1. Microsoft Skydrive
2. Box.net
3. ElephantDrive
4. Carbonite
5. MobileMe
6. MozyHome
7. Dropbox
8. GoogleDocs

1. Microsoft Skydrive
Like any free service that you use when you sign-up for other services (eg, Windows Live), Microsoft Skydrive   is all about the   ability   to make backups and store files online rather than actually making it easy.

In many respects, Skydrive is just a technical option - a place to put your files online. This is more attractive than it sounds: the service offers 25GB of free storage for docs, photos, or any file you care to post. There is a 'single sign-on' mentality here. Once you sign up for Live, you are automatically grandfathered in to Skydrive so there is no separate registration process.

The service works seamlessly with other Microsoft products - you can use Live Photos (a service that is similar to Flickr) to store your images in Skydrive folders.   Office Web Apps also work with Skydrive so you can archive a document to the service, which is slick. The fact that Skydrive works reliably, is from Microsoft, and is free means you might start using it regularly.

Unfortunately, the service is very limited for any serious archiving duties. Unlike Carbonite, it doesn't integrate with your desktop at all, which is odd because Microsoft really should push that.

There is no way to do heavy batch uploads - say, an entire drive or network folder. It is strictly just one file at a time, hit Upload, then repeat. There are a few handy extras - you can create favourite folders, and share links for public files that people can comment on - sort of a poor man's photo portal where you can share some family shots and then have everyone comment on how dumb everyone looks.

Skydrive simply takes too much time to do archives. There is also a very restrictive 50MB per file limit on uploads, which is just lame. It is likely to be a service that you use for a while then quickly forget it even exists as you move on to other things.

2. Box.net
Box.net   has some great pricing plans. There is a free version which has 1GB of storage and a 25MB file limit, but the $10 plan gives you 10GB and a 1GB per file limit. The business plan at $15 per month, which is the one we tested, comes with 15GB and has a 2GB file limit. The service is well-designed and Web 2.0-savvy in that it makes use of Java and looks like it was made in this decade.

Unfortunately, in our tests, it was also buggy. Box.net is supposed to let you upload by dragging-and-dropping files, which would make it a lot easier to use, but we tried Google Chrome and Internet Explorer 8 and neither of them worked with the service correctly.

Box.net goes way beyond file storage. It is trying to be the Facebook of storage, which is a bit like trying to be the Twitter of mapping tech - it just doesn't really work. We're not visiting a storage site so we can connect with other people, we just want to keep our files safe.

The application frameworks are cool and all, but again – we are not using the service like an iPhone where we want to add a bunch of apps. (Truth be told, the widgets are useful but not our first thought when we have 20MB of documents we want to back up - would you really want to do that from LinkedIn?)

The additional features feel a bit like Box.net wanted to jump on a bandwagon and leverage the service, without actually improving the storage features. We do like that there is an iPhone app, an enterprise option with strong security encryption (pricing varies), and a good content search engine.

3. ElephantDrive
ElephantDrive   is the ugly stepsister of Box.net. The sites are not related, but they use a similar blue and white colour scheme and offer similar 'entry level' and 'pro' account levels. That said, ElephantDrive is much cheaper - it costs about $5 for unlimited storage and the technology is much more closely aligned with how Carbonite works where you download an app that you use to back up files from your desktop.

Also like Carbonite, you have less control over how you set up backups - we prefer the way Mozy lets you configure backups in a way that mirrors desktop tools that archive to a local drive. ElephantDrive also had problems logging in at times and the online interface for seeing back-up files, while functional, looks about 10 years out of date compared to a fresher Web 2.0 look and feel.

Still, there are several perks to using Elephant Drive. One is that your files are protected heavily during transfer using 128-bit SSL encryption and packaged as 256-bit AEN encrypted files.

As a tool for transferring files, ElephantDrive also works well, although not quite as unencumbered as a service such as Yousendit.com. To share files, you have to log in, find the files, click a share option, and type the email of the person with whom you want to share the files – a few extra steps.

We also liked that we could do a backup and immediately access that file online and retrieve it rather than making a backup that is stored online but not available right away. (Some back-up sites save your archive in a proprietary file and you can't just access it at will.)

4. Carbonite
Carbonite   and ElephantDrive are remarkably similar – they both run in the background and make backups on files over time as you use your computer. They both offer unlimited storage for one price, which is essentially an 'all you can eat' plan where the service will slowly back up the files you select.

With Carbonite, you select the files and folders you want to archive. The reason the backup is unlimited is simply because your internet connection – even if you speed along at 5Mbps or more – is still not fast enough over time to back up more than a few GBs. The service offers annual pricing and one year costs $54.95 or about $5 per month – about the same as ElephantDrive.

In our tests, Carbonite worked flawlessly – we never even noticed that the service was archiving an entire music collection in the background. Thankfully, these backups use your upload bandwidth so you can still browse the web and check email without too much interference.

The process of archiving is easy, and the Carbonite utility works well, but ElephantDrive actually offers a more functional web interface for viewing files and sharing them with other users. With Carbonite, when you need to restore a file, you use the desktop software to restore them.

The service uses an 'on the fly' paradigm that might be confusing at first. For example, there are dots that appear on folders showing if a backup is pending, in process, or complete.

This is helpful once you get accustomed to the idea, but does not work like traditional back-up software or a web portal and forces you to look at folders and important files to see if they are archived or not instead of just using an app.

5. MobileMe
MobileMe   looks and functions exactly like you would expect an Apple product to act, which is to say: like a Mac computer and the iPhone. If you are used to a Windows computer or like using a Web 2.0 site that emphasises Java and a good design over making a web site look like a computer, then MobileMe is likely not the best option.

