Microsoft has just increased the storage space offered by its SkyDrive service from 1 GB to 5 GB, matching the size of the AOL’s xdrive. SkyDrive also has graduated from beta.

“This release also includes bug fixes and improvements to make the site even faster and more reliable” said the SkyDrive team on his blog.

Of course, in order to use the service you have to be a Windows Live user.

SkyDrive can be used to share your files with friends or with anyone on the Web as the service offers three levels of privacy. You will get a Safe Folder, a folder which can be shared with the friends and a public one.

Users can invite people to see the shared files by typing in their e-mail address. They will receive an e-mail on how to access the files, each of which has its own web address, the company said.

The maximum size of a file stored on SkyDrive is limited to 50 MB and according to Microsoft 5 GB is enough to store 1,000 songs or 30,000 photos.

Of course, if you trust the service, you can store any other kind of information. SkyDrive is now accessible to the users in 38 countries, after it was previously available only to those living in US, UK and India.