Filed under: Audio, Internet, Photo, Video, News, Windows, Macintosh, Linux, Web services
Xdrive is live
Last month we told you that AOL would be giving away 5GB of web storage space to anyone who has an AOL screenname. Well it's true, Xdrive is now available, and I don't have an exclusive scoop or anything, I just went to the site and signed in. The service looks good. It is nothing like the old Xdrive service of past years (which is a good thing). The web interface is nice, and the site is available to Windows, Mac, and Linux users. Today's Xdrive is feature packed and well worth the free price tag, in fact at $9.95 a month, the 50GB drive is worth it too. You can opt to sign-up for the yearly payment plan, and you'll pay $99.50 (2 months free). Xdrive sports a built-in music player for your music, special photo features, mobile viewing and faxing of documents (from your cell), and even allows you to setup automated scheduled backups when you download the Xdrive desktop client. I had a small hiccup installing the desktop client, but it did end up working just fine.Welcome screen.
The actual file management interface on the web.

After spending the better part of an hour on 
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
Peter said 10:46AM on 9-14-2006
I don't know that I'd trust my data to AOL at this point.
Reply
{-_-} said 12:50PM on 9-14-2006
I signed in the service on Monday. The web interface seems to work best with IE. I tried uploading five 50MB files with Firefox and the browser locked up after the first file uploaded. Did the same with IE and it was much faster without any problems.
I am not sure what is happening with the Desktop software, but it seems buggy on my system. It takes quite a while to login and locks up often. Then when its logged in, I am not able to browse the folders.
I have not tried the backup scheduler because of the issues with the desktop software, but was impressed with the list of features via the web interface.
Its worth a try.
Reply
dave said 2:25PM on 9-14-2006
$9.95 a month is a bit steep for 50 gigs. If you where to spend that amount of money why not get shared hosting?
Reply
shihchiun said 3:09PM on 9-14-2006
@dave: It's 50 GB of storage, not bandwidth. Where are you getting 50 GB of storage for less than $10 a month?
Reply
Chris said 5:19PM on 9-14-2006
As of now the mobile portion doesn't work. mobile.xdrive.com takes you to an Oracle welcome screen. I notified Xdrive and they said they were doing "maintanance", but it's still down. Promising service though. I paid $50/year for 30 gigs with Mozy.
Reply
Derek said 7:42PM on 9-14-2006
It seems only US can register as only allows us zipcodes
Reply
Mustang said 11:29PM on 9-14-2006
Can you share this space with other people online? What I mean is if i were to upload a video to my space could my friends download it? If not then why not just spend the money on a new large hard drive for your computer? At least you wouldn't need to constantly upload and download stuff all of the time.
If it is meant for sharing then i guess that price is pretty good although you could probably do the same with a number of other free services out there also.
Reply
Sirocco said 2:02AM on 9-15-2006
Mastang, you'd have access to your files using other PC's, something you can't do with a hard drive attached to your home PC.
Note that for those of us who only want a few hundred MB online storage, we can get that free.
Reply
James said 3:33AM on 9-22-2006
I think you have over rated Xdrive. I don’t understand why it is restricted to AOL users. That forces much of the online community out of trying this service. I am also concerned about the safety of my data.
I found another service, IBackup for Windows, to backup and restore my important files ad folders. I did their free trial that allowed me to try most of the features. The whole process of downloading and installing the application was hassle-free, unlike Xdrive. In Xdrive I had to go through a number of steps to sign up and finally catch a glimpse of its web interface.
If the Xdrive interface was clunky, IBackup for Windows has easy-to-use wizards for interactive backups, restores and backup/restore scheduling.
Reply
Doctor Xdrive said 11:34PM on 9-23-2006
The latest release from Xdrive is Xdrive Plus.
In order to get a Free 5GB Xdrive Plus storage account you will need an AOL screen name, if you don't have one then you can signup for one free and get an AOL email account with 2GB of space too.
Now that you have your new AOL screen name and password you can use them to sign in to your Xdrive Plus account and store many types of digital assets, like Word files, Excel files, PDF files, pictures, music, your browser bookmarks, your AOL email attachments, AOL Pictures.
Using the Xdrive Plus Web Interface you'll be able to upload files or folders, share them with others. These files can be pictures, Word files, Excel files, etc.
Using our Desktop Application you will be able to do things with your Xdrive Plus account, like drag and drop files from your local (C: drive) to your Internet Hard Drive (X: drive).
The Desktop Application also provides other features, like scheduling backups, and backup now.
Our competitors do not offer the combination of services that an Xdrive Plus account offers. If you need more space then you can upgrade to 50GB for $9.95 a month or $99.50 annually.
If you are an AOL consumers who subscribes to other AOL Premium Services of more then $23.95 you'll get your Xdrive Plus 50GB for Free.
Now that you've got your Xdrive Plus account you can take your data with you where ever you go. How?
Using your AOL credentials you can login using any computer that has an Internet connection, just use a browser and go to www.xdrive.com and enter your screen and password to access your digital assets anytime, anyplace.
