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Suddenly, Everything Is Off-Site

Pioneering efforts are taking place in outsourcing storage in a variety of forms, from free e-mail to picture posting to remote archiving and backup, says Robert Gray, research director of storage systems at International Data Corporation. The Internet already houses much of our data, he notes. "To the extent that the information you use is shared--e-mail, calendars, and so on--the value is having your information on the network," Gray adds.

Although Web storage and file-sharing services charge for premium services such as automated backup and additional storage, traditional fee-based backup companies such as @Backup, Imation, and Atrieva are responding with their own free services. They say they complete the service. Free storage operations such as i-drive and Visto are "file parking zones: you can put files somewhere so you can access them from anywhere," says Jim Till, vice president of marketing at @Backup. "That's great, but it's only part of it."

Synchronization runs the risk of saving multiple copies of multiple mistakes, says Steve Nicholson, @Backup's vice president of engineering. For $99 per year, "@Backup saves every version of every file (up to 100 MB)" so that if your computer is damaged your files will be safe, according to Nicholson. The company plans to offer the same universal access that the other free services do, but @Backup will add automated backup features as well, so users don't have to remember to store their files.

A Virtual Safe Deposit Box

Online storage services are not unlike those of a bank, notes analyst Gray. "We trust in banks and benefit from having [our money] in a central system; the benefit is called interest," he says. In order to trust an online service to the same degree we trust a bank, "security and reliability [are] essential."

For example, @Backup says it encrypts data on both the communications channel and on the server. Files are kept encrypted until needed, and i-drive claims it is easier to steal credit card information than i-drive files.

Atrieva is an example of the shift from fee-based backup for business users to free file storage and sharing services for consumers. The company, which charges monthly fees for storage and backup, recently added a free Web storage and access service called Internet FileZone.

Users now want "accessible remote access enhanced with collaboration features," says Chris Logan, Atrieva's chief executive officer. Internet FileZone is a "response to the growing demand to be able to manage your data on Internet." Although Atrieva is still test-marketing the service, the company has signed up 650,000 users for Internet Filezone.

Whether a traditional secure backup service or a portal offering file sharing capabilities, all of these services point to Internet's evolution from a publishing medium to a collaborative one. As Gray puts it, the Internet is a ubiquitous network from which "data can be accessed anywhere...without trucking along a seven-pound computer."