Saturday
20Sep2008
Dropbox: Another Storage Service in the Cloud
Saturday, September 20, 2008 at 06:42PM 
If you're looking for an online storage service, consider Dropbox. It's elegant and simply works as advertised. Dropbox is:
... the easiest way to store and share files in the cloud, combining online sync, sharing and backup into a single interface that's seamlessly integrated into your operating system. It's the only truly cross-platform cloud storage solution, with support for Windows, Mac OS X and now Linux.
Dropbox presented at TechCrunch50, here's the screencast.
Installing Dropbox is straightforward. Download, configure a few settings, and then either choose a folder for Dropbox to use or accept their default. Then you drag and drop files to the Dropbox folder just like a any other folder on your PC. Files automagically sync to the cloud. Other nice-to-have features include a web interface and the ability to create shared folders to collaborate with others. Full tour here.
Behind the scenes, Dropbox encrypts and then stores your files on Amazon's Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3). Many web 2.0 companies use Amazon's Web Services (AWS) as their core infrastructure too. And many of these were impacted by the outages earlier this year. Since Dropbox relies on Amazon, you rely on Amazon. You need to be OK with that.
I'm using Dropbox on several PCs with no issues. Previously, I used Xdrive for almost a year, and it was plagued with overall sluggishness. I switched back to a keychain USB before I took the leap again with Dropbox.
The main benefit to storing your files with Dropbox is that you have access to them anywhere. My only complaint is the storage capacity. With a service that just works, 2GB of storage is a tease. Wait- did I mention it's free?
Download Dropbox here.
Reader Comments (3)
I'm gonna try it now. I used Xdrive too and, like you, got screwed by them. Lately, I've been using gmail but there's no way to share with that.
I'll give this a whirl!
[...] Amazon S3 ist vergleichbar mit der Blobstorage-Funktionalität von Windows Azure. Es können sehr einfach Dateien auf diese Dienste geschoben werden. Dropbox, ein Backuptool, nuttz S3 um die Daten zu speichern. [...]
[...] Amazon S3 is similar to the blob storage function in Windows Azure - you could save all your files in the cloud. Dropbox, a online backup tool use S3 to store & saves your data. [...]