One of the first things that iPhone and iPod Touch users noticed was the lack of a built-in "disk mode," where your device would appear on the desktop as a drive that you could use for file storage. Other iPod models even had a setting to specify how much of their storage space should be used for music, and how much should be used for disk mode, but the latest and greatest ones didn't. But thanks to an app called DiskAid, you can still transfer files between your iPhone and your Mac or PC without jailbreaking or using iTunes.

Sure, you may already know how to access a jailbroken iPhone's hard drive via SFTP, but that's a pain in the butt compared to DiskAid. You can just plug your device in, start it up, and start transferring files in a straightforward interface that anybody who's ever used Windows Explorer or the OS X Finder can figure out. As a brief disclaimer, realize that storing files on your iPhone doesn't mean your iPhone can interact with them. It's like putting music on an old iPod in disk mode: you can store it there, but you can't play it.

Wuala is a social file storage application that we first looked at back in February. At the time, Wuala was in private beta, but starting today anyone can sign up for an account.

Unlike other file storage/sharing services, Wuala doesn't provide you with web space. Rather, your files are encrypted and then stored on the computers of other Wuala users. While this might sound a bit scary, the upshot is that you can store large amounts of data. The more space you allocate for Wuala on your hard drive, the more online space you can access. And your files are duplicated on multiple computers so that you shouldn't have problems accessing your files even if some of the folks in your network have turned their machines off for the night.

Wuala has a desktop client for Windows, Mac, and Linux that you can use to upload and download files. Or you can access a web interface. The service is still in beta, so nobody's promising that all the kinks have been worked out. But as of today, Wuala is in public beta, not private.

BOXSTr has launched a new application, OpenDrive, which simplifies syncing files on your computer with your BOXSTr storage account. The application creates a remote drive on your computer and uploading files is as simple as a copy and paste job.

OpenDrive differs from other file syncing and storage sites in one significant way. Any changes made to files in your computer's remote drive are saved in real time to your online account, making the syncing process as simple as possible. On a slower internet connection, however, this method does have its drawbacks.

OpenDrive also comes in handy when sharing large files - allowing you to link to them directly from your desktop. Right clicking on any file in your remote drive will provide you with a link to share with friends and family. You also have the option of copying files to a public folder that can be viewed by anyone. If you place music in your OpenDrive folders, you can stream, embed and share songs directly from your BOXSTr account.

While in public beta, users are given 1GB free storage. The application runs on Windows XP and Vista, with a Mac version and direct mobile uploads in the works.

Via Mashable

No matter how often you backup all the important files on your computer to DVD or a spare hard drive, if your house goes up in flames, all your data will be gone. That's where online backup services come in. Companies like Carbonite and Mozy have been offering simple, automated backup solutions for a while now. But while Mozy has Mac and Windows clients, and Carbonite has Windows covered (with a Mac client coming soon), neither offers support for Linux. SpiderOak does.

SpiderOak offers 2GB of online storage space for free. If you only want to backup some Office documents, the free service might be all you ever need. But if you want to backup your photo, music, and video collections you might want to check out the subscription plans. For $10 a month you get up to 20GB of storage space. Each additional 10GB will cost you $5. Or you can signup for "forever" storage. A one time $500 payment will get you 20GB for as long as SpiderOak is in business, while $1000 will get you 100GB.

Once upon a time there was a company called Streamload that let users upload huge media files to a web site fo sharing with their friends. Eventually Streamload changed its name to MediaMax and offered pretty much the same service. This year the company changed its name again, this time to The Linkup and launched a new business model: a social network based around online file storage and sharing.

Apparently the whole social network thing didn't really pan out, as The Linkup has announced plans to kill the service on August 8th. The company has posted a message on its homepage stating that it will no longer accept new uploads or new accounts. It will also no longer charge current customers. If you've got any media stored at The Linkup, you'll probably want to make sure you've got a backup before August 8th, because at that point the company will delete your files.

According to the note, The Linkup had problems transfering user files from MediaMax. That's kind of an understatement. What actually happened was that the company deleted nearly half of its user files. Many were recoverable, but some were not.

