Best Free Online File Storage?
I’ve been trying to look for an alternative solution for a free online storage for the files that you can download from my blog posts. Previously, I was using a “being paid when your uploaded file is downloaded” free file hosting and I was disappointed because the service has decided not to pay me anymore (well it’s a tiny cent per download anyway, 0.001 cent or some ridiculous amount).
So I’ve tried a few free online storage service and I thought I’d share to you guys what I’ve found about them. I know that there are plenty of them out there, so it is good to know what service gives you what benefit.
Comparison of different free online file storage on the internet
- Humyo
URL: http://www.humyo.com
Storage & Bandwidth
25 GB - Media files (music/video/photos)
5 GB - other files
Unlimited bandwith
Notes: Have to login in 90 days if you don’t want your account to be removed. However, they will notify you about it first to check whether you still want your account. - Hotlinkfiles
URL: http://www.hotlinkfiles.com/
Storage & Bandwidth:
50 MB limit max per file
1 GB Space
8 GB Bandwith limit per month
Notes:
Direct Hotlinking to the files is allowed.
Not sure how long they will keep your files. - Drop.io
URL: http://www.drop.io/
Storage & Bandwidth:
100 MB per file
Notes:
Once off upload (No account registration needed).
Can be password protected.
“All drops are set to expire under some sort of condition. At the extreme you can set them so that they don’t expire until they are not used for a full year”. - Mediafire
URL: http://www.mediafire.com
Storage & Bandwidth:
Unlimited Storage
Unlimited Bandwith
Up 100 MB per file
Notes:
You don’t have to sign up for an account to use the service.
“For free accounts, there is currently no time limit on how long uploaded files will be stored as long as you access your account (i.e. login to your account) at least once every 60 days OR at least one of your files is accessed (i.e. downloaded) every 30 days.” - Wua.la
URL: http://www.wua.la
Storage & Bandwidth:
1 GB (+unlimited by exchanging your local storage space “virtually”)
Unlimited Bandwith
Notes:
Files permanently stored.
Must have JAVA installed either on your browser or your machine (a stand alone Windows application).
Wua.la can appear as a drive on your Windows, making it easier for you to manage your files. - Box.net
URL: http://www.box.net
Storage & Bandwidth:
1 GB
Unlimited Bandwith
Notes:
“In addition to other termination provisions, Basic Users (free 1GB accounts) are subject to termination if: (a) the Basic User does not engage in any Box.net activity within thirty (30) days of registration, or (b) the Basic User does not engage in any Box.net activity for any period of 120 consecutive days. We will send you an email describing the situation and informing you that your account will be closed within seven (7) days unless you begin to use the account during that period. At the conclusion of that seven (7) day period, absent any such activity we will close the account. Any data you may have stored will be lost.” - MyBloop
URL: http://www.mybloop.com
Storage & Bandwidth:
Unlimited Storage
Unlimited Bandwith
Maximum Filesize is 1 GB
Notes:
Files never get deleted.
Doesn’t work when a download accelerator is used.
“We allow music, videos and movies to be uploaded as long as it is marked private and is not shared with anyone else.
MyBloop signups are currently open only to United States, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Japan, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand users.”
Conclusion
So far, I’d recommend using MediaFire if you constantly host some downloadable small files on your blog. The interface is one of the best (easy to use, looks great, and quick) compared to the other services. If your blog has quite a good traffic, chance is that the files will never get deleted (as long as one of your readers downloads a file from your account). MyBloop.com offers unlimited storage and bandwith, but the interface is quite slow to load (fully in Flash), but if you want to host lots of large files, you should go for mybloop.com.
Again, there is no one service that does all for me yet so far. I’m still waiting for Google’s solution for an online storage (they were planning for Google Drive long time ago but there is no updated news about it yet).
So what do you normally use for an online storage and why do you like the service? Please don’t tell me that you’re still using Gmail to store your files 
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I’ve been using http://www.adrive.com since last year, so far so good.
50GB free storage…that’s a whole lot of storage
I actually like box.net too for small storage…like for a powerpoint that I want a few people to see.
Alans last blog post..Our Favorite Gal Pal is "Home for the Holidays"
Hey Pal,
You might wanna check out these posts I have written some time back:
http://www.knowliz.com/2008/08/how-to-get-virtually-unlimited-online.html
and
http://www.knowliz.com/2008/06/best-online-file-sharing-collaboration.html
Hope you will find lot of useful links there, my friend. I have done a small research in this field recently.
