Xdrive: Going, going… Sunset!

After two months of transition, the Xdrive service has officially closed. If you have any doubt, check out their site which simply says “Xdrive is closed”. Fortunately, the AOL team that decided to “sunset” the Xdrive product (along with AOL Pictures and the still nascent BlueString media management platform) gave the user base plenty of notice — they originally leaked the news in July of last year and then made the official announcement back in early November.

In spite of all that warning, it seems safe to assume that thousands of users will only realize that their data is toast now, when it is too late to retrieve the files.

Problems for some storage providers…

Two mainstays of the cloud storage space have recently made disturbing announcements. First, TheLinkup (formerly known as Streamload and then MediaMax, and often confused for sister company Nirvanix) is now gone. They suffered a catastrophic data loss when transitioning to the Nirvanix backend and apparently were not able to recover.

On the heels of this disaster, it was leaked that AOL will be shuttering or selling Xdrive. This is not nearly as alarming, as there is still every incentive for AOL to find a good home for the Xdrive users and there are a number of potential buyers.

A variety of services – Box.net, ElephantDrive, and Drop.io - have offered to help facilitate the transition.

What do you think these stories mean for cloud storage?

New storage demands drive online adoption…

Anthony Calypso reports that massive accumulation of valuable digital assets is turning consumers on to online storage. He cites Jonathan Steuer, a vice president and general manager for Iconoculture Inc., a Minneapolis-based cultural trend research company who says “consumers are having data storage issues that they’ve never had before … more of their assets are digital (i.e. photo content, MP3 files). As people accumulate more stuff, there is a notion of wanting to protect those [items]. It’s really part of the Web 2.0 world that we’ve seen building for a long time.”

Calypso notes that “Consumers might have an easier time breaking bad habits once they become aware of the online back-up options available today,” and recommends ElephantDrive, Mozy, and Xdrive as solutions.