Back in the early days of the internet online file storage was a great idea. But now a days with USB drives, larger hard drives, and faster internet access, who really needs online storage? Besides the fact that even if a company offers it to you, what protects you as a user from them stealing anythign you put up there, or how do you know that the company is even going to last long enough for you to benefit from it's service?

Reply

I agree that it has kind of passed its sell-by date now but it still has it uses for websites who have very little allocated space or where mp3's or exe's are banned by webhosts people can use online storage to share these files. Also good if you need to send something to someone accross the world but your email provider has a stupid attatchment limit, you can upload it then send them a link to the file in an email.

But other than sending files long distances and sharing files that are banned or too big for emails and webhosting online storage has lost its uses. Especially now when everyone just wants money and has stupid bandwidth restrictions on the downloads.

Reply

Yeah I would say that online storage is used for sending files long distances. But you can also use it as sort of a "back up". It isn't as reliable as a disk or USB connected harddrive but its still good. I know that I have a couple files (mostly pictures) online. I have had 2 harddrive wipes and you would think I would learn to save some of the pictures. Well I didnt, thankfully I had stuff like Ripway that held my pictures for me. Which I thought was pretty nice .

Reply

Um yeah these days hard dives come mutch bigger then any online file storage whould offer.
So i think it is pointless to use the online stuff these days.
Just have anouther hard drive to back-up on.
Oh and use any local media to controll when a file is deleted.

Reply

I wouldn't trust online storage for me, there is a chance that your personal things might get hacked and stolen. So for me it is a security issue, I am not willing to compromise my file integrity in this manner. Hackers are so advanced nowadays, it is not really difficult if they meant to steal or modify your files.

Another issue would be the time taken to upload your files. My internet speed is only 512 Kbps, and its pretty alright to me, it takes forever to upload a 1 gb file much less 10 gb which is probably the size of my stuff if I want to backup something.

A solution for me would be to connect 2 computers together (mainly a desktop and a laptop), connect the both of them via the LAN cable, making them visible on each other's network and with the desktop then sharing the files to the laptop or vice versa. Another solution would be the microsoft sharing featuring, I am not too confident about this, but has anyone actually tried it and had some good feedback?

Reply

I agree to disagree with the first post in this thread. For me it depends on to which website you are going to host your files online. If the website is run by some reputed company why not trust them. One wants to host files online simply because he wants to access it from anywhere on the earth where there is internet access. By uploading your files online it doesn't mean that you shouldn't keep the backup with you. I still keep the backup with hard drive extension or Pendrive, etc.

So, I still like the idea of hosting files online.

Reply

i do agree that usb drives are much more convenient... but in a couple of years in time the interenet willl be much faster than it is now. storing large files online may be just as fast as putting them on ur usb drive and putting them online wil give them that dynamic range or accesss. it will also allow for easier sharing of files. people just dont want to re-dl files because it takes time, if it was instant i think it would be alot more popular. i hope that one day we'll be able to access files on the internet as fast as we do off our harddrives... will i may just say that i know this day is upon us ;D

Reply

I don't think the speed of the internet will be that powerful enough for us to upload 10-20 gb without waiting for several days. A fast internet connection would definitely come with a price. I am sure many of us would not want to pay more than USD 20 for a monthly internet subscription. And another thing would be the capacity of these servers which store your files, are they going to be a free service like what you see around (Megaupload, Rapidshare, SendSpace ... etc) because frankly, they are downloading at a slow-mo speed of 8 kb/sec. Imagine downloading a 100 mb file, it is already a killer and you may be right, the speed will gradually increase with time, but how many folds can it increase? Even if it is by the 10, 80 kb/sec to download 10 gb. Still a killer if you ask me.

Reply