Articles about Storage

Microsoft has announced the availability of a SkyDrive app for Xbox 360 consoles, giving users the ability to display content stored in the cloud service on any connected TV or monitor.

The Xbox 360 is designed as a content consuming device, and the SkyDrive experience on the console reflects this. According to the software giant, the app focuses on photo and video sharing, as well as playing slide shows, with no mention of productivity. It's fair to assume that Microsoft plans to keep the content editing features for newer devices running Windows Phone or Windows 8/RT.

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If you live in the Dublin area, or are looking to move there, cloud storage service Dropbox may have a job for you. This morning the company announced it will be opening its first foreign office and has chosen Dublin, Ireland as the location. Until now, despite having customers in more than 200 different countries, the company's operations were all handled via its offices in San Francisco.

Aside from the obvious job creation benefits, Mitra Lohrasbpour writes that there will be numerous upsides for customers as well, including user support in more languages and extended hours of support for Dropbox for Teams.

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Google announced a major update to cloud storage app Drive, which can now be used to manage spreadsheets straight from mobile devices. The search giant first touted the update on the Android Blog, but the new feature made its way to iOS as well.

With the latest Google Drive version, the Mountain View, Calif.-based corporation brings its mobile cloud storage app closer to the web version. Users can now create, perform alternations and even collaborate on spreadsheets. On the Android front the updated app comes with the ability to edit contents of tables and single tap to edit in the Docs editor, better formatting, shortcuts to files and folders on the homescreen. The revised Send Link can now be used to copy to clipboard.

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German Linux pioneer SUSE announced on Tuesday that it has entered into a partnership with Inktank to bring the Ceph Distributed Storage System to the SUSE Cloud private enterprise cloud platform.

Inktank made headlines last September when Canonical co-founder Mark Shuttlesworth put a million dollars behind the development of Ceph, so it could be used as a cheaper storage alternative to Amazon's S3 cloud storage.

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“It happens to the best of us” was Dropbox’s explanation for this, the swift appearance of Dropbox 1.6.2 for desktop, less than a week after Dropbox 1.6.0 made its first appearance. ” You test a build but when you finally put it out there for tons of people to use it they find more bugs. So here we are with a quick bug fix release”.

Version 1.6.2 fixes four major bugs reported since version 1.6.0 first appeared, including install failures in older versions of Windows and blank selective sync windows in OS X after updating.

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Acronis International has released a beta version of True Image Lite 2013, a stripped-down version of its True Image backup tool.

The new release ditches disk, partition, email and file backup types, for instance (there’s non-stop backup and online backup only). There are no full or differential backups (just incremental). No scheduling, no backups to CDs, DVDs or Blu-ray, no option to create a bootable recovery disc, and of course none of the extensive settings you’ll find in the full True Image package.

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This week was big for consumer cloud storage services, Dropbox passed 100 million users, Box rolled out an overhauled Android app, while Microsoft's SkyDrive got new selective sync and simpler sharing functionality.

In addition to all of the news, I had one of those personal moments where cloud storage kind of saved my ass this week. But where the cloud helped me immensely, it didn't save everything.

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Following the foray into Windows 8/RT territory, cloud storage service Box announced an overhauled app for Android devices today. Box for Android 2.0 delivers a number of new features such as document preview and offline folders on top of under-the-hood changes. But even though the name might suggest otherwise it is not limited to Eclair green droid users.

One of the most noteworthy features added to Box for Android 2.0 is document preview. Similar to other green robot competitors like Google Drive, it can render more than 75 types of files within the app without having to resort to third-party solutions. For working outside the grid, the updated Box can now also save folders in encrypted form for offline use on top of individual files. Outdated content will be reported after changes are performed.

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Popular cloud storage service Dropbox has surpassed 100 million users in its five years of activity. To celebrate the event, the company will give 10GB of extra storage to users that post 160-character stories about how they use Dropbox. The company will pick a hundred of its favorite ones to be declared as winners.

