What does storage in the cloud mean? Everyone says I should be backing-up in the cloud — what does it mean?
Storing “in the cloud” just means that you’re going to store your files somewhere remotely on someone else’s computer, usually a computer owned by some big company. You can pay for this, but there are a lot of places that will give you some space for free. Right now, Dropbox offers 2 GB for free, and that’s what I use to backup my work.
There’s one thing that’s kind of confusing about cloud storage. The way cloud storage works is that you put things you want saved in the cloud into a folder on your computer. The cloud service will access that folder and make copies in the cloud.
From the Dropbox Help Center,
“…using [the Dropbox application] on your computer is just like using any other folder on your hard drive, except the files you drag into your Dropbox folder automatically sync online and to any other computers or mobile devices linked to your account. The application runs in the background and automatically keeps your files in sync and backed up online. It’s like having the same folder on all of your computers and mobile devices at the same time.”
This means that in addition to having a copy storied in the cloud, you’ll also have a copy saved on your hard drive, where you put it for the cloud service to look for it. So you automatically have two copies!
If you use the link above, or this link to Dropbox we both get 500 megabites of free bonus space in addition to the 2 GB! It’s a win-win. Just sign up, and they have a great tutorial to guide you to set up.