Keeping your digital memories safe
26 Mar 2019
Should you be keeping your photos and digital data in “the cloud”, on a hard drive, or another form of tech? We look at best options for making sure you don’t lose your computer data.
Even the most tech-savvy of us has taken a bit of adjusting to “the cloud”, the new name for online storage. In its simplest form, the cloud is just storing your files and photos on someone else’s computer; it’s just that this computer happens to be a huge bank of data storage units and you have no idea where they are.
I’ve also heard the cloud explained as a giant digital library – you may not have all the books in your house, but you do have access to them, theoretically, at any time.
It’s important to back up your computer; to save your files to somewhere other than your own computer so, if you lose your laptop, or your desktop computer breaks down, you can find your old files easily.
This used to be done on an external hard drive. Initially, they were the size of a volume of an encyclopaedia; now, they’re more like a fat credit card. But with the advent of fast wireless internet connection, the cloud was born.
Now we can save our data off-site, away from our homes, in huge banks of computers owned by Apple or Amazon who charge a monthly fee for keeping your memories safe.
The upside
One key advantage of cloud storage is you can access your files from anywhere with an internet connection. You don’t even need your own computer. The internet is the link between whatever computer you are using and the computers on which it is stored.
It is convenient and flexible and safe, though you are entrusting you data to a corporation.
The downside
These are really just another way of looking at the advantages. As convenient as the internet is to store things in the cloud, should you suffer an outage of your internet connection, you cannot access your files. They haven’t gone anywhere, but the link to get them is broken.
Also, that big, safe corporate entity looking after your stuff may not be safe forever. Companies rise and fall, so handing over all your data to just one player might be putting too many eggs in one basket. For now, tech companies look as safe as houses, but in the future, who knows?
And how safe are they really? Celebrities have had some very embarrassing images and details revealed by hackers after their cloud storage was compromised.
The question of ownership is also an interesting one. Who owns the data stored in the cloud? The jury is out on this one.
The answer
Don’t be afraid of the cloud. It is a great place to park your stuff. But for really important things, you can still use a hard drive you have in your home. Or consider more than one cloud provider as insurance; it may be a bit costlier, but then again, how much are you files and memories worth?
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