Cloud
Storage is the term used to describe using an online facility to store
your information. These are usually operated by a third party company
using data centres and there are a number of different operators
providing it such as Dropbox, Skydrive, My Secure Backup, and Google
Drive.
Cloud storage is an increasingly popular concept,
and many small businesses are embracing it to help them. But how can
cloud storage help a small business?
One popular use of
cloud storage is to store your important documents such as databases,
spread sheets or client projects. By doing this, it doesn’t matter if
your computer breaks down, is stolen, or the file is otherwise lost; you
will be able to successfully retrieve it from your cloud. You can
usually set up an automatic synchronisation, so that when you save a
document to a certain folder in your PC, the cloud storage facility you
use will pick it up and automatically save it there too. Alternatively
if you log onto your cloud storage remotely from a remote device or
there web site you can upload/maintain documents and these will
automatically synchronise/update on your home computer.
It
is also a secure way of storing your information. You can change
privacy settings of the documents so that it can only be accessed by
yourself, people listed, or people who you pass the link to. This allows
you to share it with people if you need it, or stash it away in a
private folder if it isn’t something you want to share.
The
cost of cloud storage can be considerably lower than other solutions,
with many companies offering you a small amount of start-up storage for
free, with higher amounts becoming available to you for a small fee,
often on a monthly subscription basis.
So lets take a look at the four services I previously mentioned and see what they have to offer:
Dropbox
Dropbox is a cloud storage facility which comes with an initial 2GB, which can be expanded to fit your requirements.
