Allmydata Reviewer's Comments

Allmydata takes a different approach to online storage. They use peer–to–peer (P2P) architecture to provide clients with virtually unlimited online storage (as long as you’re willing to share your hard drive).

In order to sign up for the lower plans offered by Allmydata, you have to share 10 GB on your hard drive. For every 10 GB you share, you have access to 1 GB of online storage.

Feature Set:  

When you setup Allmydata, you can choose to automatically backup some common files including My Documents, My Music, My Pictures and My Videos. Also during setup, you can specify exactly how much of your hard drive you want to share and see the equivalent of how much online space you will receive.

Security:  

Allmydata uses SSL encryption during file transfers and storage. They utilize peer–to–peer architecture and then "layer services on top of this (like backup)."

Storage Space/Price:  

The service requires you to share 10 GB of hard drive for the free plan. You can get 10 GB of storage for $2.99 a month plus you’ll have to share space on your hard drive. The 100 GB of storage is just $4.99 and they don’t require you to share your hard drive. Coming soon, Allmydata will offer a 1,000 GB plan for only $9.99.

Their plans are inexpensive for the amount of storage you get; however, we are still skeptical about sharing our hard drive in a P2P network.

Ease of Use:  

You have to download and install a client on each computer you will use to access your files. Once the client is installed, Allmydata is very easy to use and opens just like a normal drive. You can easily drag and drop the files you want to load onto the virtual drive.

The only way to share files is to give your friend or family member your user name and password so they can access your account.

Help/Support:  

Allmydata offers a lot of help and support to their clients. Self–help features include user forums, FAQs and tutorials. You can contact customer service by phone or email.

Summary:  

All my data offers a lot of storage for a little money (and part of your hard drive). This is a good concept but we are unconvinced that P2P architecture provides the security that a server–based online storage service can provide.