Slashdot Mirror


Microsoft to Offer Free Online Storage

athloi writes "Microsoft Corp. is giving computer users up to 500 megabytes of online storage for their documents, music, photos and video. They're offering it to a select 5,000 test users for now, but will make it widely available later this summer. This move is the latest in a series by the previous large corporation we all loved to hate to compete with the newest large corporation we might hate and fear, Google."

10 of 290 comments (clear)

  1. Google already done it... indirectly by Yoooder · · Score: 5, Informative

    GMail storage anyone? It lets you use your GMails many GB's of storage as a network drive. 500 fixed MB is pretty paltry in comparison...

  2. Re:Google already done it... indirectly by morgan_greywolf · · Score: 4, Informative

    And will be doing it for real shortly with Gdrive, which is apparently no longer a rumor.

  3. Re:You've Got To Be Kidding... by MobileTatsu-NJG · · Score: 3, Informative

    "It's easier, when I want to store something, to GMail it to myself. They have over 5X this amount of storage..."

    And a 20 megabyte attachment limit.

    --

    "I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)

  4. Omnidrive by Simon+Garlick · · Score: 4, Informative

    www.omnidrive.com

    Users get 1Gb free, and up to 50Gb is available if you want to pay.

    Disclaimer: not a shill, just a happy beta tester.

  5. Re:Too little... by LostCluster · · Score: 4, Informative

    AOL's XDrive.com has been offering 5 GB for free about 6 months now.

  6. Re:Google already done it... indirectly by Utopia · · Score: 5, Informative

    Its against Goog policies to use file storage software and your can can be suspended.
    http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answe r=43692

  7. Re:"We"? Speak for yourself. by AchiIIe · · Score: 4, Informative

    Meh, I spoke too fast.

    I tried it. It sucks.
    Nothing innovative, plain old technologies. You go to a page with 5 filename inputs, you select each file, you put them in folders, you share certain folders.

    Screenshots:
    * http://tinyurl.com/2vaa7e (main page)
    * http://tinyurl.com/38fsb9 (uploading screen )
    * http://tinyurl.com/2j53kp (folder with files)

    It does not seem to be "mountable" either.

    --
    Nature journal lied in Britannica vs Wikipedia Ask to retrac
  8. Re:Google already done it... indirectly by Chabil+Ha' · · Score: 4, Informative

    Yes, but you can only send emails that are a maximum of 20MB. I'd love to have to split up a bunch of archives in 20MB chunks...

    That aside, the mere fact that nobody can be held liable for the lost of data and that backups are likely not made, I wouldn't feel bery comfortable with the data being there as a means of recovery.

    --
    We're all hypocrites. We all have hidden parts, it's the contrast between them that make us more a hypocrite than others
  9. Re:The same as everyone else by CastrTroy · · Score: 3, Informative

    I pay 7.99 a month for dream host, and I have 246 GB of data storage. Ok, I haven't actually tried to upload that much. Currently I have 1.5 gigs up there, but 246 GB is my quota. Why pay for something like .MAC when you can just get some shared hosting. You can use it as a website too. I'm surprised that more people don't have shared hosting plans. They are cheap, and provide you with a lot of features.

    --

    Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
  10. Re:The same as everyone else by maztuhblastah · · Score: 4, Informative

    Bullshit.

    Again, I call bullshit. Yes, Dreamhost does oversell like crazy. They even admit to it!. But they actually will let you use all the bandwidth and disk you're given. All of it.

    Right now, a quick look at my panel shows that I'm using 64.1GB of space (as of last measurement). This month, I've moved over 1TB of HTTP traffic alone (I've used another 20GB or so of FTP traffic). No black mercedes. No phonecalls. Not even a damn e-mail from Dreamhost.

    As Dreamhost points out, the only usage-related issue they'll cut you off for is CPU usage. For serving static content (i.e. not PHP pages), Dreamhost actually kicks ass. They really will let you hit both your quotas. Sure, you won't be able to run the next iTunes Movie Store off one of their shared hosts, but you can actually use all the space and not get so much as an e-mailed warning.