SurDoc Online Storage Review

SurDoc discontinued its services in 2016. Keep reading to learn more about what SurDoc was like and how other free online storage services compare to SurDoc.

SurDoc was a free online storage service that started every new user off with 100 GB of storage, enough space to keep thousands of photos and music. MEGA is similar in that it offers a whopping 50 GB.

File sharing was also supported with SurDoc and your account came with free software for your computer and smartphone. Most cloud storage websites offer these features, too, such as Dropbox.

Signing up with SurDoc gave you access to 100 GB of free storage space immediately that would last one year, after which you had to either pay for more data or earn free space. The maximum storage space you could get with this service without paying a penny was 1 TB.

Tip: If you miss the 1 TB you were getting with SurDoc, and if you're fine using a Chinese website, 360 Security Cloud will net you a huge 10 TB of storage without the one-year limit.

Most cloud storage services let you get more free space at no charge if you invite your friends to join, download their software, etc. This was how SurDoc was and is also how MediaFire works—get 10 GB at the start and work your way up to 50 GB for free.

Here are some other features SurDoc supported:

Pros:

• Lots of free file storage space
• Allows sharing folders with other SurDoc users
• Files can be shared with anyone, even non-users
• Some shared files can be previewed in a browser before downloading them 
• Can upload data through a desktop program and mobile app
• Multiple files can be uploaded at once via a browser
• Documents and images can be exported as a PDF file
• Accepts all file types
• No upload file size limit on documents and media files

Cons:

• 100 GB of storage only lasts one year
• The file size of executables and compressed files can't exceed 10 MB for a single upload

All files in every folder could only be shared with other registered users. This means everyone you shared your files with had to also have a SurDoc account. This was true with one exception only: files you placed in the "My Public Files" folder could be shared with anyone, even public, non-registered users.

This is a lot like how Dropbox works. Others like MediaFire's FileDrop feature and pCloud's public folder, let others send files to your cloud storage account by simply uploading them to the folder of your choice—very handy if you're going to put the files in your account anyway.

With SurDoc, you could also share custom folders you created in your SurDoc account, but you didn't get a URL to use for sharing. Instead, you had to enter the email address of other SurDoc members that should have access to the folder. You could give members access to edit files in your account or just allow them to download or browse through your files.

Like nearly every other free cloud storage service, file sharing with SurDoc could also be done through their mobile app for Android and iOS users.

The biggest issue I had with SurDoc was that the free 100 GB of file storage was only valid for one year—this is almost unheard of with other, still-active cloud storage services.

After a year's time, you had to use the "Renew Free Storage" link from your account to add more storage space, which required you to do things like invite friends to join SurDoc and share your files with others.

Once your SurDoc account retired its 100 GB capacity, and before you got more free space using one of the methods above, your existing files would be inaccessible until you added more space to your account. The files weren't removed but were simply unreachable for a limited time. Still very annoying and, again, nothing like how other services work these days, like Box and the ones I already mentioned.

I did like that the SurDoc desktop program would let you limit the upload and download bandwidth settings so you're not clogging up your network when transferring files. Some file storage services don't support this feature (some do, like MEGA and Dropbox), which means uploading and downloading files from those accounts often cause congestion on your local network.

Another thing I liked about SurDoc was that you could sign up with your Facebook, Microsoft, or Yahoo account, which made creating a new account really simple. Most websites like SurDoc make you sign up with your email address.