Do you have a web enabled PDA or cell phone? Soon you will be able to access your digital assets stored on your Internet Hard Drive using Xdrive Mobile Service and download your digital assets.
Thanks and Best Regards, Doctor Xdrive
Reply
Dave said 10:27AM on 9-25-2006
I have just switched to XDrive from Ibackup as I needed more online storage. XDrive gives 50GB for $9.95/mth whilst IBackup only gives 5GB for $9.95/mth. I am having problems using XDrive at work - I don't seem to be able to download anything. All the files I download seem to be corrupt. May have been hasty switching services but I have emailed XDrive support and will see what they come up with. The web interface is good, easy to use and the desktop software seems good too. No problems using this at home so problems may be due to firewalls or something at work.
Reply
Mischa Kroon said 7:08PM on 9-25-2006
I think dreamhost (shared hosting)
is a bit cheaper for a feature comparison:
http://www.dreamhost.com/shared/comparison.html
Keep in mind that dreamhost automaticly grows your account :)
Reply
jackone said 4:25AM on 9-28-2006
Look at this and see if meets your needs.
MailMagic(http://www.robinsonsoft.com)
Reply
Carl said 3:08PM on 9-28-2006
I've used Xdrive for the past six months, it has been constantly down, the mobile x drive has never worked.
Customer service has been AWFUL! Ive been overcharged month after month and finally its been fixed and credited.
Once, X drive was down for almost a week and the customer service line was busy for days.
Reply
Mike Dee said 11:24PM on 10-02-2006
I signed up for the free 5gb on 9/26/06. I uploaded many files through the night and also the morning of 9/27/06.
I had to re-format my hard drive which is why I was uploading so many files.. My cd/dvd drives were not working correctly either.. Anyhow, after going through the re-format and re-installing everything, I go back to xdrive to get some of my files only to find out that there is nothing there.. All of my files are gone! I've tried notifying customer service/support with no response. Does anyone have a phone # or an e-mail address where I can contact these frauds?
Thanks in advance,
Mike
Reply
Mike Dee said 11:24PM on 10-02-2006
I signed up for the free 5gb on 9/26/06. I uploaded many files through the night and also the morning of 9/27/06.
I had to re-format my hard drive which is why I was uploading so many files.. My cd/dvd drives were not working correctly either.. Anyhow, after going through the re-format and re-installing everything, I go back to xdrive to get some of my files only to find out that there is nothing there.. All of my files are gone! I've tried notifying customer service/support with no response. Does anyone have a phone # or an e-mail address where I can contact these frauds?
Thanks in advance,
Mike
Reply
Simon said 9:32AM on 10-06-2006
Hi, the problem with AOL’s 5GB of free online storage offer is that it is meant only for AIM and AOL web users. For me, from signing up to backing up files took a lot of time. I’ve never seen such a sluggish registration process. At times I am unable to login to the site and at other times the Xdrive server keeps disconnecting whenever I attempt to download a file. I am not at all satisfied with the customer support, which sends tips totally irrelevant to the problem I’ve been encountering. I read somewhere that its one hell of a trouble if I want to terminate my account with Xdrive and the service was down for almost a week. Can you imagine it? It looks like I have lots of good company here. Any way, I’ve stumbled upon a service called IBackup to backup my files and folders after I read a PC World review about them. So far there has been no issues with IBackup for Windows for backing up files and folders of any size. You can simply drag-and-drop files to back them up or restore them. No trouble backing up open files and video files. Things are looking pretty bright and good at last.
Reply
Bill said 12:05PM on 10-19-2006
I am finding XDrive quite useless at the moment. I am having a difficult time getting a successful upload or download using the web interface. It does not matter whether I try from home, work, or school. My connection gets disconnected after about 5 seconds.
As for the comments posted about the amount of time it takes to sign up, I say quit whining. It's a free service, what do you expect? I did not have an aol account prior to signing up, so I had to go through the same process. I did not find it overly combersome.
Reply
Rob said 8:01PM on 10-24-2006
I liked the look of Xdrive for backups and decided to test the 5GB service prior to buying the $99 50GB service (which oddly is not mentioned anywhere on their web site! I almost went elsewhere because i needed more than 5GB).
Anyway, i have tried to do a backup using the desktop client about 5 times. Each time, a small no of files are uploaded and i then get a log full of "Failed to backup" and "Error 2151 (Sorry, but you have not been logged in properly. Please log in again.)" messages.
I tried to reach Xdrive customer support, but there is none! THe forum is closed so its only FAQs. It seems I need to buy the $99 service before I get any support, but I don't want to buy the service until I know it works so its a Catch 22 situation. Furthermore, Xdrive's terms say no refunds, so if I bought it and it didn't work I'd be stuck.
Better to use BT's new 20GB service. Its the same price (so worse value than Xdrive) but at least it should work and be supported.
Reply
mike said 5:05AM on 10-30-2006
i had a netscape.net free email account so xdrive was free but i did like the slow upload and then i tried to share and all my friend got was a signup form.
i had to give her my login info for her to see
the image .
so what is BT's web address and streamload is very good i think for being free except a free member can not download for than 100mb file.
Reply