Cheers
Anurag Bansal
Anurags last blog post..Adobe Online Services - Share, Connect, Store and Buzz with Acrobat
But doesn’t “unlimited space” or something now comes with web hosting - well, at least for LunarPages? So why would you even need to use another service?
In any case, I love HotLinkFiles because it’s fast and efficient - and it’s the first good one I’ve stumbled on! I never knew there were so many other good ones - I’ll check all the ones on this list later and then post another comment.
Feabionsus last blog post..Two free domain names? I’m sorry, I meant THREE!
Right now my host has unlimited storage so I’m good with that. I do, however, use online storage for my archiving, and I pay for that. I use Mozy Home, which encrypts my data, and then uploads it over an SSL connection.
Before going with Mozy, I was looking for free online storage, but had trouble finding any that met my high requirements for disk space. I guess that there are some that do exist.
MediaFire does look good, and to get around the fact that at least one file must be acccessed every 30 days, you could easily upload an image or CSS file that is used by all your pages.
Pauls last blog post..Blogger to WordPress - Part 2
@Alan: How long will your files be kept on the drive?
@Anurag: Thanks for the share.
@Feabionsu: Well sometimes you just want to use different services just in cause the file is being hammered
@Paul: Well my host (LunarPages) gives me like 1.5 TB of space, so yeah, it’s “unlimited”. I’m thinking to join Mozy for backing up my document files online some time later.
Also, thanks for the CSS/Image file trick, but are you sure it’s gonna work?
I have been using http://esnips.com for a long time now and am satisfied with it. It’s just great!Try adding it to your list as there are some really cool features in esnips.
Anyway, thanks for the amazing list. This is worth bookmarking
I’ve never considered online file storage except for my gmail account. I usually email myself anything outside of word, excel and powerpoint if I need to access online. Alternatively, I have a lot of storage left on my website so I usually use that if it’s something that I’ve been working on from home and will need elsewhere (because I have ftp access at home but not necessarily at work or elsewhere).
Looks like there are some pretty good options out there! Thanks Michael!
I’ve been using http://cheeeta.com and it works pretty well for me.
No probs. Keep the suggestions coming. The more the merrier
You missed Rapidshare- the world’s largest….
Now they support limited waiting time, and not sure about their happy hours feature though
Quakeboys last blog post..Get WWE Unforgiven results in your Email inbox
i did use gmail drive in the past.
mostly because it was fairly simple to set it up to appear as just another computer drive.
mediafire does seem rather good. seems like there’d be less of a chance of your account being deleted.
Thanks Michael for the comprehensive list of file storage sites.
“MediaFire does look good, and to get around the fact that at least one file must be acccessed every 30 days, you could easily upload an image or CSS file that is used by all your pages.”
That’s a nifty trick, but some file hosts require logins.
@Quakeboy: Hey you’re right, I did miss that lol. RapidShare was a pain back then, but it’s so much better now (quicker to download, better site layout, etc). Love the Happy hour too
@kouji: Haha I did too, but I attach the files manually on the emails lol that was before someone invented an application to make it as a drive
@VMOptions: There is no clear winner here. Or I should say, no perfect solution that does all yet
I’m using easy-share and earning peanuts from there.
Recently I use Dropbox to share files with my boyfriend.
wiehannes last blog post..Who stole the side mirror?
Hey Guys,
I was involved in a research for last couple of weeks. And now I am providing the results of this online research in the form of a series of posts.
I have compiled a series of 4 posts which gives you over 100 places to fulfill all your Photo, Video, Music, Documents and all other file sharing requirements.
Check it out if you like and I will appreciate any feedback, suggestion, Digg, Stumble, Buzz on these articles.
http://www.knowliz.com/2008/09/over-100-places-to-share-and-host.html
This is one of that containing just 30 of these services. 85 more places are on the way to you guys.
Enjoy.
Anurag Bansal
http://www.knowliz.com
Everyone try this website:
http://www.oosah.com
1 TB free of memory!
http://www.willemijns.com/backup.htm
@Bradley, Wow 1TB of free disk space, good find there!
This is a great post and loads of options to go for here. Seems there are pros and cons to each.
It does concern me though, copying files across the net. How secure is this? Suppose we could use a SSL based service but would have to pay for this and it may be slow. Also, how secure is the storage itself?
Dont copy personal or sensitive files I guess!