AOL Xdrive: 5GB Free Storage + Online Backup

For starters, let me state that I’ve been a pretty happy user of Box.net for file storage/sharing, and Mozy for online backup for the past few months or so. Despite that, I’ve been trying to find a hybrid file storage/backup service comparable in quality to the Box.net-Mozy combo. One also charging the irresistable price of $0.00, of course.

My first stop was Streamload’s MediaMax, which based on the past few weeks, looks pretty good. But details on that in another post.

Let’s plunge into AOL’s latest offering instead: 5GB of online storage/backup free of charge on Xdrive. From the outset, it’s clear that AOL has decided to play the number game since all other online storage services, except for MediaMax (25GB), cap their free plans with at most 2GB of storage. A good thing? It depends – first and foremost on the bandwidth limits we’re going to be hit with. Unfortunately, there isn’t even a single reference to the word “bandwidth” throughout the site.

But raw numbers aren’t everything. So, let’s examine interface and functionality next. Web-wise, Xdrive’s UI is pretty slick – though this results in relatively load times for me – against MediaMax for example. And just because I’m picky, I’m also going to call out the unnecessary opening of a new window (by default) to launch the Xdrive file manager. FYI, Box.net doesn’t do it, and neither does MediaMax. Moving on, pictures, music and video have their own sections. And this distinction is more than just visual. While you’re able to share your pictures, videos and other “normal” file types, e.g. documents, publicly, you can’t do the same with the music. Clearly, copyright infringement is an thorny issue AOL wants to address as early as possible.

PC-wise, the Xdrive Desktop impresses. That is, if you manage to login to your account. I failed to do so on my own account, so the opinions that follow are derived from the software’s general interface and feature set, plus a close friend’s experiences. Unlike Box.net or MediaMax, Xdrive maps a drive to Windows, so you can treat your online drive pretty much like your local one. This makes it easy to sync highly-used files (simply drag ‘n drop), though it still falls short of the automatic real-time synchronisation of local files and folders I’m dreaming of (MediaMax comes close on this point).

File backup has all the critical features you might expect. You can choose files to backup based on the folders they are in or their file type. And you can schedule automatic backups on a daily basis. It would be nice to see the ability to filter via both folder and file type like Mozy though. As it would be nice to see the automatic backup frequency upped to “several hours” – with consideration to CPU and connection utilisation – like how Mozy does it.

On both Xdrive’s web and desktop interfaces, however, lie one unique feature: Skip the Download (also called Archive This). Via a plugin, or through your web file manager, you can download a file online right to your Xdrive, i.e. a server-to-server transfer, rather than download it to your PC and upload it back to your online drive. AOL touts this as the perfect feature to “…quickly archive your blog postings, profile pages and more directly.”

Overall, I believe Xdrive has the potential to be a formidable contender to current file storage and backup services. Once some of the improvements I’ve suggested actually materialise (just maybe, AOL might want to setup an API too), it’s certain that AOL will have a strong offering at their hands, especially given some of the unique features Xdrive provides.

P.S.: One peculiar(ly irritating) problem I noticed was the recurring inability to log into my account, leaving me with this:

I hope I’m the only one getting this problem, because it really, really sucks.

Update: I can login via the Xdrive Desktop now – not sure why.