The concept of ZumoDrive is to move the data to a server on the Internet. The data is accessible like any other local folder on the computer or electronic device which makes it interesting for various things like hosting the music collection online. Local software like iTunes acts like the data would be local content.

The online storage provider ZumoDrive uses an algorithm to sync popular documents with the local device so that the data is available even in situations without Internet connection.

ZumoDrive keeps track of edited files providing access to older versions of the same file. It also makes use of a trashcan that can be used to recover – or permanently delete – files. Both of these options are available when logging into the homepage of the service.

The service is offering 1 Gigabyte of free storage space with the option for paid upgrades. An upgrade to 10 Gigabytes of storage space for example costs $2.99 per month.

ZumoDrive is currently in private beta available for Windows and Macintosh. Versions for Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android plattform will be released soon. You need to enter an invitation code. The following one was provided by Techcrunch and is working at the moment.

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At current status, my hard drive is sufficient for my needs. Of course I keep transferring files to a CD or DVD every now and then so you could say I haven’t really tested the limits of my drive yet. Then today I read a news article that said that hard drive manufacturer is going to introduce a Barracuda hard drive with a capacity of 1.5 Terabytes (TB). That’s 1.5 trillion bytes of data all in one disk. The disk should be available by August.

I must confess the idea of a disk that can hold that much data in it is a little beyond my comprehension at present. I tried to calculate how many movies I could fit at 700 MB a file but came up short. It will definitely be a big number. Still, if I put together my entire multimedia collection, I’m sure it’s close to that number so it’s not that inconceivable in terms of size.

The primary advantage is the expanded storage so no more running to put things on CD because you’re running out of space. At least not for a while. An added benefit of this hard drive is that it will obviously make the lesser capacity models cheaper so if you’re planning to buy a new hard drive, I’d suggest you wait for a month or two.

The biggest disadvantage of such a huge capacity is the sheer amount of data you would lose if your drive crashed. Still, as long as you do regular backups, you should be safe. What I’m curious to know is just what you would do with a 1.5 Terabyte hard drive? Store music, movies, games, software or something else? Let me know.

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I’m not able to test the service yet because my country is not yet in the list of supported countries. The maximum file size seems to be 50 Megabytes which should be enough for most users if you consider that the file size limit is 20 Megabytes at Gmail for instance.

Windows Live Sky Drive is firmly integrated into several other Live services of Microsoft. Live Messenger users are for example notified if one of their contacts added a new file to their list of shared files.

It would be nice if someone who is able to join the service would comment on his experience with it.

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Most users will probably be happy with the four Gigabytes and can use a small software called GMail Drive to add the Gmail storage as a drive in Windows. To do that the user needs to install GMail Drive and enter his login details when clicking on the new drive letter. I suggest to save this information unless you want to enter the username and password everytime you want to access the drive.

I mainly use it to backup important data, not as my primary backup location but a secondary one. All files that are stored on the drive are accessible on the Gmail website as well which means it is also possible to store files that you work with on different computers.

Read More:

Gmail Drive

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Although it might look like a universal solution to finding a better way to handle digital data, this technology is probably supposed to be only used for permanent archiving of data, not rewriting (I’ve never found a single mention of rewritable discs on Mempile’s homepage) which rather limits it’s practical use. Also, when storing such a vast amount of data on a single medium, you could soon regret it if the disc got scratched or damaged in some other way. However, it’s still a great deal to have a medium with 1 TB capacity, even if not rewritable. Besides, in the future, when the technology develops even more, the capacity of TeraDiscs should eventually reach up to 5 TB.

This invention appears to be a nice breakthrough in 3D data storage technology but I’m still convinced that it’s only a necessary part of transition which I’m waiting for. I mean who wants to use discs that get easily damaged when not handled properly…

In my opinion, datacubes are to replace discs as we know them in the near future for the purpose of storing digital data 3-dimensionally. Does it sound too much like sci-fi ? Just like internet at the beginning of 19th century ?

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