I have written about Skydrive, Microsoft’s free online storage many times before. From the early stage with only 5GB storage capacity until it is now with 25GB storage. If you still looking for online storage to backup your files for free, consider this service seriously.
I also have written about Gladinet which mounts Skydrive (and also other online storage such as Amazon, Google), and makes it a virtual drive viewable from inside your computer via Windows Explorer. You can drag and drop, or copy and paste files into your Skydrive without hassle. Gladinet, is a powerful application, but you need to perform extra steps to get it work.
If you prefer a simpler solution to access Skydrive, try Skydrive Explorer. It is so simple that you need not view the instruction on how to use it. After installation, open up your My Computer, and you’ll see that a new Virtual Drive called Skydrive Explorer has been created.
If that is the first time you’re trying to access it, it will prompt you to sign in with your Windows Live account. Just like your local directory, you can copy and paste files, drag and drop files, create directories and etc.
Having 160GB hard drive nowadays is insufficient. It can be filled up with thousands of photos in a month or two. And if you ‘torrent’ lover, that could be much faster. Furthermore, yu never know when your hard drive will take you down out of sudden and you lost everything inside. But undoubtedly, it is very necessary.
That’s how online storage or web app storage come to the picture. It is an addition to your hard drive and complement it. For backup purpose, sharing files or whatever you think as long as it is legal. I know little about the rest of online storage available on the net. The only sites that I know is Flickr and Skydrive that I use extensively.
So when someone telling me there are over 150++ online storage, I said WOW!!… Its hard to believe it. Thanks to Paul for heads up. I’m not sure if this site belong to him (it looks like), but you should take a look at it, because it list down 187 online storage, file sharing and hosting that you might needs.
I didn’t browse through the whole list , although I found couple of them quite interesting such as DropBox. There are familiar file sharing sites such as RapidShare as well. Most that I found has limited space from as low as 50MB. Of course I’m not going to use them when Live SkyDrive provide 25GB.
Again, the link to the 150++ online storage list in case you missed my points above.
Undeniably, Skydrive is great application from Microsoft. The huge 25GB free online storage is really tempting for those who want to keep and sharing items online. But
it is lacking very critical feature that should provide greater usability; better files uploader.
The way files are being uploaded should be improved. Just take a look at the screen shot. It is quite troublesome when at any time you can only upload 5 files, whereas hundreds more in wait.
Instead of using very ‘traditional’ way of uploading files, why not invent something like Facebook’s java style uploader or Flickr’s desktop uploader which can upload lots of files simulateneouly.
For regular users, they’ll be more than happy if such tool available in the near future. It saves them time and effort!
Skydrive is a free application with a great feature, but without great usability, it could only attract first timer for a while before rival (such as GDrive) take them away.
