Data Backup Digest

OneDrive is a cloud storage system from technology giant Microsoft. Previously named SkyDrive, a court case from BSkyB meant that a rebranding was required. With OneDrive expecting to launch officially within the coming weeks, some websites are beginning to report on what new features OneDrive users can expect.

LiveSide are reporting that OneDrive users will be able to engage in a number of tasks in order to earn extra storage space. They claim that when the cloud service launches, there will be two different ways for users to earn additional capacity.

One of these is to refer users, much like Dropbox has offered for years. Users will be able to refer up to ten friends, with each sign up netting you a tidy extra 500 MB of storage. However, it also helps your friend as they too will receive the additional space. This means that there is a total of 5 GB that you can earn for referring friends, which certainly isn’t to be sniffed at. Users could easily post their link online and have random people signing up – besides, it benefits both parties.

Another way to earn space is through a feature called ‘camera roll backup’. By syncing photos from their camera roll, either through the built-in Windows phone function or through the OneDrive app for iOS or Android, users will earn 3GB of storage.

Another feature that LiveSide are reporting is the existence of co-owned folders. You can create a folder and add other users to also own the contents of that folder. This means that they can not only view and edit the files within, but they can sync it to their computer and mobile devices. They’ll also be able to invite other people to the folder if they wish.

This might have great implications in a business setting, allowing employees to share specific files with one another and invite others to the project with ease.

This can also be applied retroactively, meaning that any of your existing folders can become co-owned. Microsoft have been criticised by some for not allowing offline access to shared content, making collaboration difficult sometimes, so it looks like this new feature is aiming to rectify that.

LiveSide claim that both of these features were correct at time of publication, but acknowledge that things could change between now and OneDrive’s launch. However, it seems unlikely that such features wouldn’t be available; if not at launch, then at least at some point.

If you want to see screenshots of some of these new features then you can head on over to LiveSide’s site and view them there. It’s notable that OneDrive looks exactly like SkyDrive did, bar the name change. Indeed, there is nothing wrong with the current interface, so there’s no point of Microsoft changing something that isn’t broken. It should also mean that the changeover to the new name will be smooth and seamless for everyone.

Whether there will be any more features announced before launch is currently unknown, but these two are certainly a good step.