Did you use The Linkup, MediaMax or Streamload? What was your experience like? Will you miss this service or just move on to other online storage sites?

[via GigaOm]

A while back, we asked for reader feedback for off-site backup solutions. Unsurprisingly, many of you said you used Jungle Disk which is a disk-based utility that allows for easy backup to Amazon's S3 storage platform. S3 is inexpensive, efficient and Amazon's servers are fast, which makes it a great tool to use for either server or local drive backups. However, if you don't want to stare at the command line or grapple with a web interface, especially for automated backups, Jungle Disk is a tremendous time savor.

Today, Jungle Disk released version 2.0 of their software for Windows, Mac and Linux. You can read the release notes, but here are some highlights:

• Brand new interface that makes setting up the service easier than ever and a very intuitive back-up selection utility
• Support for Jungle Disk 2.0 buckets and compatibility buckets
• Support for European S3 buckets
• Support for multiple backups and independent scheduling
• Previous versions feature
• Improved performance

Have you ever wanted to view or edit a file that wasn't sitting on your own hard drive? Sure you have.

It's either on your work machine, or on your mom's machine, or it's on your brother's Alienware gaming machine in the basement and you just don't want to get up to deal with it. You wish you had a network drive for all of these machines.

That's where ExpanDrive comes in (Mac only).

The great thing about external drives on the mac is that they show up on your desktop immediately. Like this little USB thumbdrives. We love how they JUST WORK.

Basically, ExpanDrive is a souped up SFTP client. You don't have to set up any configurations, you can log in to any machine with its current credentials to access files and edit them seamlessly.

Just like they were on your own drive.

If you get disconnected, no problem...you'll automatically reconnect when you're able to.

This basically lets you use any computer that you have access to as an external drive for storage. As long as that computer has an internet connection and is turned on...you're set!

Currently, the cost is $29, and that's an introductory price, so it could go up in the future.

PutPlace is currently in beta, so you can test it for free. When it launches, they'll offer annual subscriptions, presumably with rates varying based on the amount of storage used. This really isn't big news for advanced users who are already on the offsite backup bandwagon, but there are still plenty of people who haven't gotten there yet. If backup were easier, fewer novice users would have to go through the traumatic experience of losing everything to a hard drive failure. PutPlace might be able to help them by putting on a friendly, trustworthy face.

If you're tired of online storage services that give you just a gigabyte or two of space for your files, you might want ot check out Wuala. It's a peer to peer storage solution, which means that you can store a near infinite amount of data online just by freeing up some space on your own hard drive to host other users' encrypted files. Wuala is currently in private alpha, but we've got 500 invites to give away. Read on to find out how to snag one.

When you first sign up for Wuala, you'll be able to upload up to 1GB. Once you've demonstrated that you've got a high speed internet connection and that your computer is on for more than 4 hours a day, Wuala will let you allocate free space on your hard drive for hosting other users files. If you make 10GB available, you'll be able to upload 10GB of your own files. Sharing 50GB will net you 50GB of online storage. And so on.

The program interface is familiar and easy to use. It looks a lot like Windows Explorer, with a system of folders and file icons. You can easily create or delete folders just by right-clicking to bring up a context menu. And you can either upload files by opening an "Add Files" window or just by dragging and dropping them from your desktop.

There are hundreds of ways to backup your important data. You can schedule automatic backups to a DVD-RW, spare hard drive, or use an offsite backup solution to save your data on a remote server in case anything ever happens to your PC. But while offsite services like Carbonite and Mozy provide a secure option for backing up your files online, neither is free (while Mozy offers a free service, account holders can only backup 2GB for free).

Zoogmo offers a novel approach to offsite backup. Instead of saving your files to a central server, this Windows application lets users create peer to peer networks to store files. So if you've got three or four friends with broadband connections and a few spare GB of disk space all you have to do is ask them to download and install Zoogmo and add you as a partner. When you initiate a backup, Zoogmo will check to see which of your partners are online and begin saving your files on their computers.

