SkyDrive is a Windows Live service that offers a free 5GB of online storage. If you have a Hotmail, MSN or Live account you can access this right now. If not it’s free to sign up for it.

This is one of the few Live services I haven’t used so I tried it out to see if it is in fact easy to use.

Above: This is the first screen you see (after logging in first) when you begin to use SkyDrive.

Above: By default the service will create 4 private folders and 1 public folder. To the right you can see how much space you have available to you. Each folder is clickable. Adding files can be done by clicking the "Add files" link to the right of the folders.

Above: When you click "Add files" the system will ask you where you want to store your files to. I clicked "Documents" from here as a test.

Above: I had 5 test documents to send, so I clicked the "Browse" button next to each field and selected the appropriate file.

Above: Successful confirmation that my files have been uploaded.

Above: I clicked on the first file I uploaded. From here you can add a description and/or comments if you like. In addition there is a web address on the right. Being that this is a private file, even if you posted it publicly nobody can get to it except you because it’s under your SkyDrive account.

Above: This is what happens when you upload a file into your public directory. The web address starts with http instead of https. This is a link you can send to anyone to get the file being that you purposely set it to be public.

Things of note:

This is stupidly easy to use – and that’s good. There’s basically no learning curve whatsoever. If you wanted a very easy way to store stuff online it doesn’t get much easier than this.

The only thing I can really complain about is that SkyDrive is somewhat buried. Sure, if you remember skydrive.live.com you’re all set. However I wish it was skydrive.com – which it’s not.

Alternatives:

If SkyDrive isn’t your thing, there’s also Xdrive (5GB free) and Box.net (1GB free).