The Cloud isn’t as bad as it sounds

We’ve all heard of the daunting place known as ‘The Cloud’. I’ve touched on The Cloud a few times throughout my editorials, but I haven’t gone into much detail as it is a tricky piece of the ever-growing puzzle of tech. You might have heard of Cloud Computing, OneDrive, G-Drive or iCloud and I get it – they sound complex. Cloud Computing carries nowhere near the complexities of Quantum Computing, and is really quite a simple aspect once you understand it.

So, what is The Cloud? It really is just another word for ‘the internet’. Rather than saving your files/photos to a physical drive, instead, you ‘hire’ a small, private part of the internet that only you have access to. It’s a bit like hiring a storage locker to hold your garden tools vs building an extra shed at home, but for your computer. The main benefit is that your data is typically safer, it’s a cost-effective solution, and you can access it anywhere.

Having your data safe is paramount. We’ve talked about the importance of a backup before, just in-case something happens to the computer you’re operating on – e.g. you spill a glass of red wine on it (my family has had four computers meet their demise this way!), your device gets physically stolen or lost. The benefit of The Cloud means that you can remove your data from a device if it’s stolen with peace of mind that they can’t access your data, even if they had your current password. You can switch on two-factor authentication, which asks you for that one-time code we talked about, making it even safer. Most importantly, let’s say the red wine doesn’t make it into the glass, you can buy a new computer that same day, sign in with your account and have all of your files there at an instant with The Cloud. No need to start from square one.

The cost of the cloud is negligible. I personally pay $4.49 per month for 200GB of storage on iCloud (Apple’s Cloud service). Over 20 years, this will cost just over $1k for peace of mind for my data. A small price to pay in my opinion, and a lot cheaper than upgrading to a new device just because it’s run out of storage. Cloud plans generally have a free 5-15GB option, then Apple’s iCloud start at $1.49 for 50GB, Google Drive from $1.99 for 100GB, and Microsoft’s OneDrive is included in most Office plans with 1000GB.

The main day-to-day benefit of The Cloud is you can generally access it anywhere on any device with an internet connection. I, for example, have my files shared across my phone, laptop and iPad. This means wherever I am I have access to them for the times when I just need that one file immediately, or when I wanted to show a photo I took on my phone on my iPad. Even if I was without any of my devices, I could access them securely off a friend’s device or even at the library’s computers. The beautiful thing about it is there’s no real additional work. For taking photos, once signed up and configured, it syncs seamlessly. For documents, I just need to save them in my cloud folder which is set up natively on my computer.

Continue to back up your files on a physical drive too to avoid anything going wrong or being held hostage for ransomware.

The cloud is really the best way to store your files. Once configured, it is easy, safe, and durable (no red wine disasters!). Get in contact today with Greyology to set it up on your devices to have that piece of mind, or give us a quick call to see if The Cloud is right for you.

Edin Read. Founder and Chief Technician at Greyology Tech Support for Seniors. www.greyology.com.au