All your data will be encrypted so that nobody can access your files without your login information. So if you want to save your tax or medical documents offsite, there's little to no risk of your friends reading through them.

Zoogmo is currently in public beta, which means it's free for anyone to use. While in beta there's a file size limit of 50MB, so don't expect to backup your ripped DVD collection using Zoogmo.

There was once a rumor that said ZFS support would be included in Mac OS X Leopard. While the CEO of Sun (who you'd think might be in a better position than many to know) told an audience this is true, it turned out to be false. The geekiest of Mac geeks were disappointed to the greatest degree as their favorite operating system would not harness the benefits of the ZFS file system. However, the interesting thing about geeks is that if a company won't do something for them, they'll just figure it out themselves.

As a result, we are happy to present to you the ZFS project at Mac OS Forge. If you'd like to add ZFS support to your Mac, this is the place to go. The site's got everything from download links to FAQs and getting started tutorials. Keep in mind that adding ZFS support to your Mac is still experimental, so we recommend keeping this away from any machines with important data.

If the ZFS project ever matures to a really reliable state, this could become a popular open source addition to Macs around the world in the same way Firefox has become the standard browser on many computers today. ZFS definitely seems like the future of file systems, so you can bet many of us are rooting for this to get better.

A friend of the Squad, (we're not naming names here Ben), recently had a little mishap with his data backup plan. He was doing a fresh install of Leopard on his Mac, and so he backed all of his data up to a external hard drive, installed OS X 10.5, and then found out that the drive was corrupt.

No problem, he logged into Mozy, his online backup service to access his 60GB of offsite data. But he had to wait 12 hours before the data was ready, and then he had to download 100 different dmg files. He wasn't pleased.

We've mostly heard good things about Mozy, but we've also heard people rave about Carbonite, Amazon's Jungle Disk, and several other services. And we're intrigued by, if a bit disappointed by ADrive. But honestly, we're not sure which is best, so we thought we'd ask you, our trusted readers. What do you use for offsite data backups, do you like it, and why?

ADrive is a new online file storing service that gives you more space for free than any other site we've seen. Ever. We're talking 50GB big. But the thing about having that much storage space is that you're going to need a good way to upload and download files. And that's something ADrive is currently missing.

ADrive's "coming soon" section says that the company will be adding a desktop client for drag and drop uploading, personalized snapshots for retrieving older versions of your data, and premium accounts in case 50GB isn't enough for you.

But right now, all you get is a web based uploader. While you can upload multiple files at once, there is no way to upload entire directories and subdirectories, which means if you wanted to use ADrive as a complete backup solution you'd need to recreate your desktop file structure and upload the contents of each folder one by one.

Upload and download speeds are also not the greatest we've seen, ranging from 100KB/sec to 200KB/sec. At that rate, it will take a lot of time to upload or retrieve 50GB of data. There doesn't seem to be a file size limit. We started to upload a 2GB file with no problem, but we didn't wait around for the upload to finish because it was going to take an estimated 13 hours to complete.

You can also share files you've uploaded by clicking a "share" button to make them public.

While we're a bit underwhelmed at the moment, we're keeping an eye on this company, if for no other reason than the fact that we would love to find a free backup solution that gives us enough room to store more than a few important files.

[via 901am]

DivShare, which we have covered before, is not just another online storage site. It lets users upload and download unlimited files, and also well as offers a Facebook application and a power uploading tool. They have now released a no download web document viewer.

Even though we love downloads at Download Squad, keeping things online sure does have its remotely accessible benefits, and that's just what DivShare is doing with their flash based web document viewer. The new tool allows for viewing all types of documents from videos, photos and audio material anywhere. These documents can either be kept private, or embedded in websites, blogs or social networks.

Also released into the DivShare stables is a new iPhone app that allows for searching, downloading and emailing DivShare files straight from Apple's device. There will also be a few other specialty items getting released this week, including a Facebook collaboration tool, developer API and private label video players. If you haven't checked out what DivShare can offer your unlimited file storage needs, now could be the time.