AOL offers Xdrive for free

By Steve Malone

Posted on 18 Sep 2006 at 10:16

AOL is offering a free 5GB of online storage space through its Xdrive subsidiary.

Subscribers can store anything legal on the service including data, music, pictures, bookmarks or simply backups of files on your local hard disk. If 5GB turns out to be not enough, it is possible to rent 50GB of storage for $100 a year.

In addition to the storage, subscribers get an extra virtual hard drive on their machine, access to the stored material from any Internet connected PC and a back up application with built in scheduling. It is also possible to share the files with other people. The 'shared' folders are preset to read or view only, but subscribers can choose to let others edit, download, or share the files.

AOL bought the Xdrive business more than a year ago, although the service has been allowed to lie fallow whilst the company sought to re-engineer the software. There were a number of glitches in the previous version which deterred many people. In fact some still remain with 'space full' errors occurring when only small amounts of files have been uploaded. However, AOL is promising to address the problems as soon as possible.

In order to get the free space you need an AOL screen name. You can sign up for free on the AOL website.