Anytime, Anywhere Access to your data with SkyDrive

At one time not too long ago, “jump drives” – aka “thumb drives” and “flash drives” were the latest and greatest in portable storage technology. 

But there’s a new kid on the block and for some jobs, I think its an equal or better solution than the flash drive or even portable hard drive : SkyDrive (aka Online Storage, Online File Folder, etc).

SkyDrive is a free service from MicroSoft, and is part of its Windows Live services.  Available anytime and anywhere with a simple Hotmail or Windows Live login, SkyDrive provides a whopping 25 Gigs of free storage and makes your data accessible through a nice looking user interface (shown above). What I like best is that it works with the familiar file upload and download “buttons” and takes good care of some of the more fragile file formats.

I can envision SkyDrive being a great way to transfer files that are relatively small – say 10 or 20 MB or less. I say this because many internet connections still have painfully slow UPLOAD speeds that make storing files measured in hundreds of MB or more impractical. But this still covers a wide range of files, including Word Docs, Playbook files, Powerpoint Presentations and even data files from specialized scouting and statistics programs – files with sizes that tend to be a MB or less.  Unfortunately, a slow upload speed will frequently rule out using online storage for video, even though 25 Gigs can easily store a seasons worth of video if its in the right format !

This is a positive development for coaches, and things will only get better.  Without question, there is still a place for the flash drive and certainly external hard drives, particularly for video editing applications. There’s nothing like being able to carrying around a couple seasons worth of video in your shirt pocket.

But Skydrive and services like it guarantee (at least theoretically)that your data will be available from any computer that has an internet connection. Even if a program that you use works with data on the local computer’s hard drive, Sky Drive enables you to “send it to the sky” from one place and then “retrieve it from the sky” from another. Pretty cool stuff… give it a try !

www.microsoft.com/uk/windows/windowslive/products/skydrive.aspx