5 free ways to store data online

Traveling with software or data abroad is becoming an increasingly risky act – especially if you’re going in or out of the USA. The Washington Post recently reported that The Department for Homeland Security has quietly passed a new law which means that storage devices, including USB drives, hard drives and laptops, can be confiscated for an unspecified period of time with no suspicion of wrongdoing needed. For a developer, this could mean losing weeks or even years of hard work on a piece of software and for more general users, this could mean losing all your backed-up data. Not to mention the inconvenience and gross invasion of privacy a search of your storage devices would entail. Therefore, if you’re worried about having your data confiscated at an airport, here are 5 free ways to store your data online instead.

Mediafire – Excellent online storage and file sharing site which allows unlimited file storage and easy sharing of data via links you can send in an e-mail. To upload single files bigger than 2GB in size (Mediafire is limited to 100MB per file) however you’ll have to upgrade to MediaPro.

Syncplicity – An online backup and synchronisation tool that offers 2GB of free space. You can also upgrade to 40GB for $9.99 a month and receive more free space online for every friend you refer or who subscribes.

Omnidrive – Cross platform online storage with only 1GB of free space but a great option for documents as it allows you to edit them online using Zoho.

Allmydata – 1GB of free storage but offer unlimited storage from $4.99 per month. This includes automatic backups, 24 hour remote access to your files and no ads.

Mozy – 2GB of free online backup space and unlimited storage plans from just $4.99 per month.

Don’t forget either that if you’ve got a Gmail account, you can also use it as a handy online storage tool as I mentioned last week.