These 17 free and low-cost services make it easier than ever to back up and share your files online.
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All your important files--text documents, spreadsheets, music and videos, you name it--may start out sitting safe and snug on your PC's hard drive. But what if the drive goes belly up, or runs out of room? And what if you'd like an easy way to share those files with coworkers or friends? Web-based storage services let you back up your data, store your files on a Web server, or share them quickly and simply with anyone, often at no cost. Of the 17 services we tried, our favorite backup service is IBackup, while the GoDaddy Online File Folder is our pick of the storage sites. And for sharing files, we like the free 4shared.com service.

Note:
A word of caution to anyone using online storage: Servers crash, and companies go out of business, both without warning. Never trust an online storage service with the only copy of your vital data. Also, while all of these services take measures to lock down your data, the privacy and security of your files is ultimately up to you. Be sure to encrypt all files holding personal data, and plan for the day your online files disappear.

4shared.com ( My Personal Choice )
http://www.4shared.com/

This free service provides 500MB of storage and lets you upload an unlimited number of files (though no single file can exceed 25MB in size). All of the folders you place on 4shared.com's servers are permission-based, so you can easily make some folders available to anybody while restricting access to others. You can also password-protect your folders, which adds another layer of security. Visitors access the folders through an e-mail link.

In less than 10 minutes, I created a dozen folders and subfolders, each with specific rights. You can track how many files are downloaded, but unfortunately you can't find out who did the downloading. One quibble with the free account: You have to upload and download the files one at a time. You get more storage, multiple file transfers, and the ability to store files larger than 25MB for fees ranging from $48 to $84 per year.


RapidShare
http://www.rapidshare.de/
http://www.rapidshare.com

This simple, no-frills, free site lets you upload as many files as you want, each as large as 100MB, and send the link to any number of recipients. The files can be downloaded an unlimited number of times, and they remain on the server as long as they're downloaded at least once every 30 days. To avoid the annoying 23-second wait before you can download a file, sign up for a premium account, which costs 10 euros--about $12--per month.


YouSendIt
http://beta.yousendit.com/

This free service lets you upload files to its Web servers for temporary storage. You can include a personal note along with the upload; YouSendIt then sends an e-mail to the person with whom you're sharing that explains how to pick up the file. You're notified when the file is sent and when it's picked up. The recipient's name is automatically added to your YouSendIt Contacts, too. While you can send your file to several people at once, the "Send To" field won't hold more than 128 characters; the service says it imposed this limit to prevent spammers from using it.

The free version limits the file size to 100MB. The files you upload are stored for seven days or for a total of 25 downloads per file. That is probably more downloads than most people will need (it's plenty for me). But $5 per month raises the size limit to 1GB, the per-file storage period to 14 days, and the downloads to 100.

IBackup
http://ibackup.com/

Both IBackup and XDrive cost the same, and their features are almost identical: multimedia streaming, browser-based file management, and file sharing. However, unlike XDrive, IBackup doesn't require that your friends open an IBackup account to view the files you want to share with them.

The service's client software isn't as easy to use as the XDrive Desktop client. IBackup, though, didn't misfire as XDrive did in my tests. IBackup's IDrive feature, like XDrive Desktop, maps your IBackup files to a network drive to let you drag and drop files between the two.


XDrive
http://www.xdrive.com/

This service supports file sharing and streaming of media files to cell phones. You can manage your files via the XDrive Desktop client, or in a browser via the service's Web interface. Unfortunately, despite its features, the XDrive Desktop client stumbled too many times: I encountered C++ runtime errors and several failed backups. None of the other client programs I tried even hiccupped.