Greg R. Notess Reference Librarian Montana State University

Web Wanderings Online Storage Opportunities EContent, December 2000 Copyright © Online Inc.

As hard drive space becomes more easily available and inexpensive, Web use has exploded. Many computing and commerce functions have moved into the online arena. Previously high-priced functions have found their way to the Web, where they are offered for greatly reduced prices or even for free on advertiser-supported sites.

As computers become an increasing part of our lives at work, at home, and even while traveling, Web-based storage options are becoming more attractive for several reasons. Their popularity has spread in part due to free and inexpensive availability of storage space. Several services offer 100MB or more free personal online storage space. These sites and services have many useful features despite several problematic aspects to the online storage revolution.

TYPES OF STORAGE

There are many free online storage services in a variety of formats. Oldest of all are the free Web page servers, such as Tripod, GeoCities, and Xoom. While these types of sites are not usually considered to be free online storage sites, that is exactly how they function. Store HTML files and linked images on the sites, and the files are stored there for free. However, the features of these sites are rather limited, and their primary function has not been to store files. While most of these sites continue to focus on offering free Web sites and home pages, Xoom has expanded into the virtual storage space.

Another type of online storage is the online photo gallery such as Ofoto and Shutterfly. Instead of inviting guests to your house for the slide show, now you can send them email with a URL for where they can browse your pictures at their own pace. People can upload pictures from digital cameras or previously scanned images. Film developers have their own sites where they upload images from the developed film. For the online music hoarder, MP3 and other digital audio formats tend to be rather large files. With the average MP3s ranging from one to ten MB apiece (for less than ten minutes of music), even a moderate-sized collection can take up quite a bit of disk space. Storing them online at a music site such as Myplay.com becomes a way to free up hard disk space.

The general online storage options such as Netdrive, iDrive, and Xdrive accept any type of file format, including images and MP3 files. They may have specialized services for certain kinds of files–and rules that exclude illegal files–but they basically will accept anything that can be dumped onto a hard disk. In addition, the files can be shared with others or stored as private files.

WHAT USES?

Just upload the spreadsheets or word processing documents to the site before leaving work and then download them onto the other computer.

So what uses can be made of these virtual hard drives? For those who still have several gigabytes of space available on their desktop computer, why even bother with these online storage services? They actually offer several possibilities that can make them worth investigating:

• Portability
• Backup
• Disaster Recovery
• File Sharing
• Photo Shows

First of all, for those who use multiple, Internet-accessible computers, the online storage sites offer an easy place to shelve a few files that may need to be accessible from both work and home, or at work and on the road. Just upload the spreadsheets or word processing documents to the site before leaving work and then download them onto the other computer. With fast Internet connections, this approach to portability can be as easy as using floppy disks, and with large files that will not even fit on a single floppy, it is especially helpful.

So when was the last time you backed up the important files on your computer? Everyone knows that we should back up regularly in case of a system crash, but with most computers now storing hundreds of megabytes, a full system backup on floppies would take hours. Even for those with Zip drives, CD-R, or other high-capacity options, regular backup sessions are probably the exception rather than the rule. While the free online storage sites do not offer enough space for full backups, they can be very useful for a remote backup of smaller document collections.

On a related note, their remote location makes them especially useful for disaster recovery file storage. Backing up files to floppies, Zip disks, or another computer when they are all stored in the same physical location will not help much if that location is flooded, burnt, or otherwise hit by disaster. Off-site storage is a necessity for mission-critical data in a disaster recovery situation. For organizations with smaller mission-critical data sets, the free storage sites may provide sufficient space for at least some of the most essential files.

Yet these services offer more than just storage for backup and portability of data. They also can be used to share files with other users. Working on a writing or research project with someone else? Sharing the file via an online storage site does away with the need to send large email attachments. Some files can be shared with a select group of individuals with a password for protection, while other files can be shared with anyone and without password protection.

These kinds of file-sharing options are especially common on the photo-sharing sites. These allow direct uploads from digital cameras and scanners and will also offer to develop film and make digital copies available online. The site can be used just to store photos as well as to set up an online photo show, order reprints, or buy enlargements.

THE PROCES

The typical online storage site of any type and usage works somewhat like this. A user signs up for the free account. They often start with 25MB of space, and additional space can be earned or bought. Earning additional space is available in several ways. On Xdrive, extra megabytes are available for signing up for its newsletters, receiving ads, and getting others to sign up.

After getting an account established, files can be uploaded to your new online storage account via a Web form. However, most of them also offer an extra downloadable program that will upload and download multiple files and directories. These desktop clients can even map a drive letter within Windows Explorer. Then files can be dragged and dropped back and forth, as long as the computer is connected to the Internet. While the operation is simple, that does not mean that the files transfer any faster than they would via some other method, such as FTP.

Once the files are uploaded to the remote site, they can be placed in folders. Some folders may already be set up for sharing with anyone or with password access, while others are designated as private. Alternatively, the user may be able to designate the shared access for each folder.

An email message can be sent directly from the storage service to alert others to the availability of shared files and any password needed. However, these messages also often contain advertising for the service. In addition, some of the services will only let others view or retrieve the shared files if they also sign up for an account on the system.

THE PROBLEMS

...the files appear to be fairly secure, but it is not the kind of location for keeping top-secret corporate files or the family's secrets.

Between all these services, utilizing all options for increased space, you can find almost a gigabyte of free storage space on the Web. Many offer several easy uploading and sharing options. But for all their benefits, there are several problems with this online storage space and a few issues to watch.

