If you’re not into using AOL’s XDrive then maybe you’ll find a little more comfort with the AMD LIVE! Media Vault. The most obvious benefit of AMD’s offering is the increased 25GB file storage that they allow…but don’t forget to take a look at the fine print.
They let you upload/backup as often as you would like but you have to stay under the 25GB limit. However, you are limited to just 1GB of downloads per month! So what happens if you upload 25GB of photos or movies and you want to retrieve them all? Simple, it will either take you more than 2 years to get all of that information back or you could upgrade to the Elite plan ($9.95 per month) which will let you download 25GB of data in a month’s time.
There is also a backup/synchronization solution available that gives you a peace of mind by storing your information at a remote location. Even though the download limit is a bummer it is still a great deal. If you have a large photo library you can keep a backup on the Media Vault and if anything happens to your computer I’m sure it will be worth paying the $9.95 to get the pictures back. I think that’s what I’ll use the service for since I have over 6GB of photos and I don’t feel like splitting them up between multiple XDrive accounts.
They are also known as a MediaMax which I signed up for earlier this week when I was getting frustrated with XDrive. I’ll have to take a another look at this again and see why I didn’t care for it. May be it was the 1 GB bandwidth limit but this would be more to backup my MP3 collection as well as pictures.
Their desktop software doesn’t work very well (or at all), but the web interface is good. Just don’t expect to get access to your files right-away after you upload them, seems to take some time for the ‘file manager’ to update.
It seems that all the huge-space-providers aren’t able to provide a good software. I hate to use the navigator to upload files of 10MB or 20MB… It should be an-ftp-client-like tool for that. A tool that real work! (But after all, they all want you on the web, for the ads… No? Maybe the desktop softwares will work better after will become full with ads.)
One of the many I looked at had FTP support, but I couldn’t get it to work with FireFTP. I gave up earlier (which is what happened before) with trying to upload My Music since I kept getting errors. Haven’t gone back in yet to see if the files I did successfully upload are in my file manager yet.
ETA: Well, the first batch of files (about half dozen) are now in the file manager, but still think there are some more that were successfully uploaded that aren’t there yet.
Yeah, I started using the desktop software but it isn’t that great. FTP support would be awesome but these companies want to give you a reason to come to the site. Otherwise they wouldn’t be able to show you advertisements…unless they came out with their own FTP client.
Xdrive’s desktop software is a lot better. Have decided to backup my photos out there to Xdrive.
Am using Mozy for my files, because I like their encrpytion.
Now, I need to figure out what exactly to dump in AMD Live.
I think a single upgrade to 9.95 for a month or so will be useful to retreive all 25Gb of your data as you suggested Ryan.
Afterall all your stuff is definitely more than $10!
A back-up solution with FTP (that real work, for me at least) is [storage.vmn.net] but it’s “only” 1Giga (for free; more for money). You cannot have online access to the files (with browser), but it’s a great storage, which works with your ordinary FTP client. Any other free storage with FTP accounts that you know?
There are many of these systems now offering online storage – my fond hope is that eventually competition and marketing will force the bandwidth limits to go up and for better software to be the key. Maybe Google will even put in an offering.
Isn’t Google planning something like that.
Even MS are planning the Live Drive or something. Let’s see how things work out when the big players jump in.
Yes, I’m sure all of the big companies are planning something and I can’t wait to see what Google and Microsoft brings. I think Google’s will be pretty cool but, as hard as it is to say, I think Microsoft’s might be even better. They’ll know exactly how to integrate it into the Windows Operating System so that it works seamlessly and it will feel like it isn’t even an addon. Hopefully Google surprises me with the quality of software that they release.