Holy hell they finally did it.

https://skydrive.live.com/#!/ManageStorage

$50/year for 125gb of storage.
And a native Windows client to replace live mesh.

HOT DOG. I'm so happy It feels good knowing I now almost-instantly have all my critical work and personal data not only being live backed up, but available synchronized everywhere.

Yes I realize box.com and dropbox.com and others offer basically the same thing. SkyDrive is a LOT cheaper (about 1/4 the cost), the web interface is great (Mainly the free Office Web Apps), and I can still easily share/collaborate with others.

And SkyDrive supports iPhone, iPad and OSX, so I can backup (and sync!) all my Apple devices too. WOOO. Too bad there's no Android client yet :/
https://apps.live.com/skydrive

4/23/2012 9:22:22 PM

Oh yeah, and you get version history on (all?) your files. Going to play with this a little more tomorrow, but it looks like historical versions don't actually count toward your file storage limits.

4/23/2012 9:24:30 PM

Any ideas when/if an android client is in the works?

4/23/2012 9:26:31 PM

works great for syncing onenote notebooks, that's for sure. doubt i'll switch from dropbox though. my cloud sync needs are pretty meager

4/23/2012 9:33:03 PM

^then why wouldn't you switch from dropbox?

You get more storage, larger file limits, and fewer caveats (dropbox starts removing content after 90 days of inactivity on free accounts)

^^No idea, but I wouldn't hold my breath.

[Edited on April 23, 2012 at 9:47 PM. Reason : .]

4/23/2012 9:46:57 PM

no android client is all that's stopping me here. but it's a big stop. i have 3 android devices in the household.

4/23/2012 10:24:29 PM

So Microsoft hates Android now?

4/23/2012 10:35:04 PM

^^Yeah I have 4. But honestly I don't keep anything on them that's important (that isn't already cloud synced), and I still sync all my music through Amazon Cloud Drive since it's free storage space.

^I never said any such thing. I have no idea why there isn't an Android client, and no idea if there are plans for one.

So I'm an idiot. There are android apps: https://apps.live.com/skydrive/allapps

Several in fact. "Browser for SkyDrive", "Cloud Explorer for SkyDrive", OneNote and "Portfolio for SkyDrive".

HOT DAMN!

[Edited on April 23, 2012 at 11:03 PM. Reason : .]

4/23/2012 10:50:04 PM

can you select which folders to sync like you could with mesh? all im seeing is one skydrive folder.

4/23/2012 11:13:14 PM

you made me rage for nuthin!

4/23/2012 11:13:49 PM

lemme see if this works

4/23/2012 11:35:30 PM

^^^ To link to existing folders, use the mklink command to create a symlink to the folder inside your skydrive root folder.

Or, use a 3rd party sync tool like Gladinet, which basically just provides a UI layer to do the same thing

^yep that works

[Edited on April 23, 2012 at 11:37 PM. Reason : .]

4/23/2012 11:36:57 PM

theres some good stuff here but some of the implementation is broken or wierd.

Good news: You can view files that are stored on a computer that has the skydrive client installed and running. Thats cool. Bad news: the video player doesnt work.

Good news: you can choose to share files with people via a couple of different ways. Thats cool. Bad news: direct link to original (like my pic above) is not one of the defaults. To get that link I had to go to the photo, click share, generate a link. The link it generates goes to a page with the photo embeded in a slideshow type deal. Then there is a link to view the original and that provides a direct link. However, that link doesnt seem to work if you click view original from a browser you're signed in on. To get it i had to take the original share link, paste it into a browser with no live session, then click view original there. Messy. The slideshow viewer is a good feature, but a direct link should be an option for things like forum embedding.

Also having to create symlinks to sync content on different drives/folders is not something that should be required in a consumer product. Two options that would be better would be

1) give the option to sync existing libraries. I already have a documents folder, why do i want a documents folder under the skydrive folder?
2) use the existing "share with" dialog that you use for sharing stuff on homegroups to sync to skydrive and/or share with friends.

Both of these could work in conjunction so that I could transparently share all or part of a library and select specific people to share with. I get that thats really os level functionality but its microsofts os so i dont see why they shouldnt do it. The ultimate end goal being that i have a photo library anywhere on my computer and i click share with and then pick friends/parents/whoever from a list of contacts (from facebook/twitter/etc...) that have been federated by my live account.

Pretty cool start tho.

4/23/2012 11:50:07 PM

For reals though a working html 5 video player that lets you stream all ur vids from computer to phone would put a bunch of people out of business.

