WebProNews

America Online said they purchased the online storage firm Xdrive for an undisclosed sum. The move was made to help meet the expanding needs of consumer who's need for information storage continues to grow with the addition of photos, music and lots of other files, a number of which take up a fair amount of space.

AOL also said that Xdrive would remain a wholly owned subsidiary of AOL under the digital services business unit. Many industry watchers expect AOL to add this to their own offering to accommodate the needs of its users.

Xdrive runs an online, centralized storage platform that gives subscribers access to and protection of all their digital assets so they can access it anywhere.

"Our mission has always been to help manage, integrate, and protect consumers' digital assets and enable anytime, anywhere access to files, from any internet connection," said Brett O'Brien, CEO & Founder, Xdrive. "This is a great marriage of Xdrive's cutting-edge storage technology with the massive infrastructure, network redundancy and exceptional safety and security reputation of AOL."

This should make a good addition for AOL users as AOL strives to add more services. This also makes the first acquisition for AOL since they added Mailblocks and Advertising.com last year.

"The digitization of consumer home media is skyrocketing, with consumers and AOL members increasingly looking for easier ways to protect and manage a wide variety of important data files and digital media assets," Gio Hunt, Senior Vice President of New Business Ventures at AOL Digital Services said. "Xdrive will further enhance AOL's consumer storage offerings to deliver a more safe and secure digital lifestyle for our members."

John Stith is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business.