Cloud Systems Refresher

I posted last year about the Benefits of Cloud Systems and How to Protect yourself from the cloud but it is a topic worth going over again. Nearly every program nowadays worth its salt has some form of cloud accessibility or cloud backup. It’s becoming ever more important for all programs to be cloud accessible because we are becoming more and more mobile in our use of technology and going to one specific geographic location to access our information is completely inefficient.

 

 

For those who missed when I talked about Cloud systems last time, it’s a fairly easy concept to wrap your head around. Previous to cloud systems when you wanted to save something (be it a picture, music or a document, you would have to save the documents on your computer’s hard drive. This would mean that the item in question would take up part of the hard drive memory. The computer uses its hard drive memory to store documents, program files and to actually run the programs themselves. this means that the more you saved to your hard drive, the less memory would be available to allow your computer function at peak efficiency. It should be noted that this is still true today, but with Cloud systems, this is no longer a problem. What happens when you utilize a cloud system it stores your Documents (pictures, media etc.) on a hard drive that you access through the internet. Most cloud services will allow you certain amounts of data to use for free and anything over they will start charging for. Now you can access all your data, information etc, without it clogging up your hard drive which would eventually drive down your computer’s performance.

 

 

One of the main reasons that I hear from people about why they would replace their computer is because of performance degradation. “The thing doesn’t work as well (or as fast) as it used to.” I completely understand how you would want to have a computer that works as well as it possibly could. part of the reason that the computer slows down is that of all the stuff that is kept on the hard drive. Now with cloud systems being in such use, there is virtually no need to keep your documents, media and whatever else on your actual hard drive

 

 

The beauty of cloud systems is that you can use them anywhere, any time, on any device. So long as you are connected to the internet and you have the log in information for your particular service then you can access your information from anywhere. It’s important for a mobile and device driven world for people to be able to manage their information. It’s even more important to be able to do so at any time necessary.

 

While cloud systems can be made to be fairly complex, the basics are really quite simple. You’re simply accessing your information which you are storing not on your computer, but a hard drive that you are accessing from a remote hard drive which you access through the internet. Cloud services for your digital filing system is an important step in organizing your digital life. There are quite a few programs which offer “Cloud Backup” which is a great way to keep the information relating to those programs if and or when you change devices, but you need to be able to keep your documents in a similar fashion.

 

Fortunately, there are a variety of different services out there that can hold your files for you. Occasionally I will talk about “The Big Four” in reference to four of the most reliable of cloud information services. These are Google Drive, iCloud, OneDrive and DropBox. in the next couple of weeks, I will be going through each of them and then making a recommendation as to which I think you should go with. Certainly, if you already use one of these services already then I would encourage you to comment when I go through them. if you don’t then I would encourage you to stay tuned as I will be going through the benefits and drawbacks of each of them.

 

Would you consider using a cloud service in order to keep your files?