Free Online Storage

Most individuals are aware of the various free photo storage websites such as flickr or Photobucket. A growing desire amongst computer users is the ability to centrally store files, music, and documents on a server where it can be accessed from any computer around the world. Surely this service would cost a fee, right? Actually, that isn’t the case. What most are unaware of is the growing number of websites that offer online storage, and at the lowest possible cost: free.

A-Drive

A company specializing in online storage, A-Drive offers three different packages: basic, signature, and premium. Fortunately, their basic plan is free of charge and comes with 50 GB of online storage space. You can upload documents, movies, music, or any other files to your A-Drive, and then download onto a different computer on the other side of the world by accessing that same A-Drive. It also comes with the Zoho Editor, which gives you the ability to edit any documents or spreadsheets online.

Dropbox

If you’re searching for a way to sync data across all of your electronic devices, Dropbox may be what you need. Dropbox creates a folder on your computer’s desktop, and then will also create a folder on your mobile device, iPad, laptop, or any other computer you want to share this folder with. Whenever you add any files to your Dropbox, these files get added to your online Dropbox, which in turn adds the files to your other Dropboxes.  You can also access your online Dropbox from any computer or electronic device that has web access.

The drawback to Dropbox is the limited space – the free package only gives 2GB of free space, which is sufficient for documents, but will fill up with images or videos in a hurry. There is a way around this, however: “deleting” your files from your Dropbox sends them to a trash folder within the Dropbox, but they are still accessible.

4Shared

Another website for storing text, audio, video, or photo files, 4Shared gives users 10GB of free online storage. 4Shared creates a virtual drive, where users are then able to create as many folders or subfolders as they’d like to store their files. Unlike A-Drive or Dropbox, files on 4Shared can be downloaded by anyone else with a 4Share account if you choose to activate sharing on that particular folder. Due to the open exchange without any cost, material that is copyrighted is prohibited.  Therefore, it may not be a good choice if you’re looking for a place to backup your iTunes library.

Megaupload

If you’re a prolific photographer and would like to back up your images on an easily accessible server, Megaupload offers 200 GB of free online storage. Like 4Shared, Megaupload is a website that exists primarily to facilitate exchanges of files between users.  There have been rumors of Megaupload hosting spyware, but this has been unconfirmed. Before using any website that utilizes peer-to-peer sharing, download security software designed to locate and eradicate malware.