In today’s digital world, our entire life — both work and home — are tied to computers. Hard disks are unpredictable and are prone to failures leading to data loss. Research shows that every year 43% of computer users lose valuable data. The best way to hedge your data storage risk is to store critical data on the cloud.
Cloud storage services offer paid monthly subscriptions either for unlimited storage or for hundreds of gigabytes of data. Most of us do not have that much critical data to backup and therefore it would be a total waste of money. And for those of us who have data which cannot be stored using the 1 or 2GB free space offered, we have a list of four of the best free online storage services that offer free space of more than 10GB
Windows Live SkyDrive
Despite having a name that is quite a mouthful,
Windows Live Skydrive is one of the most popular and extremely useful cloud based service from Microsoft. Windows Live Skydrive offers a hefty 25 GB free storage space to all users.
There is absolutely no need to install and configure a desktop client. All you have to do is log into the Windows Live Skydrive account wit your Live ID and you can just drag & drop files into the folders. In addition to having password protected private folders, you can create new folders, make it public and share the files with friends, family or coworkers.Each folder has a unique weblink which you can mail to anyone you want and the files can accessed from any web connected device like a PC or a smartphone. You can read our review of Windows Live Skydrive
here.
IDrive
IDrive is a top notch remote online backup solution. Like all its competitors, IDrive offers 2GB free storage for users to evaluate the service. With desktop clients for Mac & PC, true archiving, continuous data protection, time line restore, versioning and many more world class features IDrive is a rock solid online backup platform. Wondering how IDrive is relevant in this list? Patience, dear readers is a virtue! Now immediately after signing up, we will be redirected to a sign up onfirmation and referral page.
You can refer IDrive to your friends by submitting the email login credentials of AOL, Gmail, MSN or Yahoo. If there are more than 5 valid email addresses in your address book, IDrive bumps up your account with a free 10 GB storage space. This referral space does not expire and is on top of the 2 GB free space of the basic plan. Contacts you refer get two emails from IDrive promoting their product and if you want to bypass this, sign up with an email id you sparsely use thereby not annoying your friends & family.
humyo
With its
free account, humyo provides one of the best free 10GB online storage solutions. The free storage space is split into two parts – 5GB for media files (Photos, Videos, Music) and the rest of the 5 GB for non-media files. Since this being a free account, we will not have access to the desktop client. But fret not, humyo has a brilliant web-based file explorer that allows you to upload, share and download files in a jiffy.
Binfire
Binfire offers a free 10 GB online storage space for all your files, which can accessed from a intuitive web interface. Just like Windows Live Skydrive, Binfire also lets you create and share multiple folders with your friends and family. You can also send emails right from within the Binfire account.
Each one of these services have their own strong suites. Personally, I use IDrive for backing up data and found it to be seamless & blazing fast. With the launch of Office Web in a few days, Windows SkyDrive is going to be a Google Docs killer. And, if you are a media junkie, humyo is the right fit as you can stream media and view images directly from your account.
If you need more storage than 25 GB, check out how to score 50 GB free storage space online from Wuala
here. Do you know about any other examples of the best free online storage solutions that offer 10 GB or more free space?