4/23/2012 11:53:11 PM

Quote :

"Good news: You can view files that are stored on a computer that has the skydrive client installed and running. Thats cool. Bad news: the video player doesnt work."

Huh? Not sure what you mean? Video player works fine for me (granted I've only ever tried it with cell phone uploads). Maybe it doesn't work with certain codecs?

Quote :

"1) give the option to sync existing libraries. I already have a documents folder, why do i want a documents folder under the skydrive folder? 2) use the existing "share with" dialog that you use for sharing stuff on homegroups to sync to skydrive and/or share with friends."

I 100% agree. SkyDrive is supposed to be an integrated service in Win8, so hopefully this will be exactly how it works.

Quote :

"Good news: you can choose to share files with people via a couple of different ways. Thats cool. Bad news: direct link to original (like my pic above) is not one of the defaults. To get that link I had to go to the photo, click share, generate a link. The link it generates goes to a page with the photo embeded in a slideshow type deal. Then there is a link to view the original and that provides a direct link. However, that link doesnt seem to work if you click view original from a browser you're signed in on. To get it i had to take the original share link, paste it into a browser with no live session, then click view original there. Messy. The slideshow viewer is a good feature, but a direct link should be an option for things like forum embedding."

Once you "share it to the public", the "view original link" does work from anywhere. So basically, click share, share to public, then click "view original", copypasta.

Alternatively, just dump it into your Public folder to begin with and copypasta.

4/24/2012 12:09:31 AM

I have some avis + mp4s that i tried to play. The video player starts to play it and i get proper video+audio but then it just stops. I can see the skydrive process occasionally spike in cpu usage like its transcoding so i think its trying to work but just doesnt quite do it at the moment. Im guessing it will be fixed eventually.

As for the share link thing when you do share link on a photo it gives you a link to the slideshow, not the direct photo link. Then you click view original from the slideshow and that gives you the direct link. When i tried this half the time i pasted the link into a browser on a different computer (no live session) it asked me for credentials. It worked after several tries.

4/24/2012 12:17:18 AM

Quote :

"I have some avis + mp4s that i tried to play. The video player starts to play it and i get proper video+audio but then it just stops. I can see the skydrive process occasionally spike in cpu usage like its transcoding so i think its trying to work but just doesnt quite do it at the moment. Im guessing it will be fixed eventually."

Maybe it hasn't fully uploaded the files yet? *Shrug* I'll try this on a mixture of files tonight and see what happens.

4/24/2012 12:22:45 AM

im talking about files that arent in my skydrive. The ones you can see via the web based remote file browser under computers -> $computername. My guess is the transcoder probably doesnt work right yet.

4/24/2012 12:30:21 AM

can i add $50 for 100GB multiple times? So I can buy 200GB for $100?

4/24/2012 3:02:34 AM

^Nope, it looks like 125gb per LiveID is the current limit.

^^holy shit I had no clue you could even do that. Except for mkv's, which it doesn't recognize the extensions for, it played every .avi file I have (xvid, divx, h264, et al) seemingly just fine, if at 240p resolution.

[Edited on April 24, 2012 at 4:09 AM. Reason : .]

4/24/2012 3:52:18 AM

im trying it from work and the same avis that wouldnt play before work now. thats really cool. i tried it on my iphone via the full site and the ui doesnt work. i reallllyy hope they add the remote file browsing/viewing to the iphone app cause that would rule.

4/24/2012 9:51:31 AM

well isn't this good timing

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2012/04/introducing-google-drive-yes-really.html

4/24/2012 1:09:01 PM

hey guy, this is about Windows Skydrive....take that googdrive outta here!

[Edited on April 24, 2012 at 1:19 PM. Reason : btw i thought googdrive was there for ever...use gmail space to map the drive etc]

4/24/2012 1:18:23 PM

I don't see a need to make the switch from Dropbox unless I start paying (which I might). I currently have 15 GB free with Dropbox and from what I can tell can only get 7GB free with SkyDrive.

4/24/2012 1:19:10 PM

^If you already have skydrive, go here and click the button to get 25gb free https://skydrive.live.com/ManageStorage



^^^I honestly can't believe that a Microsoft service is actually cheaper than a google service ($50/yr per 100gb vs $59.88/yr per 100gb). And even more, I can't believe a Microsoft product actually supports more platforms than a Google product. What the hell is going on?

ARRRRHHHMAGEDDDDDON must be approaching

[Edited on April 24, 2012 at 2:21 PM. Reason : .]

4/24/2012 2:19:12 PM

for those interested in a comparison chart: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/skydrive/compare

4/24/2012 2:50:17 PM

Quote :

"^If you already have skydrive, go here and click the button to get 25gb free https://skydrive.live.com/ManageStorage "

thanks!

