Just the other day I heard some popping and hissing inside my computer that didn’t sound good. Since I am a full-time freelance writer and digital artist, the thought of losing all my books, articles and art due to a computer crash is a very scary proposition. I mean generally speaking I back up everything on my computer to CD but I usually do this every couple of months which means there is some lag time in between when I am working on a project and when I complete it and then save it to CD. So, if my computer crashed tomorrow I could feasibly lose a lot of stuff. Because of this and because the cost of CD’s can be prohibitive, as well as clutter up your office, I decided to do some research into free online document storage websites. I was surprised to see that there are more of them out there than you could ever imagine. Some are better than others and even allow you to share your files with others which can be very good if they are too large to send as attachments through e-mail. I now back up each document, and all of my articles and art to my online storage accounts. I save money on CD’s this way as well as cut down on the clutter in my home office. Here are my top 5 free online document storage websites:
1. Media Fire is the best online storage website bar none. They offer unlimited storage, you can upload file sizes up to 100 MB, unlimited uploads, downloads, and bandwidth all for free. Two more pluses of this service are that you don’t have to sign up for it, although you do have to create a free account, and there is no software to install on your computer that will clutter your hard drive up.
2. ADrive is my second favorite choice for the place to save my files. They give you 50GB of storage for free, and you can save word docs, videos, music and even PDF files to your drive with them. There is a little advertising, and they do have an additional downside in that only individuals can use their free basic plan for personal use only. That can be a big downer for the small business owner who may want to use them. However, in spite of this they are worth looking into for backing up documents from your personal computer. Nobody wants to lose everything in a hard drive crash.
3. Obitfiles would be my next choice for extra storage online. They only offer 6GB of storage, but like ADrive you can save all sorts of files. In addition they have another advantage. If you want automatic uploading and back up to Obitfiles, you can download the Hercules Uploader for Windows. I have yet to find another online storage place that has that, so this can make using Obitfiles a no-brainer. The only downside would be if you hit the limit for the free service, and of course having to have an extra software on your computer. However, they do offer unlimited storage for only $5 a month which is not a bad deal.
4. AOL’s Xdrive is my next favorite choice for where to save my documents, videos and artwork. They offer 5GB of storage and this is for both individuals and businesses, whereas some online storage websites such as ADrive for example, will not allow businesses to use their free basic plan. There is a small amount of advertising in the form of banners but there are no pop-up ads unless you click on the banner which is very nice indeed.
5. Skydrive on Windows Live is another 5GB option for backing up your files. This one is very similar to Xdrive and has all the same features, although it appears there may be less forced ads. Not being a big fan of forced ads myself I tend to use the services that have less of them rather than more.
While I feel that Media Fire is your absolute best choice when it comes to free online storage, all those unlimited downloads, uploads and bandwidth sure is nice, it is never a bad idea to back things up even when you are backing up files online to more than one place. That’s why in spite of this I have my files backed up at more than one online place because you just never know when a website is going to go under and you don’t want your files to be the ones that get lost!
