Cloud Storage

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I've been thinking of using a cloud solution like Copy or Dropbox and I'm interested to hear about people's experiences with these services. I'm looking for a way to save irreplaceable files for when I need to upgrade my hard drive or upgrade/reinstall the OS and the files I have of that nature amount to no more than 10GB which seems too little to justify the expense of an external hard drive.

Personally, if the files are that irreplaceable then why would you trust a company that only exists on the internet to store your files on a server somewhere unknown ? Not to mention what they might do with the data.

An external hard drive is not a good place to store them either. Putting a normal hard drive into a small unvented case, with getting knocked, frequent power cycles and subjects to variation of the +5v USB supply makes their life/reliability less than desirable.

If the files are not going to change ( ie photos, important documents ) then I would burn them to a couple of DVD's, but be aware that the life of consumer burnable optical media is about 5 years, so I would replace the dvd's on a 1-2 yr basis.

Or, the best solution is to find someone with a tape drive and tar them to a tape.

A cloud storage might be part of the solution but you should not regard it as a full one. You always need a plan B

would take ages to upload download the stuff usb flash drive would be your best option

I agree. Flash drives that hold 16GB can be had for 20$. I put one in a safe deposit box (which already has other stuff, didn't get the box just for that) and put in a new flash drive annually.

More so flash memory is very resistant and near unbreakable. Though the way it's made mean it's difficult to recover the data if damaged.

Last edited by Tollorin on 05 Nov 2014, 12:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.

for storage/backup, a flash drive is the superior option indeed.

i do use dropbox and Gdrive, but that is mainly for files i want to have instant access to, from all devices i own and also those of other people.

if you want total security; use all three, dropbox and Gdrive offer a decent chunk of storage for free, and a flash drive is cheap.