Recent years have seen a surge in the number of people turning to digital media as a way to view photos, listen to music, and watch videos. With all of this digital data, the need to be able to store large amounts of data has also increased. The modern solution is cloud storage, storing your files on a cloud server. Cloud storage is a wonderful way to store your data, though it does contain its own pros and cons.
Advantages of Cloud Storage
There are many advantages when it comes to Cloud Storage; which is the reason so many people have begun to use it to store data.
Inexpensive – Cloud storage can be affordable and sometimes free. The free cloud services typically offer storage space in the amount of two to five gigabytes. For those that require more space, there are a number of cloud services offering unlimited storage space at affordable rates.
Availability – Storing files on a computer or other device only lets you retrieve those files directly through the device. Using cloud storage, you have access to your files anywhere that has an available internet connection. This is great for those that work from multiple locations.
Sharing – Users can now easily share their files stored in the cloud with others, by sending them a link to the files or folders that are to be shared. Social networking sites, such as Facebook or Twitter, have ways to accomplish this without making the data public.
Another backup – Over time, hard drives start to break down and may eventually suffer from complete failure. The data saved in the cloud is safe from being lost, as the data is stored across multiple servers, providing a safe way to backup entire hard drives.
Disadvantages of Cloud Storage
While there are a large number of advantages of storing data on the cloud, there can be a few disadvantages as well.
Privacy – Privacy should be a concern for everyone. There is no guarantee that data stored in the cloud will always be kept private. This will vary between cloud services, making it important to read their privacy policy before signing up for services.
Internet – In order to retrieve your data, you require an internet connection. If you are in an area where there is no internet access, there is no way to use cloud servers to get your files. However, there are some cloud services that place a synced version of files on your computer. After you have an internet connection, the files then sync with those stored on the cloud servers.
Loss of control – Despite cloud services saving your data across multiple servers, there is still the small possibility that something disastrous could happen. If the cloud servers go down, the data you stored could be lost.
Cloud storage services are an inexpensive way to store your data and access them anywhere. Even with the few disadvantages that they may have, most people find the advantages to be far greater.
