10 ways to get more online storage

BY CARRIE-ANN SKINNER

Many online storage providers, such as Microsoft OneDrive and Dropbox, offer a small amount of free space – but once you’ve filled this up, you’re required to pay for extra. If you don’t fancy splashing the cash on extra online space, we’ve put together 10 top tips that will help you get the most out of your internet storage space:

1. Sign up for several different online storage services and divide the items you want to back up across them. While OneDrive and Dropbox give you 5GB of storage space, Google Drive offers 15GB e and Box gives you 10GB. Add paragraph text here.
2. Refer friends to the services. Dropbox and Microsoft OneDrive let you access extra online storage space if you refer a friend. Typically you gain around 500MB per referral, with maximum limits between 5GB for OneDrive and 16GB for Dropbox.
3. Some online storage services offer added incentives. Dropbox gives 250MB of space free for completing its Getting Started tutorial, while Box occasionally offers 50GB extra of free space through its Facebook page.
4. Look out for device promotions offering extra storage. For example, you can unlock an extra 100GB of free space by signing into your Google account using a Chrome OS device (eg, Chromebook laptop) and visiting the dedicated promotion website. Unfortunately, the space will no longer be available after two years. Similarly, a comparable offer is available with some Google Android phones (LG and Sony are among the brands that have previously run the offer in the past) so look out for these promotions.
5. Get your broadband from BT ? Then you can get free online storage as part of your package. You'll get either 10GB, 200GB or ITB depending upon which broadband package you have. Log in to your account online and follow the instructions to access the storage space.
6. If you use Facebook, think about uploading your digital photos to the social network to make a copy of them. Create an Album on the site by selecting Create Album from the Update Status box, then check the box on the left-hand side marked High Quality to ensure your photos remain high resolution enough to print. If you don’t want to share them with your Facebook friends, select Only Me from the privacy box so no-one else can see them.
7. Filled up space on your iCloud but don’t want to pay for more storage? Download the free Google Photos app and use this to back-up the pictures stored on your smartphone or tablet. They’ll still be accessible from your mobile device, so you can delete them and subsequently the photostream in iCloud, freeing up space for other items in the online storage space.
8. Alternatively, if you’re an Amazon Prime customer, you’ve automatically got unlimited online storage space for photos and 5GB for videos. You can upload them, using either the Amazon Photos app for your tablet or smartphone, or by visiting Amazon’s Drive website and signing in with your Amazon account details.
9. If you’ve purchased music from Amazon, whether a physical CD or digital music, you automatically get a digital copy of the track available to listen to through Amazon Music which can be accessed from any device with internet access. This means you don’t have to worry about storing these items online in other storage services.
10. Consider investing in an external hard drive that creates cloud-based storage via your home wi-fi network. The WD MyCloud comes in storage capacities up to 2TB, and one connected to your router can be accessed from anywhere using a PC, smartphone or tablet with an internet connection.