Online Storage

Now, for those of you who are afraid of LOSING a physical storage device, or worry about a house fire but don’t want to buy a firebox to protect your priceless digital memories, online storage, or cloud storage, is for you.

Cloud storage is where you send your digital files to servers (a bunch of computers in a network) that are somewhere else. If one of those computers are destroyed or shut down, your information is still stored on the other computers in the network. It is safe storage AWAY from you. You can download your files or upload your files onto the computers at any time. Some companies do this for free; some have more protection for a monthly cost.

A quick word about security: you can be sure that any company you interact with online is going to treat your files with an air of security. When you sign up for their product, even if you don’t agree to a terms and services page or read the fine detail, there is a provision in the law that, by using their product, you:
1. Are expecting to get your property back and
2. Do not wish anyone without your access to view or manipulate your documents.

I’ve talked to my lawyer friend and he tells me that this is enough to protect you in court if anything should happen to your media. But to make sure, always check online about any company you are looking at. A good thing to type in to GOOGLE is: “is (name of company) a safe company to store information with?” Very simple…

Now, I am not going to get too much into subscription services with the lofty protection except to say that, in my experience, MOZY has the best service for the value: 4.95/month, 54.95/year or 103.95/2years for unlimited space. If you have loads of music, financial documents or family photos, this is the place to be sure you have solid storage.

A couple good sites for free storage are ADRIVE and Microsoft SKYDRIVE. ADrive offers 50 GB of storage for free with their handy-dandy editing tool that allows you to edit your documents and spreadsheets while they are online. It even gives each file a unique link that you can use in emails so you don't have to add large attachments to messages to family. Skydrive, on the other hand, allows 25 GB of storage, with the ability to drag-and-drop files from your computer into your online storage drive. Although it is a smaller amount, Skydrive is very convenient and you can be sure that Microsoft, even though it is a free product, has made sure that security is tight. For ADrive, you need to create an account and for Microsoft, if you don’t have one already, you will need to create a Windows Live account.

Now, I am not even getting into the fact that you COULD create a Facebook picture album and make it so only YOU can see it. That takes care of the security and Facebook doesn’t have a limit for how many pictures you upload. Play around, search around, make sure that you trust the site you use, and your storage problem should be solved.