Cloud storage as mapped drive

Question

All,

I run a small business with 2 machines on Windows XP, 2 machines on Windows 7 and 2 machines on Macbooks.  I'm interested in using cloud storage as a "file share" where I can access my files on one machine and later access them on another machine.  Ideally, it would work like a network drive.  My storage requirement is about 150 GB.

Does anyone know if Windows Azure can do this?  What options are available to me?

Dennis

Answer 1

Hello.

Windows Azure can do this, but i suppose that you don't want use Azure as a file storage - it will be too expensive. Take a look at SkyDrive.

Answer 2

Hi Dennis,

You have a few options:

• Office365, but by default you'll only get 10GB. If you buy more storage, it might cost you about 30$/month extra. (http://blogs.technet.com/b/lystavlen/archive/2012/03/30/sharepoint-online-extra-storage-price-drop.aspx). Since SharePoint online uses WebDav, you could mount it as a mapped drive (share). You don't pay for transfers, only for the data you store.
• SkyDrive: Limited to 25GB
• Windows Azure: Storing 150GB will cost you $18.75/month. Don't forget that you'll also need to pay for outgoing transfers (when you download a file). And you'll need a tool to interact with the storage, like this one: http://www.cloudberrylab.com/free-microsoft-azure-explorer.aspx 

Hope this helps.

Sandrino

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Sandrino Di Mattia | Twitter: http://twitter.com/sandrinodm | Azure Blog: http://fabriccontroller.net/blog | Blog: http://sandrinodimattia.net/blog