After spending WAY too much time researching free online backup solutions, I am finally prepared to pronounce judgment. Sadly, most of your options are extremely limited. A lot of sites give you 1-2 GB of storage space for free, but that isn't nearly enough for even the average user. And let me be upfront and admit that I found a few great, free storage options, but none of them provides a truly automated backup service for free. That said, here are the standouts.
ADrive
www.adrive.com
First of all, I don't like the name ADrive. Why didn't they call it GreatDrive or SuperiorDrive or even TheDrive? But no, it's just a drive. Well, even though they have a stupid name, they offer 50 GB of free online storage. That's WAY more than any other service. ADrive includes a lot of useful features. You can access your files from any Web browser, share your files with other users, and open office documents directly from the site with Zoho (which is similar to Google Docs). Unfortunately, there are only 2 ways to access your files - via a web browser, or with their proprietary backup client. Even worse, the backup client costs about $40 (a fact that is NEVER made clear until you install it). I briefly tested the backup client with mixed results. I probably could have gotten it to work properly, but I uninstalled it when I realized it was so expensive. Still, it's hard to complain about 50 GB of free storage - even if the implementation leaves something to be desired.
Sky Drive
skydrive.live.com
This is Microsoft's free online storage service. It shares many of the same features and limitations as ADrive. It only offers 25 GB of space, but that's still nothing to sneeze at. Honestly, I didn't give Sky Drive any real consideration until I found a 3rd-party utility called
Gladinet. This INCREDIBLE tool makes your computer think Sky Drive is just a folder on your computer**. This allows you to drag-and-drop files to your online storage space or open them directly without a browser. Basically, your Sky Drive shows up in your My Computer just like any other folder. Brilliant!
**Gladinet also works with Google Docs, Picassa, Amazon S3, and several other storage services.
Mesh
www.mesh.com
I can't believe 2 of my 3 favorites are from Microsoft, but it's true. Mesh is also part of Microsoft's Live services. It has a TON of mind-blowing features that make it stand out from the others. Actually, it exists in a class by itself. First, mesh lets you synchronize folders between any number of computers. For example, I set it up so the My Documents folder is always the same on my laptop and my desktop. The process is automatic and seamless. It almost seems magical. Any changes I make on one computer are automatically (and quickly) reflected on the other. There are a few minor limitations - you can't sync certain file types, and Mesh doesn't work with outlook data files (grrrrrr...). But other than that, it's dreamy. It only syncs files less than 2 GB, but there is no limit on the total size of the synced folders.
Even better, you can access your synced files (up to 5 GB of them) from the Mesh Web site. That means I have access to all my documents on my laptop, my server, AND from any web browser in the universe. Since Sky Drive just upgraded to 25 GB of online storage, I wouldn't be surprised to see Mesh follow suit. Once that happens, all the other online storage options are dead in the water.
Finally, Mesh actually lets you log in to your computer over the internet. Seriously. This has nothing to do with online storage, but it's probably the most innovative part of Mesh. When you log in to a computer over the internet, it's just like you're sitting in front of it. This is incredibly useful for me when I'm out and I need to access a file on my computer, check my email, or record a TV show (my server is also a DVR). This feature requires IE because you have to install an ActiveX component. But come on... Remote access to all your computers from anywhere on the Internet with no configuration hassles? That's beyond amazing. And a mobile client is expected soon, so you'll be able to do all this from your phone. So many features in one free product - it makes me giggle like a schoolgirl.
Final Thoughts...
If you only want to store your office documents online, check out
Google Docs and
Zoho. Zoho accommodates more file types than Google Docs, which can't handle databases (just for example). But they're both great - if not completely full-featured - free services.
If you're willing to pay for online storage, my favorite option is
Amazon's S3 used with
Jungle Disk. You can even install Jungle Disk on any USB drive and have secure access to your online storage from any internet-enabled computer.
