Review: Diino online storage

Diino offers online storage as well as secure email and various other features.

The Diino client software can be downloaded for free from the site, and then it's a case of selecting a price plan or opting for the free version. The features are exactly the same, but the free one (as reviewed here) is limited to 2GB of storage; free users also can't opt out of marketing emails from Diino's maker.

Once logged in, the software presents a folder view, with separate stores for music, pictures and so on. Files can be dragged and dropped into here and, as with all online-based applications, the speed at which they're copied will depend upon your internet connection. During testing, Diino was able to use the full outgoing speed of the connection on our test PCs.

The software can also be set to backup files or folders on the PC and it's possible to specify daily and weekly schedules. Backup speed is roughly the same as that with straight copying of files and the job didn't impact noticeably on the PC's performance. Annoyingly, however, files can't be excluded from the backup, so choose the folders with care.

Files can be shared once uploaded (with the usual caveats about sharing copyright files) and there's even a blogging tool; the latter seems a little pointless to us, but provides an easy way to put pictures online if nothing else.

The final section of the program is an email service. A secure client is offered, which removes the need to use PGP or a similar encryption tool, but there are some drawbacks. You'll need to set up a new yourname@diino.com address, and email is only secure between Diino users. Added to that, we found the server connection to be quite flaky.

However, it's difficult to level too many complaints at this free version of Diino, offering as it does 2GB of secure online storage. If 2GB isn't enough, various price plans are available and start at $99.99 (£51) a year for 10GB, while those requiring 25GB will have to shell out an annual fee of $199.99 - neither of which offer great value for money.

However, most people will either have less than 2GB of important documents, making the free version viable.

In short, as a secondary storage for those 2GB of really important documents Diino is hard to beat.

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