Best File Sharing Website - Is it Skydrive?

Hi,

We want to create a file sharing secure site for sharing documents across our Education trust, multiple sites / schools.

I have setup Skydrive and yet to launch but it does mean everyone has to have a common email address to get onto SkyDrive.

is there an alternative free version that is a little more open with a secure access path? Dropbox has been suggested but has a cost attached.

Thanks
Ellis

If you're sharing across schools in the same trust, do you not have a common network backbone that you could make use of and have an internal box / shared drive that people could access. That would seem the most sensible way.

You could then use something like (and I've literally just Googled "Open Source Folder Sync" to get this) SynKron to make sure that there's a local version of a folder kept up to date on the schools local server. (Synkron – Folder synchronisation)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by soveryapt

If you're sharing across schools in the same trust, do you not have a common network backbone that you could make use of and have an internal box / shared drive that people could access. That would seem the most sensible way.

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It is extremely early days for the Trust and we havent got that far down the road (Two months in!)

So need something as a stopgap until we get to the point of network backbones.

In that case, I can't recommend DropBox enough. Ok, if you go above the 2GB initial storage then you need to pay for whatever space requirements, but I use it for sharing files between my various techy boxes (linux, mac and Windows) and it means I have access to specific files I need at each machine ..

Whatever cloud based solution you choose, if the company providing the service is a company based in the US then you need to check they are on the US EU Safe Harbour list. If the company is outside the EU and US, then avoid as you are then likely to be in breach of EU data protection laws. Dropbox are not listed on the safe harbour list AFAIK, Microsoft and Google are, so Skydrive and Google Docs are an option.

I use SugarSync File Manager, you get 5GB free to start and if you recommend it etc. you get more free space (everyone I worked with recommended it to each other and most of us have about 10GB).

Its free and I have been using it for 6 months without issue.

You get a folder you can put on any desktop that links straight into it but also with web access.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by ellisteph10

Hi,

We want to create a file sharing secure site for sharing documents across our Education trust, multiple sites / schools.

I have setup Skydrive and yet to launch but it does mean everyone has to have a common email address to get onto SkyDrive.

is there an alternative free version that is a little more open with a secure access path? Dropbox has been suggested but has a cost attached.

Thanks
Ellis

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A google apps domain will allow you to share documents with people outside of the domain.