About the importance of backing up your computer personal files.

I had a lot of problems with my laptop this week. For a reason I ignore, it switches off! Complete shut down. By itself.

??

Hum…what’s going on? Got me worried. When I rebooted the system (Vista) it did not recognize the external hard drives. Ou La La…

Warning!… I better back up my internal disk (C:) to avoid having to cry myself a river. (Remember that song? Cry me a river ? I just love hearing it sing by Susan Boyle. She has such a lovely voice!

But I’m disgressing here… let’s get back to the main topic: storage and back up of our precious personal files. 😉

I then started to investigate about Cloud Storage Services. I had heard of this kind of web based storage service throughout my technology related readings. In a couple of words, here’s what it does: it lets us manage files and directories just as if they were any other files on our system.

Nowadays, since almost our whole lives are stored on our hard drives: photos, videos, music, documents, etc, it is crucial to be backing up our data on a support other than exteral hard drives which, by the way, statistics are shockingly showing tha disk failures are more and more frequent.

Consequently, the next step is to choose a Cloud Storage Service company. There are so many out there, that I felt overwhelmed with all of their different features, pricing and benefits.

I’m so grateful to have found this great article written by Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols on zdnet.com!

It really helped me understand the ins and outs of cloud storage services and their key impact on data security and productivity, so I am happy to share it here with you.

Click on the source link at the end of this extract( it will open in another window) to read the complete article.

Steven J Vaughan-Nichols

The six best personal cloud storage choices for your stuff.

Summary: Dropbox just added more free storage for their customers, so are they the best personal cloud storage? Or is its Google’s mish-mash of cloud services? Apple’s iCloud? Perhaps even Microsoft’s SkyDrive? Or, some other service entirely? Let’s take a look at today’s most popular choices.

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Everyone, and I mean everyone, is offering some kind of infrastructure as a service (IaaS) cloud services lately. In IaaS that you find file storage, ala Dropbox, but other companies like Apple, Google and Microsoft are also offering storage, media serving, and other IaaS ad hoc services for either free or minimal prices.

(…)

Amazon Cloud Drive/Player
Apple iCloud
Dropbox
Google Play and Google Docs
Microsoft SkyDrive
Ubuntu One

(…)

So which is the best? I use all of them, but when it comes to the bread and butter work of cloud file serving, I have to say Dropbox is still the best of the lot.

No, Dropbox doesn’t have any bells or whistle. No, it doesn’t offer the most storage for the least amount of money. All it does is let me create, add, delete, move, copy, edit, whatever, file and directories just as if they were any other files on my system. It doesn’t matter if I’m using a Linux, Mac, or Windows box or most smartphones or tablets; it just works with their native interfaces. That means I don’t have to think about how to use it, I can just use it. That makes it a winner in my book.

That said, with Apple, Microsoft and Canonical, Ubuntu’s parent company, all integrating their cloud services right into the operating system, Dropbox may be bettered by the year’s end. And, of course, Google may yet change everything. Still, for now, Dropbox is the best pure play personal cloud file storage.

Source: the-six-best-personal-cloud-storage-choices-for-your-stuff

Thanks Steven for your guiding lights! Based on my need I will opt for Dropbox.

Have you had any experience with cloud storage services that you would like to share with us? Use the comment box below. We would like to hear about it!

Janice Dugas | Your Online Visibility Advisor