There are literally hundreds or thousands of sites that feature some sort of online file storage, from sites like Flikr with photos to imageshack for small files. However, none of those allow a personal storage space for all types of files, your own online hard drive.

We have tested out 15 of the top online storage sites, all offer both free and paid options. Out of the 15, we found 2 that were easy to use, had good plans and good reputations.

Box.net

Box.net

Box.net has the smallest free disk size, with 1G free and a 10MB file limit, but the $5/month plan raises those limits to 5G/1G. The great thing about box.net is they have a wide acceptance of their API by third parties, such as Netvibes, which allows you file access directly from your netvibes page. Box.net currently does not have a mac client, though you can access your files online. They will soon release an automatic backup utility for your mac, where you can select certain files to backup to your box.net account on a regular basis. This will be a fantastic utility, if their plans were bigger. My iPod has 30G of files, and it would be great to be able to back that up remotely so I don’t lose it, but none of the box.net plans are big enough for that.

If you are looking for a simple to use plan that can be accesses elsewhere throughout the net, box.net is for you. If you need larger spaces, check one of the following two plans.

Streamload by MediaMax

MediaMax

MediaMax is one of the original online storage sites, originally coined Streamload, they recently moved over to mediamax. MediaMax’s free plan includes 25G of free storage, but only 1G of bandwidth each month and a file transfer size of 25Mb. Their pay plans increase those limits dramatically. MediaMax has options to put your files in appropriate areas, and share those files with others as needed. So, your music files all reside in the Music Locker and photos reside in the Photo Locker. Very handy, if you need to fine a file quickly. With 25Gb of storage, you can store a lot of photos, a great way to backup your iphoto collection. MediaMax is releasing a Mac sync and backup utility in the near future, which will work well for me. $5 per month for 100GB of storage is enough to back up my entire hard drive in one place.

Keep your eyes open in this field, and don’t be surprised if you see Yahoo or Google launch an online file storage site soon. Google would seem to be the obvious choice, since they already offer 2G+ of storage with Gmail, this is right up their alley.

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