Cloud File Storage

The age of the computers has caputipulted us into the modern digital age. Now cloud computing has brought about so many new technologies. In fact the personal computer by be nonexistent in the next decade or two. But computing has brought about a new set of problems: where once there was a worry of throwing out or misplacing important information, today we worry about those pictures, tax documents, and all of our data disappearing due to hard drive or other computer failure. The only way to ensure safety of your documents is to back them up, so you always have copies if necessary. Previously the only way this was possible was having extra USB storage devices or CD’s/DVD’s to back up your data. Now, with the age of the internet coming into full swing, there is another option: Cloud Storage.
Cloud Storage is the concept of backing up computer data virtually, over the internet, onto a secure data center owned by the providing storage service. There are a variety of services that do this, with various price tags and storage capacities attached to them, but they all function in a similar manner, depending on the software chosen. Most software will have one of two backup designs; either they will monitor specific folders, and back them up in real time, or they will create a folder that gets re-synced whenever the contents of that folder are changed. For most of these services, you install a desktop client with which the service monitors and initiates the backup of your data.

The different services each aim for a particular crowd, and are fit our for their specific user audience, typically business or personal use. The business solutions often cost (more) money, but offer more storage (oftentimes unlimited), backing up of multiple computers, and large scale sharing solutions. On the other hand, the personal solutions often start free, albeit with smaller storage spaces, but include a simpler interface and are designed for small scale sharing, restoring, and thus is faster for those purposes.

This technology has a few major benefits. Oftentimes, the basic plans for these services are free, although the storage is often small for free accounts, depending which service you choose. The data can be accessed from other places and shared, again depending on service chosen and your intent for the cloud storage. And lastly, it updates in real time. Standard physical backing up of the data has to be initiated by the user, and only gets backed up when asked, while cloud storage services will update as soon as something is changed, so that you don’t have to.

As with all things, there are also some downsides to these services. While all of the information is at a secure location and encrypted by these services, there is still the possibility of your data being stolen through hacking, although this possibility is remote if you have a strong password and the service is a recognized, supported service. In addition to this, a steady, fast internet connection is required, as syncing is automatic and will take up bandwidth and slow down your internet depending on the amount of data syncing. Finally, when it comes to hard drive failure, and you do have to restore your computer, you need to take lots of time downloading everything off the internet, which is generally slower than transferring from a USB drive.

Overall, the new technology is a nice addition to computers. Cloud storage solves the issues and prevents the worry that all computer users have of data loss, while there are enough services offering enough variety to satisfy every computer user. A useful tool, as long as you pick the provider that is right for your needs.

See the top 10 free cloud backup companies and more news and information at http://www.cloudbackupservices.org/