Apart from the publicity generated by this promotion, there is another side of the coin. Users that post their stories provide an interesting insight on how cloud storage integrates with different types of lives and professions. Obviously Dropbox is used for sharing files, right? Right. So how are people using it differently?

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Windows 8 launches today across the globe, but still with a limited selection of programs compatible with the new user interface. Box is now among the first popular cloud storage services to offer an application through Windows Store, ahead of similar services like Dropbox or Google Drive.

The Box app is available as a free download and offers access to the cloud storage service straight from the new interface. Uploaded files can be accessed, viewed, edited and shared using the app and, just like signing up from the browser, offers 5GB of free storage. It takes advantage of the included "Share" function from the Charms menu to upload locally stored files or share the ones already in the cloud with other apps such as Mail or People.

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Who said that pirates don't embrace the future? In a blog post, Swedish BitTorrent tracker The Pirate Bay announced that it's moving the entire operation to the cloud. How's that for a change?

The trackers, torrents and servers are "ditched" and the controversial BitTorrent tracker has moved its data, in "deeply" encrypted forms, in "thousands of clouds," according to the announcement made yesterday. There is also a fail-safe system used to reboot the nodes that "transform" the data into a deadlock. So what's the point of all this? Surely it is not to embrace modern data storage solutions. The Pirate Bay has had problems with the law in the not so distant past, and moving sensitive data to the cloud looks like a move designed to protect the men behind it from various allegations.

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Ubuntu fans, be prepared to upgrade! Canonical, parent company of one of the most popular Linux distros available on Thursday released Ubuntu 12.10 "Quantal Quetzal" in desktop and server variants. It's labeled as a suitable alternative to Windows 8, coincidentally just before the October 26 launch of the latest consumer-oriented operating system from Microsoft.

On the desktop forefront, Ubuntu 12.10 "Quantal Quetzal" brings integration between cloud and desktop environments and integration with popular web-based applications, which Canonical claims is the next evolutionary step in the transition towards a cloud-based, multi-device world. The server variant includes the Folsom release of OpenStack, as well as deployment and management tools touted as a time-saving solution for developer teams that deploy distributed applications.

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I love living on the cutting edge of technology; it's a great place for writing and coming up with important feedback. But nothing can stay new forever, and some things don't necessarily need to be replaced whole-hog. Component upgrades, therefore, can give you that feeling of the new without having to scrap something that still has value to it. An old spinning hard drive in your laptop is a perfect example. When you've still got a lot of life in your machine, replacing the HDD with a solid state drive should be a no-brainer.

For me, it was either do that or buy a whole new laptop that wouldn't serve me any better at doing my job. After some research on reliability and pricing, I concluded that the Intel 330 Series 240GB SSD would fit my specific requirements without going overboard and spending too much on technology that's rapidly depreciating anyway.

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Cloud storage service Box is changing with a fresh, new look and introduction of document editing and connections. Editing capabilities follow a recent trend, as Google and Microsoft add similar functionality to their online "Drive" services.

The cloud storage service has reached 14 million users and 140,000 businesses, and with the latest update promises a completely new experience with emphasis on collaborations and content.

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MegaCloud is a new, free-to-use cloud storage and backup service (compatible with Windows, Mac, Linux, and Mobile) that lets you store, sync and share all your documents, photos, music, videos and more across all of your devices. Unlike some similar services, having a free account doesn’t mean being restricted in any way -- all free users get 16GB of space, divided into 8GB for storage and 8GB for backups.

Well, that’s how much ordinary, everyday free users get. But obviously, as a BetaNews reader you deserve a little extra, so MegaCloud has kindly upped the free storage on offer to 21GB (13GB for storage, plus 8GB for backups) exclusively for us, and all you need to do is click on the link below and sign up for a free account. And if that’s still not enough free space for you, you can get yet more gratis storage simply by installing a mobile app or referring friends to the service.

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