What Is Cloud Storage and How Is It Superior to Traditional Physical Storage Mediums?

As technology advances, more and more people have more and more electronic devices to store information on and more and more of these devices are interconnected. A few short years ago, most people had one computer and that was it. If they had the internet, it was a dial-up connection. If people needed to share data, they either print the information or share the data by burning CDs / using physical media. Almost everyone had a desktop, a few people had laptops, and people who worked in office settings may have had a PDA.

Now, there are so many more devices that store data and most of these devices are either networked together through a home network or share information through celluar and wireless networks. People have PCs, netbooks, laptops, e-readers, tablets, smart phones, smart TVs, video game consoles, MP3 players, etc, and almost all of these devices use the internet in some way, shape, or form. This has opened the gateway for a new type of file sharing and file storage previously not available to consumers.

People who have multiple electronic devices want access to their information from multiple locations and this presents a challenge. A person doesn't want to have four copies of the same file, one on each machine. That is ineffective and if the file need to be modified, it has to be modified on every device or manually transferred to every device. A relatively new, but inexpensive technology, is cloud storage. Cloud storage is the storage of information on the internet. A person buys a set amount of storage space and pays a fee, often monthly, to retain that storage space at a remote location and this space is usable from all of a person's devices.

Cloud storage has multiple advantages over storing information locally. First, a person can access their information from anywhere there is an internet connection. That means, even if a person forgets their memory stick / CD / etc, then they can pull up the information and not face any major setbacks. Next, cloud storage provides reliable storage. The information stored remotely is backed up regularly, and won't be affected by things such as a local hard drive failure or a broken device. Cloud storage is one of the safest ways to store valuable information.

For a person who uses more than one device, or a person that needs to back up important data, cloud storage is a very viable option. It is relatively inexpensive, a person can often store large amounts of information for little out of pocket expense, it is safe, and it allows a person to access vital information anywhere. If a person is looking for an external storage solution, cloud storage is definitely worth looking into.