by Brent W. Hopkins

The following is a brief review of the Zumodrive cloud file storage/sync app for the Palm Pre smart phone. Background: Zumodrive is a cross-platform cloud-based file storage, synchronization and sharing service which provides up to 2GB of free file hosting and a tiered subscription model for larger volumes of file storage. Zumodrive may be accessed through the Web browser but also  has client apps for Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, iPhone, WebOS (Palm Pre and Pixi) and Android. Once you install the client software in Windows, Linux, or Mac OS X, Zumodrive will appear as a drive in your desktop file explorer. You can then drag and drop or save files into it. These files will appear in your online Zumodrive and any other computer with the client software installed. If you edit those files, for example a Word document or Excel spreadsheet, those changes will cascade through all the instances of your Zumodrive so that you always have the most up-to-date file version. Zumodrive also keeps version history so that you can revert to a previous file version. It also has a built-in Trash folder, so in case you accidentally delete a file you can recover it.

The desktop Zumodrive client software also allows folder linking. This useful feature lets you select a folder on your computer, for example Documents, and link it to your Zumodrive. From that point onward, all changes which occur in the linked folder will also cascade through your Zumodrive and into any other computers attached to your Zumodrive. It all happens in the background without requiring you to think about it. You can also share files and folders publicly or privately with edit or read-only privileges.

I recently installed the Zumodrive client app on my Palm Pre. Cloud-based file storage is a natural fit for this always-on, Web-connected device. There are several reasons why you would want to connect your smart phone to a cloud-based virtual disk. Hand-held devices are easy to damage or lose, so having your files hosted off-device is a good form of insurance. Hand-held devices also have limited storage capacity. My Pre has just under 8GB of available memory. Zumodrive can expand that memory dramatically, while also making the same files available to any number of other connected devices.

However, the Palm Pre client app currently has some significant limitations as compared to the desktop software. The Pre client is read-only; you can’t upload or edit files with it. This limitation is unfortunate because it would really be nice to be able to take a photo or video with the Pre and then save it into the Zumodrive. It would be nice to be able to record a voice memo and save it to the Zumodrive. Perhaps a future iteration will include this functionality. If you use the app you should by all means request support for any features you would like to see.

As a read-only app, Zumodrive for Palm Pre works well. Music files play through the Pre’s streaming media player. Photos are displayed in thumbnail grids or individually. A finger swipe will advance to the next photo in the folder. Major document formats such as PDF or .doc are handed over to the respective viewing apps on the Pre. These are all useful features, but one is left wishing for more. I certainly hope to see more features as time goes on.

Cloud file storage is both a competitive and rapidly developing market. Zumodrive is a decent offering which supports a lot of OS platforms and appears intent on delivering continuous service improvement. They will definitely need to deliver value if they want to survive the competition and consolidation in this market. I give the free service high marks, but the subscription pricing is higher than some competitors and the service lacks features such as in-browser document editing which are offered by competitors. Zumodrive is worth a try, but if you don’t like it then you should look at other offerings for the sake of comparison. No one service is perfect, so it comes down to a matter of personal preference. In my case, I will need to see the subscription pricing go down substantially before I commit to Zumodrive. But I admit that I would say the same thing about most of the other cloud storage vendors as well!

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