Sharing and Backing Up Files Online – Part 1
Only slightly more than 10 years ago, if you wanted to send a file that was over a gigabyte, even over 25mb really, you simply could not do it over the internet without waiting more than a day. You would have to mail a hard drive or a CD. 20 years ago, you would need to send a floppy disc or CD through the mail to share any file over a few megabytes long distance. And before the internet, in the 1970s, they would have to walk from room to room with floppies in the computer science labs and corporate offices that had them. They called it the “sneakernet” because you had to wear sneakers to walk that much to share files.
Information Overload
Commonly today, many people still have trouble sharing and backing up their files online. If you want to send something over email, most have a limit of 25MB. There are plenty of sites that are great for providing huge amounts of space for backing up files, but do not really allow those files to be shared. There are some that provide space and allow you to share, but max out on sharing after a certain amount of time. Some provide a moderate amount of space and allow unlimited sharing, but do not give the same features to large files as they do to small files. And finally, some are great for storing and sharing, with no cap at all on how many people can download.
Self-Hosting on a Local Server
For certain businesses who need to securely share and store files site-to-site, and are dealing with sensitive information like insurance companies, lawyers, online retailers, hospitals and more, you may need to go with a server you host yourself locally. Sometimes this is even required legally. Note though, that we are not lawyers. If you need advice on meeting the restrictions, please contact one.
Even so, that is a very common option for those who need security above all and that is something we can absolutely help with. Something to keep in mind is that for those who decide to go this route, they will need to purchase their own servers and also set up an environment on them to run. There is also the option of just buying a 1TB external hard-drive, but this is an article about online backup and storage.
Free Storage Through Degoo.com
If you are a person or company just looking to backup and store your files, Degoo.com provides up to 100GB free. However, this service is purely for storage, and does not have an option to share files with another user. But, 100GB is a huge amount of space to get for free. So even though Degoo is light on features, you are getting a serious amount of space. For companies, you need to keep in mind that you will need to be all on the same account, because you can’t share files with other accounts.
Our next article continues the series, and goes over other online sites that will hopefully meet your needs.
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