elveston priory

It’s certainly no secret that we love free storage around here at Mashable. So it’s hard to deny the allure of ADrive’s offer of 50 GB of free storage. That’s definitely the biggest we’ve seen yet without costing users a dime.

The site is in beta, and is for the moment offering everything for free - with just some usual Google Ads along the top and bottom of the account interface. ADrive emphasizes that it can be used for collaboration, and you can also set up links for any files to share them with anyone you would like. The only limit on files seems to be that they cannot be larger than 2GB per.

Mike Gunderloy of Web Worker Daily has pointed out there are a few caveats to the system’s otherwise enticing specifications that are worth reiterating. For one, all uploading is done via a Java interface. And the site claims the right to share metadata with partners. (That could be a poor compromise to make, depending on what that metadata reveals for individual users.) Of course, with 50 GB free, that isn’t terribly surprising.

Overall, the aspects of a Java interface and the sharing of file metadata with any ADrive partners lead me to recommend not to put anything too sensitive on the service until user security has been thoroughly proven with good amount of real-world use. There is no doubt, however, that it looks promising for those who need to store and share a large amount of data out in the cloud.

(Note: Signup is a bit more detailed than usual in that it asks for your physical address and phone number.)

ShareThis