Cloud storage

THERE’S a lot of talk about cloud storage these days, which is just a fancy term for online storage.  The idea of saving files on a remote server and accessing them from any machine with an Internet connection isn’t new. That’s been around since file hosting services from the early days of the Web. What’s new is that online storage is becoming more ubiquitous and more convenient, with services that automatically synchronize content on your local drive with a virtual drive on the Internet and a variety of devices.

A good example of this type of cloud storage is Dropbox (http://www.dropbox.com). First released in 2008, Dropbox now has an estimated 4 million users.

Registering for a free account gets you 2 gibabytes of online storage; paid accounts let you store 50GB for $9.99 a month or 100GB for $19.99 a month.

While you can upload and download files from any browser, the service truly shines when you install the Dropbox client, which is available for Linux, Mac OS, Windows and the iPhone. This will enable you to drag and drop any file into your designated Dropbox folder that is then automatically synchronized to the Web and to any other computers on which you’ve installed the client.

For example, I’ve set up Dropbox on my home PC (running Ubuntu Linux 9.10), a Macbook and an Acer netbook (also running Ubuntu) so that I can access my important files no matter which machine I’m using. If I had a Windows PC or an Apple iPhone, I could set them up in the same way. All synchronization is done automatically in the background, so you will hardly notice Dropbox while you’re doing something else on your PC.

You can share your Dropbox files by putting them in a public folder or create shared folders. Dropbox enables you to control who can access your shared folders, including the ability to kick people out and remove the shared files from their computes.

Multi-platform support and ease of use make Dropbox an outstanding cloud storage service, but it’s not by any means the only game in town.
Another excellent multi-platform service is ZumoDrive (http://www.zumodrive.com), which was released just last year.

A free account gives you 1GB of storage but if you go through a set of tutorials on the Zumo Dojo (log into your account on the Web site and choose the Dojo tab), you can earn another gigabyte free. Pricing on its 50GB and100GB is the same as Dropbox, but ZumoDrive also offers cheaper plans: $2.99 a month for 10GB and $6.99 a month for 25GB.

Also like Dropbox, ZumoDrive comes with a desktop client that is available on Linux (Ubuntu and Red Hat), Windows, Mac OS and the iPhone. A client for Google Android phones will soon be available, the company says.

Unlike Dropbox, which stores all files in each local device on which it is installed, ZumoDrive keeps files on the remote server but makes them appear local. ZumoDrive appears as an external drive that you can browse in Explorer, Finder or Nautilus, depending on your operating system, and will stream music or video files as if they were stored on your local drive. This approach means that you can store your 30GB iTunes library on ZumoDrive and make each song available on your netbook, even if it has only 8GB of storage.

On the other hand, ZumoDrive is smart enough to keep a copy of your most frequently used files on your local drive as well, so they are available even when you’re not online.  ZumoDrive also allows you to selectively synchronize individual files, folders or the entire virtual drive.

Another cool feature is the ability to link folders to ZumoDrive and have the contents of those folders automatically sychronized every there is a change. Linking is easy: simply right-click on the folder and choose the “Link to ZumoDrive” entry in the context menu.

Files in our ZumoDrive can be shared by posting links to individual files or folders or creating shared folders.

If you are an Ubuntu user, you can also use Ubuntu One (https://one.ubuntu.com/), which like Dropbox gives you 2GB free. A paid $10 a month account gives you 50GB of storage. Like Dropbox, Ubuntu One keeps copies of your files on the Web server as well as on each local device on which you install the client. Synchronization is done in the background, too. If you use Tomboy, a wiki-style notepad, you can have Ubuntu One synchronize your notes across different Ubuntu PCs. Canonical, the commercial sponsor of Ubuntu, says it will encourage third-party development of Windows, Mac OS X and iPhone clients for its service.

Need even more free storage? Considering signing up for Microsoft’s SkyDrive (http://skydrive.live.com/) , a basic Web-based service that gives you a generous 25GB of online storage. To gain some of the functionality of Dropbox or ZumoDrive, download the free SkyDrive Explorer utility (http://skydriveexplorer.com) and see your SkyDrive as another folder in Windows Explorer. The only catch: the utility is only available on Windows.