Questions

We've listed the answers to the questions Free Virtual Drive users ask most frequently below, click on the question to go to the answer.

If your question is not answered, you might try searching for or asking it in our Forums.

Why do I need Free Virtual Drive?

Free Virtual Drive gives you the power of the whole world's Internet and mobile phone networks to store, access, share and reach your information - no matter where you are.

Leaving your data at home or at the office isn't flexible. Taking your files around with you in your pocket or on your laptop leaves you prone to problems such as loss, theft or damage. These devices get stolen or mislaid every day.

Virtual Drive offers storage which is always there and always available. You never lose a file with Virtual Drive - it's impossible. And no file on Virtual Drive is ever beyond your reach. So if you're tired of digital data being treated as disposable as a ballpoint pen and you'd like to keep it forever, Virtual Drive can do that for you no problem.

Back to Top

How much storage space do I get?

Everyone gets 25GB for media files (Photos, Music & Videos) and 5GB for non-media files for free.

You can get more space by purchasing upgrades for your account. There is no limit to the amount of space you can add - we have a cluster of servers big enough to deal with an incredible volume of data and our server system is highly scalable so push us and we get bigger. Simple.

Find out more about our plans & pricing.

Back to Top

How secure are my files?

The platform takes all possible security measures to ensure the security of user data including 256-bit encryption, firewalling, and a partitioned network (the file servers are not publicly accessible). In addition, a permissions structure which requires specific permission to view a file is in place at Virtual Drive to guard against software bugs.

The servers are hosted in a former gold bullion vault. You can imagine how seriously the Bank of England guards its gold. Now, we can offer you exactly the same protection for your files because we run the building.

Read more about how we look after your files.

Back to Top

How can you offer free storage? What is your business plan?

We offer premium upgrades which you can purchase to increase the capacity and capabilities of our standard free account.

There is no obligation to purchase a premium upgrade, customers who don't want or need the premium services can continue to enjoy our service, free of charge.

Find out more about our plans & pricing.

Back to Top

Can people at Virtual Drive/your partners see my files?

Files are not stored in a simple directory on a server, but distributed across storage servers using a proprietary platform. A file on a server has just a number, so it would not be possible to know what software to open that file with, or to differentiate your file from any other user's file without referring to the main database which holds this information.

The web interface does all this for you, but since we cannot login as you (because we don't store your password only a checksum of it) it would be a laborious job for anyone here to look at your files as it would be necessary to manually convert each one into it's id number, find which server that id is stored on, then retrieve it from the server and rename it.

Back to Top

What happens to my data if you guys disappear/go out of business?

We have no intention of disappearing and it's certainly not on the cards for the foreseeable future as we are a well funded stable company.

In the unlikely event that we did go pop in the future - it's hard to imagine a situation where our users would not be given advance notice and opportunity to download their stored data.

Back to Top

How can I close my Free Virtual Drive account?

If decide you no longer want your Free Virtual Drive account, you can close it from the My Account section. You will need to remove any files and data from your account before you can close it.

We'd be sorry to see you go, consider checking our forums for solutions any problem you are having and remember that you can keep your free account open for as long as you want without penalty.

Back to Top

You mention mobile phones on your site, how do they work with Free Virtual Drive?

The Internet is changing and increasingly people like to access files on phones. When you access Virtual Drive on your mobile phone, we automatically tune the stream of your multimedia files to match your particular phone's display.

Back to Top

Will use of the service count towards the usage limit on my broadband/Internet connection?

If you upload or download to or from your online storage space using your broadband connection, the data transferred will count towards any transfer limit you have with your broadband package.

Back to Top

Why is my upload so slow?

Because most traffic flows from the Internet to you, broadband connections often have download speeds much faster than their upload capability. A typical "8 Meg" broadband connection would have an upload capability 20 times less than the advertised download speed, so more often than not - you are at the limit of your connection.

Make sure you are using our advanced drag-and-drop uploader which uses compression techniques to speed up uploads and consider checking the option to scale images for faster uploads.

Back to Top

Is it possible to access my space via FTP?

Our web interface has comprehensive file management facilities, including the ability to drag and drop files and even to edit documents online - so FTP access is not needed to use Free Virtual Drive.

We will shortly offer WebDAV access to premium accounts but we have no plans to support FTP.

Back to Top

How do I download whole folders/multiple items to my PC?

You can click on files one by one to download them.

Our vision is to be the single location in your life where you store your files, so instead of adding the ability to download files on mass, we will be spending our time adding features so that you don't ever need to! You can already open and edit files directly from your Virtual Drive space so often there is no need to download them.

Back to Top

How do I publish my files online with Free Virtual Drive?

Go to Link or Embed, then paste the link or embed code shown into your page or email. When you choose the Embed option, a media player is automatically embedded into the web page.

You can easily use Virtual Drive with Facebook, MySpace, Yahoo 360, Xanga, Hi5, Friendster and Blogger.

Back to Top

How long do you keep my files for?

As long as you want - there is no limit.

If you don't use your free account for 90 days, we'll send you messages to check that you still want it, if you don't respond we will remove your files to maintain the performance our service. If you have upgraded to a premium account, we'll never remove your files regardless of whether you login.

Back to Top

How do you verify that a person I send files to is really that person?

We send out a message with a special code to their email address. They must click the link containing the code to verify their address before they can see your files.

Back to Top