Which cloud?
Any cloud storage as long as it's not the cloud that can cause rain. Google Drive, OneDrive, Dropbox, you name it.
Origin
Once upon a time, a friend of mine told me "Cloud is a new best friend". So I was thinking to give it a try. Back then, I thought separating disks is enough for data backup (Like drive C: and D:); but in fact, your local disk could be corrupted, your laptop could be stolen, your data could be lost. Since at the time I am writing this, I was a final-year student that love my Final Year Project so much, I can't afford to lose my data, I need backup.
What did I do?
I connected my Office Apps (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc.) to OneDrive. Here are some resources that could help you achieve similar setup:
"Why OneDrive?"
Because as a student, I was granted 1TB of OneDrive space.
You don't like Microsoft? There are other options you could also try like these ones.
What do I feel good about?
1. Place-less working
Ever since I put my important docs such as Thesis, Internship Report, and other I-can't-lose documents, I can do it from anywhere anytime, because it is synced in the cloud.
For example, at home, I can do my Thesis with my Desktop PC, but when I go out somewhere I can bring my laptop along and access the work from the cloud or even access it from my mobile phone.
When I store my docs in the cloud, I can save them, turn off my PC, and just walk away with my laptop because the data is in the cloud.
If I store it in my PC's local disk, I should copy-paste it to my laptop first before going out, or maybe store it in a flash drive that I should carry around (more stuff to be carried).
2. Safety(?)
At least, physical safeness is pretty much guaranteed.
Imagine a scenario where your house get robbed and the Cloud Data Center get robbed.
In your house, you could lost your laptop or PC, leading to loss of data.
In the Cloud Data Center, even if they get robbed (which is unlikely to happen), your data are guaranteed to be duplicated across multiple instances to fulfil the Service Level Agreement, Standard Operation Procedure, and Disaster Prevention.
This also points back to my previous point about flash drive, I might lose my flash drive too, it's small-in-shape.
Some Cloud Storage provider even provide version rollback and history of editing. If you are working on a document that involves several people, this feature will be useful to find who is making bad changes and praise the one that is making good changes.
My Concerns
1. I need internet
Since the docs are stored in the cloud, of course you will need internet access to synchronize the data between your local disk and the cloud storage. If I am about go out, I need to make sure that I have internet-data to access my data in the cloud (at least to download it, edit it locally, and then upload it again).
2. Small-small no problem
Since it requires internet connection, I do not recommend uploading a big-chunk of data, like movies or anime collections, to the Cloud Storage because I personally live in an area that doesn't have a high-speed internet speed. That is why, so far I only use it to backup documents, Excel files, or PowerPoint slides. I only upload videos or pictures to the Cloud Storage when I want to share it.
Internet is not the only problem, the price is also the problem. Some Cloud Storage offer 1-15 GB of storage at free tier. This might not be a problem if you only use it to store documents, Excel files, or PowerPoint slides, but if you use Cloud Storage as a backup solution, you will need more than 15 GB, especially if you are storing videos or pictures.
Conclusion
So far, I use cloud storage to store my important documents in hope they will be physically safer and less chance of getting corrupted. For storing videos and pictures I still use local disk (HDD or SSD). If you want to back-up some precious memories to cloud then it's also okay, it's your choice at the end of the day.
What do you think about Cloud Storage? Let's discuss below.
Top comments (3)
This is very insightful Raymond! I think you should try the idea of 3-2-1 backup system. Using Google Drive, DropBox or OneDrive is great but what if the services suddenly ceased it's operation? What if your files accidentally deleted by them? I recommend you to read github.com/geerlingguy/my-backup-plan by Jeff Geerling.
Thank you for the insight, will take a look at it :D
As long as the devices are still connected to the internet, you dont need to press CTRL+S on the document (word, ppt, etc). :D