Xdrive: AOL was pretty excited three years ago when it acquired online storage firm Xdrive. So excited, that they created an option to have a free account with up to 5 GB of storage. No more.
AOL announced a few weeks ago, as part of shuttering of various divisions, that Xdrive would shut down and delete all files on 12-January-2009.
New files cannot be uploaded at this point, either. Billing halted 5-November-2008 for any paid customers.
The site provides a FAQ on what you might need to know. They aren't offering a DVD-burning option, which would have been rather convenient for those who might be storing gigabytes of data. Still, it's an orderly shutdown.
The FAQ lists several options for other backup and storage services. But they omit two you might consider:
Amazon S3: S3 is pure storage. Prices start at 15 cents per GB per month for storage and 17 cents per GB for data transfer out (from Amazon to elsewhere); tiers for usage in the multi-terabyte range drop costs. Inbound transfers are a flat 10 cents per GB. Some backup services rely on S3 on the backend, such as JungleDisk. If you were to store 50 GB, you would pay $7.50 per month for the privilege, not including the cost of moving it in, or outbound usage.
Amazon offers no interface for its distributed storage system, just an API, but there are plenty of clients that handle it, including Jollat (Java-based for most platforms) and Interarchy (a Mac OS X FTP and file-transfer manager). Several Firefox plug-ins provide full functionality as well.
Apple's MobileMe: While MobileMe is pitched as an email address, a sync service for desktop and iPhone/iPod touch information, and a Web/video gallery, it also comes with 20 GB of storage (which you can divide in any proportion between email and plain storage), and 200 GB of included monthly data transfer for $99/year. Storage and transfer rates can be increase to 40 GB storage/400 GB transfer for an extra $49/year; 60 GB/600 GB is an extra $99/year. That works out to $8.25/month, $12.33/month, and $16.50/month for 20, 40, and 60 GB, respectively. Not a bad price if you can make use of any of the additional features.
Mac OS X users get built-in support for what Apple calls its iDisk through a desktop shortcut. On other platforms, standard WebDAV clients work--Windows XP and Vista have native WebDAV clients that you use a wizard to set up a desktop icon for.
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