File backup and sharing sites

[McBainUK]

I've been looking into getting an account with one of the online file backup sites. My main usage will be to backup my photos and other docs, and quite importantly all my code projects including GB-PVR plugins. Secondary usage will be filesharing with family so a guest login / access feature would be nice. Easy upload of lots of files/folders is also required.

Looked at iDrive and SkyDrive so far but they seem to be geared for individual file uploads (5gb iDrive uploaded individually... :eek

Anyone have any suggestions / comments?

[treads6464]

For pure scalability and/or control i would suggest buying a large hard-drive or two (for a backup) and setting up a basic FTP. I have used Cerberus for years. I know this isn't exactly what you are looking for but the benifits of having it in house, for me, outweigh the benefits of internet based storage.

Another alternative that may be useful to you is using a vpn service like OpenVPn or Hamachi (incredibly easy to set up) to provide the direct, secure connections for any sort of file transfer and/or out of house storage.

The reason i mention these options vs an online storage tank is because with these you have control both datawise and security wise whereas an outside source may have rules/regulations, and limitations on what you can and cannot store. Hope this helps.

BTW, my wife loves you and Fat man do for community skin. thank you so much for your work on that plugin!!! Have a good one!

[fender]

Depending on your level of tech-no-how you could use something like Brackup and a service like Amazon's.

[stu8080]

I have found Mozy to be the best i have seen for a few reasons:
It gives 2gb free storage - i use it solely for pictures.
It has a very reliable desktop service that can be configured to autoscan for particular files or select particular folders
It has reasonable rates for unlimited (£2.50 pm) backup and transfer speeds are consistent.
It can be scheduled to run as a service overnight.

I tried a load out last year, and this seemed the best for 2gb. Others offer 25gb like MediaMax but are horribly unreliable and have some catches.

However Mozy is a backup solution, and does not seem to have many options for remote access. I never found much in the way of remote photohosting options, i never liked the way they overcomplicated things. I'll be interested to see what people recommend in regards to this. My need was backing up the photo's no matter what (housefire being my main concern!)

As for sending large files, TransferBigFiles does the job well enough, no login required either end, up to 1GB file size, 30 day storage if using their desktop client and it works well enough for me. Im sure there might be better out there, but this was good enough for me the few times i need it.

[rbelisle]

I have used mozy for backup, but I still burn DVD's with family photos and videos and keep them at my inlaws in case of fire... The big problem is video files... I think an offsite solution for the size of the files makes little sense.

As drives are getting cheaper, I think I might just buy another external drive and update it occasionally and keep it at my inlaws.

[Deusxmachina]

If it's for smaller stuff, AOL's Xdrive offers 5gb of space for free. AOL Pictures also hosts unlimited pictures at their original sizes. For free. That's quite impressive and better than every other free hosting plan I've seen.

Webshots will host 100+ videos for free of up to five minutes/75mb at 352x240. Not the best, but that's pretty good for free. A pay account doubles all those specs.

[danc]

I have been using JungleDisk (jungledisk.com) which uses the Amazon S3 service. Found it to be great. It is multi-platform and low cost.