What You Need To Know About Cloud Storage

BEST OF CLOUD STORAGE: What you need to know

WHAT IS CLOUD STORAGE?

Cloud storage is a pattern or form of data storage in which the digital data is stored logically from multiple servers or locations owned and managed by a hosting company. These cloud storage providers

are responsible for keeping the data available and accessible, and the physical environment protected and running. People and organizations buy or lease storage capacity from the providers to store user, organization, or application data. Cloud storages are also offered for free and are usually more than enough for most people.

Cloud storage services are great for sharing files with friends and families, keeping documents in sync between all of your devices, and so much more. It may be accessed through a co-located cloud computer service, a web service application programming interface (API) or by applications that utilize the API, such as cloud desktop storage, a cloud storage gateway or Web-based content management systems.

Structure of Cloud storage

Cloud storage is based on highly virtualized infrastructure and is like broader cloud computing in terms of accessible interfaces, near-instant elasticity and scalability, multi-tenancy, and metered resources. Cloud storage services can be utilized from an off-premises service or deployed on-premises.

Cloud storage is:

>   Made up of many distributed resources, but still acts as one, either in a federated or a cooperative storage cloud architecture

>   Highly fault tolerant through redundancy and distribution of data

>   Highly durable through the creation of versioned copies

>   Typically eventually consistent with regard to data replicas

Advantages of CLOUD STORAGE

1.   The use of storage cloud is less expensive as it requires only operating expenses than capital expenses. Companies or people only need to pay for the storage they actually use after exhausting the
free storage given.

2.   Cloud storage saves energy consumption making businesses more efficient.

3.   Organizations can choose between off-premises and on-premises cloud storage options, or a mixture of the two options, depending on relevant decision criteria that is complementary to initial direct cost savings potential.

4.   Storage availability and data protection is constituted to object storage architecture (Google Drive).

5.  Storage maintenance tasks, such as purchasing additional storage capacity, are offloaded to the responsibility of a service provider (Google).

6.   Cloud storage provides users with immediate access to a broad range of resources and applications hosted in the infrastructure of another organization via a web service interface.

7.   Cloud storage can be used for copying virtual machine images from the cloud to on-premises locations or to import a virtual machine image from an on-premises location to the cloud image library.

8.   Cloud storage can be used as natural disaster proof backup.

Disadvantages of cloud storage

1.   When data has been distributed it is stored at more locations increasing the risk of unauthorized physical access to the data. For example, in cloud based architecture, data is replicated and moved frequently so the risk of unauthorized data recovery increases dramatically.

2.   The number of people with access to the data could be compromised. A single company might have a small team of administrators, network engineers and technicians, but a cloud storage company will have many customers and thousands of servers and therefore a much larger team of technical staff have physical and electronic access to almost all of the data at the entire facility or perhaps the entire company.

3.   It increases the number of networks over which the data travels. Instead of just a local area network (LAN) or storage area network (SAN), data stored on a cloud requires a WAN (wide area network) to connect them both.

4.   By sharing storage and networks with many other users/customers, it is possible for other customers to access your data. This risk applies to all types of storage and not only cloud storage. The risk of having data read during transmission can be mitigated through encryption technology. Encryption in transit protects data as it is being transmitted to and from the cloud service. Encryption at rest protects data that is stored at the service provider. Encrypting data in an on-premises cloud service on-ramp system can provide both kinds of encryption protection.

5.   Cloud storage is a rich resource for both hackers and national security agencies.

Examples of Cloud storage and their free data

1.   MEGA - Get 50 GB of free cloud storage with MEGA. MEGA offers secure end-to-end encryption to help combat a breach in privacy.

2.   pCloud - 20 GB of free online storage is offered by pCloud.

3.   MediaFire - Instantly get 10 GB of free online file hosting with MediaFire. Increase it to 50 GB with things like friend referrals and application downloads.

4.   Dropbox - Dropbox users start off with 2 GB of free space with several simple ways of earning more, up to around 18 GB.

5.   Box - 10 GB of free online storage space is offered by Box (formerly Box.net).

6.   FlipDrive - New FlipDrive users get 10 GB of initial storage with an opportunity for more for each friend they can refer to start using FlipDrive.

7.   Google Drive - Google Drive is the cloud storage service offered by Google. Each new user gets 15 GB of free space.

8.   OneDrive - Formerly called SkyDrive, OneDrive is an online storage service from Microsoft. Everyone gets 5 GB of free space when they sign up.

9.   Mightyupload - You can upload as many files as you want, no larger than 4 GB in size, to Mightyupload, and every file and folder you create are publicly available through your profile.

Note: Files will expire from Mightyupload if they aren't viewed / downloaded for 30 days.

10.   iDrive - Get 5 GB of free online storage space with iDrive. If you refer friends to join, you can increase your storage up to 10 GB.

11.   Cubby - The same company that release the remote access software LogMeIn also offers 5 GB of free cloud storage. You can grab more space (up to 25 GB) through friend referrals.

12.   OziBox - OziBox offers 10 GB of free online storage space.

13.   Yandex.Disk - Yandex is a Russian Internet company known mainly for its popular search engine, Yandex Search, but they also have other services, like 10 GB of free cloud storage for anyone who creates an account.

14.   Sync - 5 GB of free cloud storage can be had when you sign up for Sync.

15.   hubiC - Get 25 GB of file storage at no cost with hubiC.

16.   SFShare - Sign up with SFShare to receive 50 GB of free cloud storage.

17.   PromptFile - Though PromptFile is a rather simple website that's not overloaded with too many features, it does offer a large 250 GB of free storage space with zero upload/download limits.

18.   Jumpshare - Over 200 file types can be uploaded to Jumpshare, with a total of 2 GB of free storage for every user. If you refer friends to join Jumpshare, you can get up to 18 GB for free!

19.   myDrive - myDrive is another online storage service but it offers much less space than the majority of the others in this list. There is no limit to how large uploads can be, but you can only store up to 100 MB on myDrive, which makes the maximum file size 100 MB as well.

20.   myVdrive - myVdrive lets you upload files as large as 2 GB, but they're only stored for 60 days for free users.

21.   360 Cloud Drive - 360 Cloud Drive is a Chinese service that offers a huge 360 GB of storage when you first sign up. If you download the desktop client, you instantly get upgraded to over 10 TB of storage!

Note: Instructions are written in Chinese but upload/download is pretty easy.

22.   Amazon Cloud Drive - Amazon.com has an online storage service called Amazon Cloud Drive, which offers Amazon Prime members unlimited photo storage plus 5 GB of space for videos and files.

23.   SugarSync – SugarSync gives 5 GB free storage for every user but it is limited to 90 days.

24.   elephantdrive – elephantdrive offers 2 GB free storage.

25.   Jottacloud – This gives 5 GB free storage to all its users.

Click Here to Read How to Use iCloud, One Drive, G-Drive, Drop Box etc. as your main Cloud Storage.

 

 

Cheers!!!

 

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