XMHD (Gmail Hard Drive)

Company: Xmail Hard Drive (previously GmailHardDrive.com)

What is it?

XMHD is a service that allows you to use a Google Gmail account as a virtual hard drive. If you don’t have a gmail account (which requires an invitation), don’t worry. They’ll invite you.

XMHD is similar to Gmail Drive, which we profiled yesterday. However, whereas Gmail Drive is an actual virtual drive on your Windows machine (and only windows), XMHD runs everything on its website and is therefore platform independent. All you need is a web browser and a gmail account to use it.

There is also no account registration or download. Simply give it your gmail credentials and it logs into the gmail account for you and shows you its own front end.

In their own words, “How does XmailHardDrive.com work? XmailHardDrive.com directly connects with your Gmail account to then turn it into a portable virtual hard drive that you can access from anywhere in the world. You simply enter your Gmail username and password, just like the other third party software, and then using the username and password combination it authenticates with the Gmail servers and connects you to your personal account. Therefore allowing the user to be able to upload files to their Gmail account. Next when the user uploads a file, the file is uploaded as an e-mail attachment in their Gmail inbox, this file however is encrypted and compressed which enables the user to store more files since it is compressed. The file is then saved as an .xmhd file which can be decompressed and re-downloaded through XmailHardDrive.com. And now with the FlingIt feature the user can send the file they just uploaded to a friend that has a Gmail account. Currently the max file upload size is 20mb however as we gain more sponsors we will remove the upload limit, and you’ll be able to upload much much larger files!” Link

You can easily add files from your hard drive (or other connected drive). You can upload up to 10 files at a time.

Files are compressed and stored in a proprietary .xmhd format, but can be double clicked and opened in their original format from the site (and saved, edited, etc.). There is also a cool “fling it” feature that emails a file to any gmail contact stored in the gmail account. If the person doens’t have a gmail account, they will have to get one and use xmhd to open the file. All of this is a bit of a hassle for email recipients – and although XMHD says that their file format is necessary for compression purposes (and therefore you can store more data on your gmail account), it is also a nice viral touch to the service because recipients of your file must log in to XMHD to view them. You can always of course, simply email your files directly as well, so its not a big deal and it is a nice feature.

We also like the upcoming RSS feed into your XMHD:

“XmailHardDrive.com is now in the process of building an RSS feed for your XmailHardDrive, which will allow developers to build applications that interact with your XmailHardDrive. We are also working on a Gmail notifier program capable of so much more than what the Gmail Notifier from Google can do. Stay tuned to the website for when these products will be released.”
Link

Overall its a great service, completely free, and just a bit better than Gmail Drive due to its cross-platform nature and “fling it” service.

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