i-drive was a file hosting service that operated from 1998 to 2002.[1]
The name derived from the words "Internet drive".
History
Based in San Francisco, the company was founded in 1998 with seed investors and launched its first product, an online file storage service in August 1999.[2] The idea originated from an early company Jeff Bonforte co-founded in 1996 called ShellServer.net, which provided 10 MB of space for IRC users.[3] Bonforte compiled the founding team, which included Chris Lindland, Patrick Fenton, Tim Craycroft, Rich MacAlmon, John Reddig and Lou Perrelli (the last three were also the company's first angel investors). Originally presented as i-drive.com, the company acquired the domain idrive.com around October 1999. The initial product offered a limited amount of free file storage space, and later enhanced the offering with 'sideloading' – storing files such as MP3 files collected on the World Wide Web without the need for the user to download them to their individual computer.[4]