Get unlimited free cloud storage, with a catch

10.09.2012
Cloud storage services are a dime a dozen these days -- though there's usually at least a dime involved, especially if you want more than a few gigabytes of a space.

Last year, Symform shook things up a bit by offering , provided you were willing to share some unused space from your own local storage.

Today, the company unveiled a -- "Bytes or Bucks" -- that gives business users virtually unlimited cloud storage at no charge.

It works like this: You sign up for a free Symform account, install the Symform software, and immediately get 10GB of space -- no strings attached. If you want more, you must allocate some local storage, which you can do in unlimited quantities in return for extra Symform space. It's a 2:1 ratio, meaning if you contribute, say, 100GB of local storage, you'll get 50GB of Symform storage.

What you're effectively doing is joining the company's distributed network, which allows it to provide inexpensive storage without the need for pricey data centers. In other words, users are the data center.

So, wait a sec, you're basically agreeing to store your data on other users' hard drives? That sounds insane on a couple levels. First, what about security? Second, what happens if someone's system is down? Does that mean your data is unavailable?