4/24/2012 3:48:24 PM

Quote :

"^If you already have skydrive, go here and click the button to get 25gb free https://skydrive.live.com/ManageStorage"

I don't so I'd only get 7GBs. I'll stick with ~15GB I have with DB until I decide to pay for a service. I'll give it a try though.

4/24/2012 4:01:57 PM

Oh heck yea, got 25GB for free, instantly 5x better than DropBox!

4/24/2012 4:04:44 PM

And not only did they FINALLY do it, but they beat Google to the punch. The only storage they've provided thus far is for Picasa photos.

4/24/2012 6:24:19 PM

now get that android check mark!

4/24/2012 10:45:13 PM

So can you do remote desktop via SkyDrive?

Also how long does it take to sync things? I just uploaded a 2kB text file to test on my work laptop and I see it on the site but it has yet to sync to my desktop with SkyDrive installed.

-Yeah there appear to be major bugs. I'll add/delete a file on one computer and it won't sync to my other computer. I have to close/restart SkyDrive to get them to sync. Replicated this on multiple computers.

[Edited on April 25, 2012 at 10:36 AM. Reason : s]

4/25/2012 10:14:16 AM

Funny tidbit, the Google Drive icon popped up on my phone today. But when you try to run it, the app just says coming soon, lol.

4/25/2012 10:52:26 AM

Sticking with DropBox until they get the bugs worked out. Won't even sync between two computers.

4/25/2012 10:59:21 AM

neo: There's about a 2 minute replication delay in my experience so far. Which means there's actually about a 5 minute delay from PC to PC (not including transfer time).

And SkyDrive only uses idle disk time (or at least, it's supposed to). So if you're doing anything disk intensive, that wait time goes way up.

4/25/2012 11:54:07 AM

It's been 2 hours and it still hasn't synced. I mean I'm using my computer. The only way I can get them to sync is if I restart SkyDrive.

4/25/2012 12:02:42 PM

maybe a full windows reboot? I'm definitely stumped. Is the little icon in the taskbar doing its dance "processing changes"?

4/25/2012 12:32:55 PM

Yeah I'll drop a file in. It'll do the post processing thing on the icon. I'll see it pop up on the site but it never syncs the file to my other computer. The desktop client on the computer in question says "up to date" but the file isn't in there. If I restart SkyDrive it processes and the file shows up.

So it appears to be checking for files on each computer correctly but each client is having issues checking the cloud for files uploaded on other computers.

[Edited on April 25, 2012 at 12:42 PM. Reason : I'll do a full reboot on both machines after work]

4/25/2012 12:38:54 PM

Did they just rename Windows Live Mesh to SkyDrive?

I haven't used the file syncing outside of Office in a few months.

4/25/2012 12:53:21 PM

^Nope, and it looks like Mesh is being phased out.

4/25/2012 1:53:40 PM

But they're functionally the same? I've never seen the local SkyDrive application running on a machine (just Windows Live Mesh, which used SkyDrive to sync).

4/25/2012 4:16:00 PM

Basically yes. While mesh virtualized any folder for synchronization, SkyDrive has a "root" folder. And Mesh required explicit sync mappings, while SkyDrive implicitly syncs to every node.

That's the only difference AFAIK, the engine under the covers is the same (again AFAIK).

4/25/2012 6:03:04 PM

does skydrive have an api like mesh?

4/25/2012 6:44:22 PM

http://dev.live.com

https://github.com/liveservices/LiveSDK/tree/master/Samples

4/25/2012 7:01:20 PM

I did the 25gb free the other day and copied all of my DB stuff over to make sure everything is good to go first. I miss DB's deeper integration in 3rd party apps but otherwise I haven't found any negatives compared to DB.

One thing I can't figure out is how to access files from my computers. Right now I have 2 set up, both have the "Make this computer's files accessible" option checked but when I login to skydrive, my "Computers" tab is blank other than "Add a Computer" which just tells me I need to install the program. It's not a huge deal since I use Logmein and that wasn't an option with DB anyway but it would be nice to check out to see how useful it is.

4/28/2012 1:35:12 PM

^I've had to authenticate every computer I've added through an access code. *shrug*

Also noticed it took what seemed to be a day for one of my computers to show up on the remote files. Oh, and if the computer is in sleep or hibernate, it won't show up either.

4/28/2012 1:59:20 PM

Nevermind, I'm an idiot. I didn't realize that I was logged into my personal account on my laptop and my work account on my desktop. Works great now.

4/28/2012 6:25:22 PM