Safe Use of Cloud Storage

[Fred588]

This post expresses an opinion which, I suppose, could be interpreted s political to some extent. However it is not related to what I would call current politics and it IS very relevant to anyone with a collection of files they consider valuable.

The term "cloud storage" refers to the use of computer storage at a remote, third-party site. A number of companies offer cloud storage at very reasonable prices and they promote these services with various arguments. I do use cloud storage myself and I think of it as quite useful. However, it is also my view that they are not without risk if used unwisely.

One thing these services offer is file transfer. That is, they are a way to send a file to someone else. With a few small files you can do that with email, but not with very large files and not conveniently with a large number of files. I think they are a very good option for this.

Back up of valuable files is another thing offered. Cloud storage, at least with most services, is itself backed up so the chance of less due to a failure by the cloud service is pretty minimal. By keeping a copy in an entirely separate location you have a back up no matter what happens to your storage at home. Just don't lose you password information. I think these services are excellent for this purpose.

One thing they should NOT be used for, in my view, is exclusive storage. That is to say do not use a cloud service as they ONLY play you keep things. While the companies offering cloud storage re unlikely to lose things because of a drive failure or power outage, any company that starts a service can also turn it off or they can go bankrupt. Even if they give you several months notice of, say, shutting down if you have 50,000 files totaling a terabyte it may well be impossible to recover them in time. Therefore, I would suggest, use them for backup but not as an exclusive storage location.

Cloud computing is, I think, rather more risky. Cloud computing refers to, more or less, using your computer sort of like a terminal and relying on applications that are on-line. For example, several services allow you to create and edit documents of many kinds. This I avoid using if I can, unless the documents created can be downloaded to my own machines and in forms that can be read, and edited, by software that is independent of the cloud application. Cloud computing does facilitate things such as several people working jointly on a project and progressively documenting document iterations as things progress but I am just not personally comfortable with not having local access to things.

Just an opinion.

[BogDog]

My cloud is a 2-TB USB drive with all my valuable files on it, stored in an insulated outdoor shed (home fire protection of my files). Along with that I have 3 drives on my PC....a 250 gig SSD for my primary C: drive, and a pair of 2 terabyte hard drives for valuable file storage, one 2TB drive serving as a back-up duplicate of the second.

As you might guess by now, I have lost key files before. No more.

[Fred588]

My cloud is a 2-TB USB drive with all my valuable files on it, stored in an insulated outdoor shed (home fire protection of my files). Along with that I have 3 drives on my PC....a 250 gig SSD for my primary C: drive, and a pair of 2 terabyte hard drives for valuable file storage, one 2TB drive serving as a back-up duplicate of the second.

As you might guess by now, I have lost key files before. No more.

Good for you. I can assure you the issue becomes more accute as the volume of what needs protecting gets bigger and bigger. I have better than 2T in the online cloud, and that is on the order of 2 percent of the total I have on physical drives locally. It takes some doing.

[Mynock]

Pretty much agree with the above, I find cloud based stuff a great tool for work because I collab on projects with people in multiple states/countries. It's way better than email when you have to trade huge files back and forth. Wouldn't use it for my private stuff though.

BogDog's method works for me. The amount of data needed to be stored will inevitably increase but so will storage capability. The New M.2 SSD's go up to 2Tb and they're the size of a thumb drive.

[Nessie]

Cloud computing is, I think, rather more risky. Cloud computing refers to, more or less, using your computer sort of like a terminal and relying on applications that are on-line. For example, several services allow you to create and edit documents of many kinds. This I avoid using if I can, unless the documents created can be downloaded to my own machines and in forms that can be read, and edited, by software that is independent of the cloud application. Cloud computing does facilitate things such as several people working jointly on a project and progressively documenting document iterations as things progress but I am just not personally comfortable with not having local access to things.

Just an opinion.

Cloud has its uses. Several people can work on a document at once in a single Google account (I had a side job where this was done). The owner said Google was free so why not? It wasn't anything very secret and it all expired after twenty-four hours.

As a graphics technician, though, I'm very much not-thrilled with all the Adobe creative software going to cloud. This means a monthly subscription.
At work we are avoiding this for as long as we possibly can as it will be more expensive in the long run and the stuff we have is paid-for and on our hard drives.

Personally, I use Google drive for random non-sensitive stuff. Their Excel and Word clones do open in real Word and Excel...and Apache Open Office (free Word alternative) too.

I am backing up important things as I go so it doesn't build up (half the battle is staying ahead) and accepting the fact that not every photo I download or other random junk that seems important today will matter in the long run. I try hard to keep my own videos safe and some stuff from our community too.

It's kind of like my house. You need some stuff, you want some stuff that you don't actually need, but after a point, a collection becomes a hoard. So I make that decision as I go, and consider the end of a computer's life to be a natural dying-out of the hoard.

I use flash drives and DVDs mostly. I had a 2TB hard drive for awhile but, um...that thing crashed before it even got old and took a whole TB with it. I guess nothing is forever. Double backups are the safest.

Nessie

[Duncan Edwards]

I've got 17 terabytes in the cloud at work and a personal 2TB out there for stuff I like to be able to get to anywhere. I do a surprising amount of work on my iPhone just by being able to get to things all the time. Work data is archived on terrestrial tape every now and then and I've got multiple backups of personal data I really care about. I always like to point out that while I've experienced many mechanical failures locally I've never lost a byte in the cloud. If you're talking about serious industrial strength cloud storage it's spread across multiple severs in multiple data centers. Getting to all of that is getting easy now because I've got GB fiber most places at work and home, there's wi-fi everywhere, and I'm one of the last people to get grandfathered in on an unlimited data plan with my phone. Working with cloud based applications and data is pretty much where the future is going to be.

Now just to make that more interesting it's going to become even easier to access all of that stuff anywhere in the near future. Satellite based internet services are about to explode in availability and capability. OneWeb just launched their first group of satellites and later this summer will see the first launch of Starlink. This will be Elon Musk's satellite internet service that will give everyone a 2GB connection anywhere on earth. He's going to have over 4000 small satellites in low orbit so there's little latency and no need for big antennae. Starlink will have the equivalent of the current global internet backbone in orbit. This will be huge for the growing Internet of Things and very useful for people like Fred who live way out in Terra incognito Arkansas.