Amazon Unveils Cloud Drive Online Media Storage

Amazon.com introduced its new Cloud Drive online media storage service on Tuesday. In addition to offering 5GB of online storage for free, Cloud Drive also serves as a backup for purchases from the Amazon MP3 Store, much like Apple’s rumored Music Locker service is expected to do for iTunes users.

Amazon Cloud DriveAmazon.com’s new Cloud Drive service

To help make Cloud Drive more enticing, Amazon also released a new Amazon MP3 app for Android and a Cloud Player Web browser app for streaming music from user’s online storage. The company isn’t, however, offering an app for iPhone, iPod touch and iPad owners.

Amazon.com is giving users 5GB of online storage for free, with annual subscription offers for 20GB, 50GB, 100GB, 200GB, 500GB an 1TB ranging from US$20 up to $1,000.

What the company isn’t offering is two-way music syncing from Android devices. For now, users are limited to uploading music to Cloud Drive from their computer, although music purchases from the Android MP3 app can be saved directly to the service instead of on the device.

While Amazon.com has beat Apple to the cloud-based music storage game, the Mac, iPhone and iPad maker is expected to offer a more feature-rich experience for its MobileMe users thanks to its soon to open North Carolina data center and strong deals with record labels.

Users with Amazon.com customer accounts can login and check out their Cloud Drive now.