However, it is one of the best ways to easily back up files. For $99, the service offers 20GB of storage space. You can easily mark folders as public and share the contents with any user (which they can then access online), or select a file or folder and add an e-mail address to share with any recipient.

As you might expect, Apple offers an iPhone client for MobileMe and it works better than any other mobile app we have tested for online storage sites. There is also a Windows client.

In tests, MobileMe also had another perk: it actually ran incredibly fast for backups, typically operating just a notch faster than other services when testing the same files over the same internet connection. For example, a 50MB file transfer to the service at Me.com took only five seconds, whereas other services took twice that time.

The integration with the Mac OS is remarkably fluid as well – the iDisk icon is available in the Finder view so you can easily drag and drop files to your online storage.

When you need to retrieve a file, it is just a matter of double-clicking the same icon and copy the file back to your local drive, or using Me.com from any computer to access your online folders.

The only real complaint about MobileMe is that it is just a hair more expensive that other services, but the extra cost is not a major issue since the service has plenty of storage and works so well.

6. MozyHome
MozyHome   is an exceptional service that matches and, in some cases, exceeds the power of Apple's MobileMe service. It costs about $5 per month, and provides unlimited storage for files.

MozyHome, the service we tested (since there is also a business version), uses 128-bit encryption for file transfers and runs as an app that is similar to most desktop apps that archive to a local disk.

One of the most unique features is called bandwidth throttling. When you configure the app, you can choose whether Mozy uses most of the bandwidth for backups or a minimal amount. The service was also the best at prompting you for which files to back up, such as music and video files, documents, and contacts stored on your computer.

There's an easy way to pause backups and resume, and MozyHome worked reliably for all of our back-up tests. However, it did not match MobileMe for raw speed of backups and tended to take just a few seconds longer on the same Internet connection.

MozyHome even offers a free version with 2GB of space, which is a great way to test out the service with a few important files to see if it works well for your computing needs. The service works with both Mac and Windows computers, and has an excellent support page and knowledge base.

7. Dropbox
Dropbox   was the easiest service to use of all the ones we tested. When you visit Dropbox.com, you see a large download link to get started with the program, not the typical customer testimonials or features summary.

The service is free for 2Gb of storage, or $10 per year for 50GB and $20 for 100GB. Like MobileMe on a Mac, DropBox integrates well with your computing activities. You can right-click on any file and send it to your Dropbox (similar to how Carbonite works), but there is also a desktop icon you can use for drag-and-drop. And, unlike Carbonite, you can visit Dropbox.com to view archived files.

Dropbox watches files and folders and folders and will detect when a file charges and then make a new archive of that file. The interface for electing which files you want to back up is exceptionally easy – matching the design flare and accessibility of the MobileMe interface.

Like MozyHome, you can set a bandwidth throttle to use all of your feed for backups or a small amount. The search at Dropbox.com is powerful: you can search archives for any file, then rename and delete them at will.

When you upload photos to Dropbox, the service actually creates a slideshow for you automatically – and, of course, you can share any links as public storage locations with anyone you want. Like Elephant Drive, files are encrypted locally before transfer using 256-bit AES and secured with 128-bit SSL during transfer.

The iPhone app is powerful as well. You can take photos and video (with the iPhone 3GS), then sync those files to your Dropbox account. And, there's a way to view photo slideshows, too.

So where does Dropbox fall in the grand scheme of things? We ended up liking MobileMe a hair more because of its speed and a few minor interface design perks. Still, Dropbox is an outstanding service that worked reliably, has several unique features, and is not as expensive as MobileMe.

8. Google Docs
Not instantly recognized as a storage service,  Google Docs   recently implemented a new feature: you can store any file on the service you want, not just media files and documents. In fact, if it is a file you can email or upload over the web (so, maybe not a 1GB high-def movie) you can store it with Google.

The free portal offers 1GB for any type of file, or pay .25 cents per GB for more space. (In the past, industrious users figured out how to hack Gmail to let them store files, so this is now the preferred option.) Google Docs works well with Gmail and other Google service, partly because you tap into the storage you have for all Google services and can pay extra for more storage.

Google uses a smart shared folder model where you can upload files and then give anyone access to your public files. If you do work regularly with docs on the service, Google Docs even behaves a bit like Google Wave in that you can work on documents collaboratively.

Docs has a viewer for any file type, including photos, and the entire portal for files is searchable. For example, if you use Docs for uploading PDF files, you can search for any phrase and Docs will search through the PDF text.

Because Docs is intended more as a word processing, spreadsheet, and slideshow suite to compete with Microsoft Office, the service tends to be a little hard to use.

There is certainly no desktop integration, since that is not really the purview of Google to begin with. And, there is no obvious point-of-entry for quick backups and uploads. As a free service, Google Docs does work well and can become part of your Google experience, but it's in no way a serious competitor to MobileMe or Dropbox.

Conclusion
Whichever storage site you choose, one axiom will quickly emerge: with the storage at your fingertips, and the sites available without a lot of fuss, it is easier to make them a daily part of your routine.

This was truer with MobileMe, Dropbox, and Carbonite because of how they integrate with your computer. They are like a constant reminder that you should be arching important files.

Yet, every online site does provide a quick way to make backups and negates the need for a USB keydrive or even an external hard disk drive that you use just for a single PC backup.

Even with the mobility they provide, there is one caveat to mention: space is often limited with these sites, and when there is unlimited storage, the other gating factor is that your internet connection is not the best option for backing up a 250GB laptop drive.

In that sense, online storage is no replacement for a good dedicated network back-up process, which is a better choice when you do happen to be chained to your desk.
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