup whole hard-disk. Enhanced encryption security, faster backups, undelete feature(within 30 days) and it's cool plug-in for WordPress are other factors for its choice.

5. Box

Box is yet another service provider which gives 5GB free data storage online, but what makes it different is, its ability to integrate with Google Apps and Salesforce, it can also be used on mobile devices. It's content management security is by far the best among the lot, with role based access controls, 99.9% uptime guarantee, data encryption using 256-bt SSl and SAS 70 II certification, it surely comes as a leading choice for all business purposes.

6. ZumoDrive

It's sure seems a funky one judging from its logo, this one is easy to find on HP laptops, and provides 2GB free. Available for Windows , Mac, Linux,. iphone, Android, and Palm Pre, it supports features like folder linking, integration with itunes, iphotos, picasa, ideal choice if you need your favorite media files to be truly portable.

7. SugarSync:

Well the name's too sweet for the fact that this provides a 30-day free trial period only, the silver lining being the fact that one can enjoy even 250GB space without paying a penny. It is an ideal freebie if u want it free for a brief period , may be while going for a vacation or just sharing notes during the last few days before the exams. It's other cool features are: sync multiple devices, Automatic online backup, supports mobile apps, folder sharing, file sharing and remote file access.