Spotlight

When Xdrive was acquired by AOL in July of 2005, it was a major leap forward for the online storage company.

The Beverly Hills, California-based company was founded in 1999 just as the dot com bubble was on the verge of bursting, making it one of the oldest online storage companies out there.

Darin Ohlandt, Xdrive’s director of Product and Project Management, emphasized that Xdrive is not new to the online backup space. Unlike many backup companies, the company has been around since the beginning of the decade and has survived several, as he put it, “ebbs and flows” in the industry. It now has the power of AOL and parent Time Warner backing it up.

Xdrive is one of the leading free online backup service providers. It offers 5 gigabytes of free storage. That’s enough for approximately 1250 MP3s or 2000 photos. Customers can upgrade to 50 GB, the equivalent of one dual-layer, recordable Blu-ray DVD, for $9.95 (USD) a month.

“There may be a couple other providers out there with a similar level of storage but none of those are with a company that has the size and mass and resource level of AOL,” Ohlandt told Online Backup Reviews.

Xdrive prides itself on making uploading files easy. Its process is literally as easy as 1, 2, 3. Users simply click the “Upload” button on their Xdrive Tool bar, select the files they wish to upload and click the “Start Upload” button.

The service attracts two types of customers according to Ohlandt. The first is individual users looking to backup their home computer or server. The second is small business owners who use it for collaborative purposes or to share files with. He said they also use it to back up their businesses’ data.

Xdrive has unveiled several new offerings in recent years including its "Shows" solution, which allows users to combine photos and music into a slideshow. Users can then send an e-mail that will provide a link to the show.

As Xdrive heads into 2008, Ohlandt said that the company is looking to further refine its user interface to make the solution even easier to use. There’s also a plan to increase the amount of storage space offered.

“We want to put some new packages on the market that are more attractive and increase the competitiveness of our offerings,” he stated.