The transfer time for large files is more of a problem for those on dial-up and other slower connections. If more time online means a greater expense or an unacceptable tying-up of the phone line, heavy use of online storage sites may not be an option.

The security of files stored on these sites is another area of concern. Most of the file transfers are not encrypted. And while the sites strive to keep the private sections secure, there is always the possibility that someone could either tap into the files as they are being transferred, or find a way to crack a username and password. In general, the files appear to be fairly secure, but it is not the kind of location for keeping top-secret corporate files or the family's secrets.

A larger concern is the reliability of these sites. As with so many Internet endeavors, these are all fairly new sites, and their long-term viability remains to be seen. None promise 24/7 availability. As they update their features, change hardware, or get overwhelmed with users, their sites can become unavailable. If they go out of business next year, or next month, what happens to the stored files? The Internet FileZone shut down at the end of August 2000, although accounts were transferred to Driveway.

And of course there is the copyright issue to consider. Of the shared images and MP3 files, how many fall under copyright protection? The sites all have policies stating that no illegal or copyrighted materials may be stored or shared on the site. Of course, policing the non-shared files is rather difficult.

But the copyright concern goes both ways. Be sure to look closely at the copyright policy as it regards any files that you post in a public or shared space. Does the service claim copyright for itself, or does the creator retain the right? Read closely before posting.

THE SITES

iDrive and Filo

For general online storage, iDrive currently offers 50MB of space for general files. It also has a useful little desktop utility called Filo. Using this utility, an unlimited number of Web pages can be clipped and stored on an iDrive. Filo makes saving Web pages easy–available with the right mouse click in Internet Explorer and via the Personal Toolbar as bookmarks in Netscape. It only saves the text of Web pages, not the images, but it can provide a nice record of how Web pages read when you looked at it.

Unfortunately, Filo also demonstrates the problem with all of these solutions that rely upon downloading and installing desktop software. The software can cause other things to stop working or crash the system. On first installation, Filo disabled Netscape by changing the proxy settings so that Netscape would not connect to any sites. Then, Filo would not work for either Internet Explorer or Netscape.

Apparently, iDrive was having some difficulties at the time, and even logging on to its Web site would result in error messages. Yet this is exactly the kind of problem that makes these sites less than reliable for important everyday usage. The Filo application could prove quite useful for saving Web page content, if you can get it to function properly.

Cartogra

Cartogra, also known as HPPhoto, is a typical photo site, offered by Hewlett-Packard. Unlike Ofoto, Shutterfly, and Netdrive, Cartogra does not require that people viewing shared photos register on the system. Like so many of the other services, Cartogra offers a downloadable desktop client program for uploading, the Cartogra Photo Manager.

Once again, loading this program shows the downfalls of these new services and the not-fully-tested desktop clients. During the Cartogra software installation process, it claimed that it needed to update the Winsock and Dcom programs. After this was done, all Internet connections were lost, and my computer was cut off from the Web until I reinstalled the so-called older versions (which were actually more recent than the ones Cartogra installed). At least the Cartogra program functioned after the network connection was restored.

Netdrive

With 100MB of free space, Netdrive offers a substantial storage option. Its desktop client maps a separate drive for easy drag-and-drop copying. Netdrive has special folders for sharing online photo albums, for public files, and for music.

At first, Netdrive via the Web or its desktop client worked quite well. However, after about a week, the desktop client was suddenly unable to log in and even the Web site would hang and take an inordinately long time to open. Perhaps loading several of these uploading clients end up conflicting with each other, but this kind of experience quickly dampens enthusiasm for the online storage sites.

Xdrive and Driveway

Two other general storage services are Xdrive and Driveway. While Xdrive advertises 100MB free, the basic account starts out with 25MB. Driveway also offers 100MB but starts with only 25MB. For both, the rest needs to be earned through participating in surveys, convincing others to join, or other offers on the site.

Xdrive has an uploading program that can map a drive to your online storage directory. Driveway uses Web Folders to create a folder for uploading rather than a separate drive letter. Both also allow files to be uploaded directly through a Web interface.

After the problems with the other desktop programs, I stuck with the Web interface for these two. And frankly, if you will only be uploading a few files every once in awhile, there is no need to use or try to install the desktop client.

Ofoto and Shutterfly

While there are dozens of online photo sites, Ofoto and Shutterfly are two of the better-known choices. These, along with Cartogra and many of the other photo sites, have several features not typically available from the general storage sites. These online photo albums emphasize sharing, in part so that other people can order prints of the various pictures directly from the company.

Both Ofoto and Shutterfly offer 50 free prints. Send them your film for developing and scanning or upload images directly from a digital camera. In addition to several sizes of reprints and state-of-the-art digital printing, Ofoto offers the ability to order framed pictures with a selection of different picture frames.

WHAT TO USE?

The number of Web sites offering online storage is constantly growing. The problems and difficulties mentioned earlier show that it is still a young technology with many glitches and bugs still to work out. Some of the rather significant problems I encountered may not affect others using a slightly different hardware and operating system configuration. By the time you read this, all of the problems mentioned here may have been fixed, while new ones may have arisen. Caution is in order, but these sites offer some very useful services and are well worth investigating.

At this stage, there is no single clear leader in the photo or general storage options. Find the ones that work for you without unnecessary crashes or software conflicts. And be prepared for continued instability in the market, but with the current levels of interest in and use of these services, we should expect to see continued improvements in stability and features even as the companies mature.

Communications to the author should be addressed to Greg R. Notess, Montana State University Libraries, Bozeman, MT 59717-0332; 406/994-6563; greg@notess.com ; http://www.notess.com.