Emailing Large Files
A friend told me a story recently about a colleague who walked into her office, in a panic about backing up the organization’s files: “When do you do backups? How long has it been? I woke up in the middle of the night worrying about this. I couldn’t find a backup disk. What if the hard drive crashed? WHAT WOULD WE DO?”
You might remember from a posting a few months ago about a web service called Mozy that we use to back up files. For a small, monthly fee (less than 1 Starbuck’s mocha/movie ticket) we have our files “on the cloud” . . . just in case. In case of hard drive implosion, theft, or a fire in the building. With that kind of security–knowing every thing is backed up somewhere on the cloud and still retrievable–I sleep peacefully.
Online file savers are secure and there are many, many options out there. I’ll sort ‘em out for ya here.
{Free – $20/mo}
If you try it and don’t think it’s fast and easy to use, they’ll give you a free upgrade for three months.
With SugarSync you’ll get the best value along with the most comprehensive product offering around. After your initial trial ends, plans start as low as $4.99 a month for 30 G of storage.
Gmail Space – Turns your Gmail into online storage.
This is specific for Firefox browser users.
This allows you to use your Gmail Space (700.1 GB and growing) for file storage. It acts as an online drive, so you can upload files from your hard drive and access them from every Internet capable system. The interface will make your Gmail account look like a FTP (“File Transfer Protocol” ) host.
It’s great for storing/sharing files with your friends. Also very good to backup photos and music files (as you can view/listen to them from Gspace).
Microsoft offers 5 G of free storage for Hotmail account users. Works with products you are already familiar with, suc Microsoft Office Word, PowerPoint, and Excel files from your Web browser.
Mozy – 2 G if Free storage, Unlimited Storage – less than $5/month
Free: 1 G at a time. Easy Share is one easy way to upload your files. You can upload files from your PC or from a remote server. Upload via FTP, web, software or web embedded widgets.
Free: 2 G/upload. Unlimited Files. DepositFiles offers free storage of your files on their servers for any period of time.You can also send free emails with downloading link for your file to all your addressees.
Free: 300 MB; 1 G w/free registration. YouShare enables you to upload up to 300 MB at a time without any registration. If you want to upload 1024 MB at a time and organize your files, you can register for free. You can add your friends and give them permission to upload to your albums.
Free: 100 MB. Senduit is one of the great file hosting service. This is a free
service that allows you to upload up to 100MB files and then send a link to your friends or relative to have them download it. Cool how you can have link expire in increments from 30 mins – 1 week.
Free: 10 G. FileSavr.com makes file hosting easier with Web 2.0 technology and the use of Ajax and Flash. FileSavr has 10 GB upload size limit, currently the largest available on the internet. This allows users the flexibility to upload any large file of 10 GB or less.
File Dropper – Free File Hosting for MP3, Videos, Documents
Free: 5 G/upload. FileDropper’s beauty is in its simplicity. It has one click file hosting where you simply click on the upload button and select your file. After the file is uploaded you are taken to the page where the file is hosted. If the file is an image, it shows the image directly on the page for easier sharing. Upload size is an impressive 5 GB.
File Factory – free and simple file hosting service
Free: 100 G. You don’t have to register and there is nothing to download. Your files can be downloaded an unlimited number of times! One thing we found very annoying and spammy about FileFactory was the number of ads they have on the page. If you pay for Premium membership, the ads go away and you can store up to 1,000 G of data
FileDen – Free file hosting and online storage
Free: 1G. With File Den’s free file hosting and online storage service it’s easy to share files across the internet with friends, family, work associates or anyone else. They allow our users to direct link to their files also giving you the oppurtunity to embed your files into your webpages, myspace or other social networking profiles.
Mobile Me: Mail, Contacts, and Calendar. All your stuff. Always in sync.
Maybe you have a Mac at home, a PC at work, and an iPhone. MobileMe uses push technology to keep them all up to date. Make a change on one, and the rest are automatically updated.
With MobileMe, you can create a beautiful web gallery of your photos in just a few clicks. Add new photos directly from your iPhone. And let your friends add photos of their own.
iDisk makes it easy to store and share files online, so you can access them anytime from any computer and, soon, from your iPhone, too. iDisk also lets you share files too big to email.
Don’t know where your iPhone is? Let MobileMe help you find it with the Find My iPhone feature. And soon, a free iDisk app for iPhone and iPod touch will let you access and share files wherever you are.
Our Favorites: Sugar-Syn for syncing multiple computers via on-lien storage; Mozy for backup; Box.net for very simple solution.
Tags: Gmail, large files, mozy, online backup, online storage, storage
Wow, this is a super comprehensive blog, Clyde. Love the new design,too. Your blog is the perfect example of GIVING first or HELPING first. You always provide so much helpful information to all of us. Thank you.
Another favorite option is File Apartment (http://www.fileapartment.com). Easy to use, fast, no software to download or registration, up to 1 GB, free option, safe, and secure.
Thanks for the great list! I’ll be looking into these. As usual, your blog post is informative and timely. Keep ‘em coming!
I’ve used these services in the past specifically for transferring large files, but I had no idea how many options they are. Thank you!
Hi Clyde,
Thanks for this summary… great stuff.
I’m simply looking for online storage (like the gmail/ goog docs) where I can offload all of my photos, video and the like (as well as the old PST archives etc from my work machines)….
Oh yeah, and I really don’t want to pay more than $75 to $100 /year for a terabyte.
Many of these (most) only sync, and don’t truly offload in a way that will allow robust search etc.
I was looking at some of those cloud drives, but they are mostly sync, not simply deposit files.
Any thoughts?
thx
Matt
Thanks for all of the info. I really need this for when I need to send photos to people.
Thanks for the great info. I attribute my restful sleep in part to the great backup work you did for me several years ago.
Clyde, this is so helpful. I’m such a non-techie and your info is comprehensive but easy to understand. You’re a vaulable asset for me as a small business owner. Thanks for setting the bar!
Backups in “the cloud”, files floating round, it’s amazing what you can do! To think we still have filling cabinets with all this available to us!
Matt, go to http://www.ITMPartners.com. Click on first backup link. It’s unlimited storage, not sync, for $49/year terabytes of storage. Look at link on page for discount code for 1 or 2 year subscriptions.
Manish, thanks for excellent suggestion!!