Cloud storage.... (1 Viewer)

[Gromett]

I have seen over the last year or so people recommending cloud storage for a variety of things. I have noticed over the last six months or so that the outages of these services seems to be increasing. This is just the ones I remember and the reason why I prefer to have all my data local and totally under my control..

Microsoft Azure Cloud. Down 22nd february 2013. They forgot to renew an SSL certificate. They also went down last year on the 29th February. Guess what? It was another Certificate issue They have also had other outages affecting small subsections of their services over the last year.

Amazon AWS services. They had an outage at Christmas which affected many service providers including Netflix. So if you wanted to watch Miracle on 34th street you were out of luck. If you are like me and prefer local storage no issue. Amazon have had loads of outages over the last year another big one in October took out Reddit, imgur and Heroku.

Apple iCloud. Has an outage going on right now. They also got exploited last year and a journalist had his mac, iPhone and ipad remotely wiped. He lost everything. He admits he didn't take adequate precautions but.... Apple seem to be having almost monthly problems

Dropbox has had it's share of outages as well... Broken Link Removed

I can't think of any other cloud providers off the top of my head.

I am just so happy I keep all my data local and don't rely on "the cloud" at all.

Microsoft is moving to online office apps (Office 365). Now just imagine you want to write a quick letter and get it in the post before last delivery. Cloud down you are screwed. Googles online services are just as at risk. You get a new Chrome laptop which does everything online. You want to check your calendar so see if the appointment is at 9:30 or 10:30 (scatter brained like me?) google cloud is down.....

There are many many examples.

I personally want to keep my data local, under my control and quickly accessible.

Why have I posted this rant? A family member has just contacted me frantic because they need Certain data which is only available through a currently down cloud service. I have warned this family member a number of times. It was very hard to restrain myself from saying I told you sooh:.

I'll shut up now

 

[jeepmadmike]

I am a total iCloud fan, yes there is issues very very occasionally but being able to pick up any of my apple devices and view my documents and pictures without having to do anything else is fantastic.

I notice curries are selling their cloud storage hard, that is a con......

 

[SilverF1]

I'm with you on not using Cloud type services. :thumb:

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[magicsurfbus]

Cloud Cuckoo Land - just because you can doesn't mean you have to. Not interested.

 

[olley]

Been using livedrive for a few years now as part of my backup strategy along with a usb drive. Assuming its not down, and so far i haven't noticed if it has been, you can access your files anywhere, which is very useful.

Ian

 

[callumwa]

I have a belt and braces approach.

I have everything backed up at home on 2 separate hard drives.

I travel a lot and take music, movies, photos documents, etc on another two portable hard drives as well as my laptop.

I also iCloud and Dropbox but only for non sensitive files.

They just gives me more flexibility when I am out and about so i can use phone, iPad, laptop or whatever I have next to me at the time.:thumb:

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[sdc77]

Cloud Cuckoo Land - just because you can doesn't mean you have to. Not interested.

Thats what some said about dvd's and internet.. and broadband ..and blu ray ..
Its just progress..

 

[Taran_Las]

Mitigate risk - backup locally and use cloud services. Keep -1 local backups in a fire proof safe offsite.

If in doubt, take backups of backups

 

[Jim]

Almost everything (you can choose which folders)I put on the cloud (Dropbox) gets automatically replicated onto 5 different machine that sync with it, if Dropbox is down its seen to it that I have 5 local copies of the data to choose from.

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[mitzimad]

mirrowed nas drive and cloud for stuff i need to acces away fromk home

 

[bungy]

Almost everything (you can choose which folders)I put on the cloud (Dropbox) gets automatically replicated onto 5 different machine that sync with it, if Dropbox is down its seen to it that I have 5 local copies of the data to choose from.

And here endeth the lesson: :thumb:

public cloud services aren't a straight replacement for a hardrive...its a data distribution and access capability. Use it right and its as 'safe' as a backup drive....assuming there are multiple backups of that drive and u then take those drives every where with you.

 

[Onderweg]

I hate clouds.......

