Running out of storage space on your PC? Move it online
Computers are becoming larger and larger repositories of data. With ever-growing libraries of music, spreadsheets, and more, consumers are looking to computers with more RAM, and sometimes even relying on external hard drives. While these are useful in their own way, they all suffer from the same concern: what happens to all that data if the drive is damaged or malfunctions?There is an ever-increasing amount of sites on the internet where you can store and back-up your data in case of this eventuality. Another benefit these sites have over hardware is that access to the sites is often free. It’s important to understand the difference in terminology between storage and back-up, though. Backup programs keep the data offsite and are accessed by a desktop client.Online storage sites, on the other hand, store the data on their own websites. These are most useful for those with a broadband connection, since uploading and downloading data can be tedious otherwise.Of the backup sites, some of the best are Mozy and iBackup. Of these two, only Mozy is free up to 2 GB. However, iBackup has plans starting from 9.95/month, and offers to ship a temporary storage device if you need to backup data quickly.For storage, some of the best options are the GoDaddy Online File Folder, FlipDrive, and Box.net. Box.net has a free option for up to 1 GB of storage with a limit of 25 MB on the sizes of files you can upload. FlipDrive also has a free 1 GB option, and offers 15-day free trials for their Premium (20 GB), Enhanced (50 GB), and Platinum (100 GB) options. GoDaddy does not have a free option, but they have one of the simplest sites to use. The 10 GB Economy storage site starts at 19.99/yrthere are no monthly options.