How are so many sites offering so much storage space?

[HexiumVII]

With gmail offering nearly unlimited email space and lots of pic sites going unlimited and video sharing sites, how do they keep up? I see we have terabyte drives real soon, how did they go nearly limitless in the past 1-2 years?

 

[JackOfHearts]

They offer the space but only a fraction of people actually use it. That would be my guess anyways...

 

[Bateluer]

I remember when I got my first web space with Geocities back in the day, 2MB of space.

Hard drive prices have dropped substantially, while their sizes have expanded exponentially. That, combined with what JackOfHearts said, is why storage space is so cheap.

 

[ForumMaster]

i remember when i got my first yahoo account. i had a whopping 6MB back then when all hotmail accounts had only 2MB. i was so lucky! now i have a spam e-mail account that gives me 5000MB free. so what people here did was invent an app that uploads games/movies/warez to their servers and then download it really quickly. i assume they'll stop it but people are finally taking advantage of it.

JackOfHearts covered it for the most part. most people don't use so much space so they offer it. wonder how youtube handles it all though.

 

[3NF]

I'm already using multiple gmail accounts for larger storage for files, pictures and webspace. With the way it is setup, I don't see how you could ever run out? When I want more space, I just send myself another gmail invitation, giving me more mail (file) space, pic space, and web space.

I have an account structure like X.Y@gmail.com. For the additional space "domains", I just create an X.Y.<subspace>@gmail.com, or you could do <subspace>.X.Y@gmail.com. Right now, all of my photos are being stored on picasaweb. I figure it's safer there than on my own hard drive

 

[Tom]

whats the best way to use gmail to store files ? just e-mail myself attachments ?

 

[3NF]

Originally posted by: Tom
whats the best way to use gmail to store files ? just e-mail myself attachments ?

That's what I do. Just zip/rar it up, put some keywords into the body/subject of the email and then archive it. Nice thing about gmail is that it's easy to find things

The only drawback I see is the time it takes to upload large files. If it's something you would frequently access, then this wouldn't be the best approach, but it's a nice way to archive something.

 

[3NF]

Here is a link that might be of interest to some. It allows you to access your gmail account like a drive.

Gmail Drive Shell Extension

I believe it only works for XP.

 

[Jawo]

AFAIK Google drive is an unsupported application, so Google could Fark you someway and you could lose everything.

Originally posted by: 3NF
Right now, all of my photos are being stored on picasaweb. I figure it's safer there than on my own hard drive

I sitll keep pics on an external hard drive, since the sites don't like uploading the full resolution originals. Or is there another service??