In real live and also in the IT business, it only can give rain or tears

Paul

Must be a generation thingy

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[Gromett]

And here endeth the lesson: :thumb:

public cloud services aren't a straight replacement for a hardrive...its a data distribution and access capability. Use it right and its as 'safe' as a backup drive....assuming there are multiple backups of that drive and u then take those drives every where with you.

The problem is cloud is not just about remote replicated backup. It is about remote services as well. Calendars, apps, office, productivity and email to name a few.

I don't even use webmail which is a cloud app. I use IMAP from a proper mail server. If my mail server goes down I still have a local copy on my desktop machines. I got bitten by this a long time ago and now don't use webmail at all. My calendar is locally stored as is my address book etc. These are then replicated to other systems via my local network not the cloud.

Almost everything (you can choose which folders)I put on the cloud (Dropbox) gets automatically replicated onto 5 different machine that sync with it, if Dropbox is down its seen to it that I have 5 local copies of the data to choose from.

That is what I used to do until I saw issues with this. If you have a file in your dropbox folder and lose one of your devices. If the files get deleted they are then removed from all devices. I know you have the undelete feature built into the web account of drop box but if it is down or gets hacked? Also you can't use dropbox for sensitive data. You have to make decisions, is this data something I need in the cloud. Then you have to decide is it something I am happy to have in the cloud. I prefer using my local network to sync my data not a remote "cloud" service. This way all data is syncronised and I have no worries about dropbox getting hacked.

I am starting to see the dangers a lot more due to recent outages and security issue with remote or cloud services.

 

[Jim]

I'm finding the dropbox storage very handy, I particularly like the number of software packages that use it intelligently. For example Everyday i write into a program called Scrivenor, (fantastic and now available for windows) as soon as I stop writing, the file is auto synced to two places, a local extra hard drive and dropbox. This means that I can open the scrivener file on any machine and there is the cursor right where I left it, thanks to dropbox. I can edit the file on my ipad. phone, windows or PC any edits I make are synced back.

I've found the backing up feature of Dropbox to be pretty robust, it keeps a backup of any deleted file for 30 days. I'm sure Dropbox is as vulnerable as any stored data, but for me at least, the convenience negates those concerns.

Where I agree with Karl about cloud use is where all the tools are online, there are loads of payroll, calendar, contact, CRM, project tools, and similar sold as monthly packages where you must be online to access them. For me that's crazy. I want the details of my next appointment on a hard drive near me, not in some computer room in a desert somewhere, that law called sods is always affecting me

 

[jonandshell]

Cloud storage? How big a box do you need to store a cloud?

We aren't fans. We don't live in a mobile connectivity utopia here in Norfolk. Plus they know too much about us already without sharing your family pics with them!

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[thehutchies]

I've finally convinced my brother that all our work stuff should be digitised and online.
Only took me ten years

We are using Google Drive and it means that we can be at opposite ends of the country and still have access to all our documents and make revisions without having to make any physical contact (preferable )

Everything is synced to two laptops, two external drives and the office pc so I reckon we're safe.

It's working very well for us, so far.

 

[Gromett]

If I was to want any of this cloudy goodness I would unfortunately be forced to do it myself so I had total control over "My" data.

http://owncloud.org/features/ seems to be a reasonable option. Especially if you already have a computer on 24/7 or lease a server.

 

[quarryjmiller]

Back ups

Relying on any one method of storage, hard drive, memory stick or cloud is probably not a great idea, for business we use Dropbox all of the time to share files and now we have added Box, this in addition to what we have on the laptops, any one of them could fail and if they are important it is a good idea to have a back up (or two).

Why are they (the Cloud operators) giving us all this free storage? How much data are we storing that we don't need? How long before we have to start paying?

In their heyday Xerox would not sell a photocopier under any circumstances, if you wanted one you rented it, they made a fortune of course, when the patent expired the Japanese moved in and prices/profits started falling.

This market model is being tipped on it's head now......

If Microsoft et al get their way we will all be renting software not buying it, use Open Office, it's free, easy to use and compatible with Office programmes and does everything that Office can do and more.

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[magicsurfbus]

Here we go...

Evernote hacked

 

[Gromett]

Here we go...

Evernote hacked

Already posted

Broken Link Removed