Free (and Cheap) Online File Storage Solutions

There are a number of online services that offer free or very cheap file storage for documents, pictures, music, video, and code. If you want to conserve space on your computer's hard drive or be able to share documents with friends and colleagues, online file storage or cloud storage is secure and easy to set up. Here is a list of some of the top providers.

If you have a Google Account, you already have access to one of the largest free online storage systems. A personal Gmail account offers 7700 MB of storage and growing. You can use your email to store documents, photos, and audio/video files as attachments. Google Sites also allows upload of html files and scripts. With Google Docs and Sites, you can select the private setting if you need personal storage, or the public setting if you wish to share with friends and collaborators.

Amazon offers up to 5 GB of free cloud storage for files of any type, plus unlimited storage space for your Amazon digital music purchases. If you need more, Amazon sells cloud storage packages with very low annual fees:

$20/year 20 GB
$50/year 50 GB
$100/year 100
etc.

The Cloud Drive option is for personal use only and has the limitation that you can only access it from eight devices. This is to prevent unauthorized file sharing of copyrighted works.

Large businesses that need fewer restrictions should use Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) instead. S3 pricing is a little steeper than the Cloud Drive, at $0.15 per gigabyte-month, with additional charges for sending and receiving data. Still, it is a bargain compared to the cost of buying or renting servers elsewhere.

A free Yahoo! email account can double as a personal online storage area. Currently, Yahoo mail offers unlimited storage and allows file attachments up to 2 GB in size. Like Gmail, Yahoo mail also has calendar and document creation apps.

ADrive offers one of the largest free storage packages at 50 GB. For larger storage needs, they offer 100 GB for $13.95 a month or $139.50 per year, and 250 GB for $33.95 a month or $339.50 per year. For medium and large businesses, the 10 TB storage plan is $1,211.50 a month or $12,115.00 per year. With any paid plan you get access to support, file recovery, FTP, and no advertisments. (Free plans are supported with ads.)

DropBox offers 2 GB of free storage plus 0.25 GB of free space for each new user you refer, up to 8 GB in free referral storage. This means, theoretically, that you can get up to 10 GB in free cloud storage. If you need more, they offer paid subscriptions starting at $99 per year for 50 GB. Unlike Amazon's free cloud storage, there is no restriction on the number of devices from which you can access your account. This makes it ideal for sharing files with colleagues, coworkers, friends, and family. It's a great way to create a back-up of all your computer's files should your computer crash.