Omnidrive is an online storage service that I facetiously asked “where it was” because it seemed to be in private beta for a long time — and was it like the Gmail Drive Extension which is free. After that, Nik C was gracious enough to allow me into the private beta mere days before the public beta for Omnidrive.
Well, I have to report, some truly, some excellent stuff.
And I can safely say that it is WAY better than the Gmail Drive Extension!
Basically, it looks like you have a storage space on a central server somewhere (Australia?) that is accessible through their website. However, you’re also able to access it through your own PC at home provided you install a tiny bit of software, a shell client, that allows your PC to access that space like an extra folder or drive.
The website is quite a functional web application that tries to mirror the same UI you’d have on a typical windows PC, with a folder structure, the ability to “right-click” to bring up a menu, a drag and drop feature with files you’ve uploaded and so on. Uploading is fairly easy with a small menu which does allow you to select single files sequentially to upload at a time.
At this time 1 gigabyte storage space is available for free accounts as I understand it.
Once you install that shell client, an extra omnidrive folder appears on your PC’s root drive acting like another folder. Lo and behold, the things you uploaded via the web are present in your “omnidrive”. Sweet! Sure enough, you can upload through copying things into that folder, and then “synchronizing” the data to remotely hosted server. Its quite fast from what I can tell.
You could tell that it would be easy to share documents this way, in addition to its usual purpose as a personal online folder that is synchronizable from remote PCs.
That’s not to say there hasn’t been a few glitches here and there
- when I tried to sign up with the invitation code initially, my account disappeared after 15 minutes inexplicably; luckily a second code was found and this seemed to work.
- I tried “publishing” folders so that the public could view them; the provided URL didn’t really seem to work with this — but then again the FAQ was a bit stale.
- Did I mention that the FAQ was stale?
- I tried “saving” new files through programs on my PC; save as –> newtextfile.txt into the omnidrive. It seemed to work, except that when I pulled up the omnidrive through my computer –> omnidrive, the file was nowhere to be found. I tried refreshing a number of times, but still — poof!
In all fairness, its why its a private beta for a reason. Nik and co want to debut Omnidrive at the upcoming Web2.0 Conference; Omnidrive has a ton of potential … here’s hoping they continue to bug stomp their way to completion. When Omnidrive is fast and smooth like any web app should be, I expect it’ll be a contender in the online storage scene for sure.
3 Comments
Hi Tony,
My name is Jessica, I’m an Omnidrive employee and just wanted to add to some of your points above. Your files are stored and backed up across servers we have in the US and Canada currently (with more locations coming in the future), this helps keep them safe and secure.
As far as Public URLs and saving files from applications on your PC, these features have not been fully implemented in the current private beta system, but will most certainly be available in the new interface and clients coming with public beta. We left the links in to give our users a taste of the upcoming possiblities :P
I agree that the FAQ is stale right now, but keep checking in to see current changes being made. As for account issues, we are aware that this happens from time to time and while the current “fix” isn’t ideal, we believe that account creation will be a smooth, easy process when we open up to public sign ups.
Hope this helps cover some of the questions you had, thanks for taking the time to review Omnidrive (:
Hi, you can also take a look at IBackup for Windows, a pioneer and reliable application highly rated by many, including the PC World magazine.
With IBackup for Windows the backup and restores of files and folders are fast, easy and reliable. IBackup has easy-to-use wizards for interactive backups, restores and backup/restore scheduling. IBackup for Windows also has the look and feel of the Windows Explorer with some great features to backup and restore important data.
You can map the online account as a local drive onto your computer with IDrive. Then you can work on the files and folders stored in your account, edit and save them. You can also drag and drop files to the IBackup account from the Windows explorer. It also allows users to open and save files stored in their IBackup online backup or storage accounts directly from their associated applications like Microsoft Office. You can also backup open files like Outlook files and Quicken files and MS Exchange and MS SQL server databases with IBackup for Windows.
You can collaborate with your employees and business partners by creating Sub-Accounts for them on different folders in your IBackup account. A Sub-Account is an IBackup account that you can create on any folder in your online storage account to provide access to files (and folders) within that folder to other employees and business partners.
Share files and folders with Web-Manager. You have to login to this browser-based application to create folders, delete and share files or folders for collaborative access. The `Private Share’ feature in Web-Manager allows an IBackup account holder to instantly share portions of the account with another IBackup user. With Web-Manager it is also possible to play your favorite audio or video files stored in your IBackup account in the Media Gallery. IBackup is a total solution to all your online storage, online backup and online restore needs.
Hi, you can also take a look at IBackup for Windows, a pioneer and reliable application highly rated by many, including the PC World magazine.
With IBackup for Windows the backup and restores of files and folders are fast, easy and reliable. IBackup has easy-to-use wizards for interactive backups, restores and backup/restore scheduling. IBackup for Windows also has the look and feel of the Windows Explorer with some great features to backup and restore important data.
You can map the online account as a local drive onto your computer with IDrive. Then you can work on the files and folders stored in your account, edit and save them. You can also drag and drop files to the IBackup account from the Windows explorer. It also allows users to open and save files stored in their IBackup online backup or storage accounts directly from their associated applications like Microsoft Office. You can also backup open files like Outlook files and Quicken files and MS Exchange and MS SQL server databases with IBackup for Windows.
You can collaborate with your employees and business partners by creating Sub-Accounts for them on different folders in your IBackup account. A Sub-Account is an IBackup account that you can create on any folder in your online storage account to provide access to files (and folders) within that folder to other employees and business partners.
Share files and folders with Web-Manager, the browser-based application. The `Private Share’ feature in Web-Manager allows an IBackup account holder to instantly share portions of the account with another IBackup user. With Web-Manager it is also possible to play your favorite audio or video files stored in your IBackup account in the Media Gallery.
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