Don’t Let Data Loss Burn a Hole in Your Budget

April 14, 2017 Daily Deals,Hosting

Why cloud storage is essential and not just an option

Storing your data was simple. There was a hard disk in your desktop computer, and that’s where everything was kept. (Going even further back, to before the days of desktop computers, Great Uncle Cedric might have stories about punched cards and punched paper tape, and how disk packs the size of one of today’s larger printer/scanners would be taken off-site every evening to keep them safe). That’s a long way from cloud storage.
Then came external drives, that you could back up to, and that was a step forward. On the data safety stage, at any rate. In the future, there may well be something we can’t at this moment imagine. But, for now, cloud storage is the last word.

And you need it. Because data loss hurts. If you’re a business user, data loss can destroy your business. If you’re a personal user, the grief from the loss of personal photographs, personal documents, and personal mementos can be overwhelming. Just don’t put yourself in that position. The answer? Cloud storage.

So what is the cloud? What is cloud storage? And how do I store things there?

It’s an odd word, “cloud”. It sounds as though things are being stored and processed in some ethereal place. You half expect to see an angel sitting on a cloud. Maybe an angel with a laptop instead of a harp. In fact, of course, “the cloud” is as here and now a piece of the physical world as you are. All that “the cloud” means is that you don’t know, and don’t need to know, exactly where your data is being stored. Or where it is being processed.
The Internet makes this possible. Your data has to be processed on a server and has to be stored on a storage device. They aren’t somehow “up there” in the heavens. They are right here on earth, just like the rest of us. But the particular storage device (or devices) that hold your files aren’t there in the room with you. They may not even be in the same city. Or the same country. Or on the same continent.
All that matters to you is that you can get at your files when you need to. And that they have sufficient protection that no one else can get at your files unless you want them to.

There are many reasons for using cloud storage

It isn’t just about safety. It isn’t just about avoiding data loss. That is hugely important, but cloud storage brings a lot of other benefits, too. It isn’t only about one operating system, either. Windows or Mac: the best cloud backup for Mac or for Windows: you need a cloud storage provider that handles both.

Mobility is one reason you need cloud storage

In those early days we talked about, most people only had one computer. Even earlier, in Great Uncle Cedric’s time, “people” didn’t have any – there were mainframes that belonged to companies. Large companies, for the most part, because those mainframes were expensive. An IBM 360/50 in the 1960s might cost you $500,000. And it had less computing power than your smart phone has today.
And it’s that smart phone – and your tablet, and your laptop – that mean you need the best cloud storage. The best personal cloud storage or the best business cloud storage. Because you take those devices with you when you travel. And you want to access your files, wherever you may be. If your files are stored on your desktop, and your desktop is some distance away, you can’t get at them.
But keep your files in cloud storage and you can access them wherever you are. As long as you have any kind of smart mobile device.

It looks like a drive, walks like a drive and talks like a drive

So chances are it’s a drive! Cloud storage is represented on your monitor by a letter. Just like the way that your primary drive is always represented by C:>. And that’s how you treat cloud storage – as one more drive. Your server or your desktop can interact with cloud storage as though it was simply a directly attached drive (which is, in fact, how it sees the cloud storage).

Nothing complicated, nothing new to learn – and nothing to go wrong. You don’t need any special API to get at what’s stored in the cloud, and nor do you need any fancy middleware. It’s a drive! An enormous drive, bigger than all the drives in your state put together, but a drive like any other, as far as your own device is concerned.

You can share them, too

The best personal cloud storage apps allow you to set security levels on your files. You may want one file to be available only to you, while another can be read by a group of people you specify. And, perhaps, there’s a third file that you want the whole world to be able to see. With cloud storage, that’s your choice.

You can make documents available for people to see. For people to edit. For people to download or to share with others. It’s your choice, and you can make a different choice for every document. You can’t do that with files stored on your own computer without giving other people complete access to your computer. And that is an unacceptable security risk.

But safety is the overriding consideration

Have you ever lost a file? Or a whole folder? Ever had a disk crash? If you have, it isn’t something you ever want to happen again. When it happens to a business, it can destroy the business – many companies have gone bankrupt because they lost their files. Their customer files. Their pricing files. Their product files. The files that told them who owed them money – and who they owed money to. If they had cloud storage, that would not have happened.
If you get caught, your data loss is going to cost you money. Maybe a huge amount of money. Perhaps more than you can afford.
Individuals, unless they happen to be running a one-person business, don’t run the risk of bankruptcy if they can’t get at their files ever again. They do, though, suffer losses that may be painful. All those photographs, accumulated over 40 years of living – lost for ever. The documents they accumulated in their genealogy research. They had the only copies, and they are irretrievable. The carefully scanned letters from loved ones who can’t send another because they really are in the cloud (or so we hope). In this case, what the individual needed was the best personal cloud storage.
The trouble with this kind of experience is that it gives wisdom, but it gives it too late.

Once you’ve decided on cloud storage, what’s next?

So, you’ve decided you need cloud storage. Good decision – you’re right; you need the best cloud storage there is. How do you go about it?

First, let’s make it clear that cloud storage is not a substitute for other kinds of backup. Sensible people have a belt-and-suspenders approach. They store their files locally on a hard disk which, in the case of frequently used files, may be a solid state drive. That gives much faster access times. Other files (like your photographs folder) may be held on a standard hard disk. Then there can be an external drive connected by USB, to which everything is backed up regularly. And only after that is the cloud storage invoked.

When you’re away and using a mobile device, the likelihood is that the files you update will be in the cloud. You accessed them on a mobile device, the only way you could do that was through the cloud, so you’ve updated the version that was in the cloud. As soon as you get home (or back to the office), and before you access that file again, synchronize the files! If you don’t remember to do that, you’ll find yourself doing more work on a file that is not the latest version. And that’s a very quick way to make a mess.

Backup

Cloud storage is not only for backup – the example used in the previous paragraph shows that – but backup is an important cloud storage function. Depending on the cloud storage service you use, you’ll have an app (a “client”) on your desktop, and you tell it what you wanted to do. Which folders need to be backed up, and how often. Do that, and you’ll never find yourself in the dreadful position of having completely lost a file that you simply cannot afford to lose. And remember that backup and syncing are two different things.

We have a deal for you

The deal is: a lifetime subscription to 1 TB Zoolz Cloud Storage. What would normally cost you $1800 is yours for $39.99, and no additional subscription charges. Ever. Here’s what Zoolz Cloud Storage offers you:

• File backup that is automatic and instantaneous
• The same data security as NASA and the US government use
• A very easy way to choose the files in the folders that you want to stored
• Deployment is easy. And it’s fast
• There’s no limit to the number of external drives and network drives you can backup
• An additional Cold Storage facility for archival purposes, in which you can store files that you rarely want to access, but that you cannot risk losing
• You save extra time because, once you backed up your files, the only files involved in subsequent backups will be new files, and files that have changed
• Redundant storage for your data at more than one datacenter and, in each datacenter, more than one device. So the effective risk of loss is zero. Maybe, if the Earth is destroyed by rockets from outer space, then that will be the end of your data. But it will also be the end of any need to think about your data. Anything less than a full-scale alien attack, and you risk nothing
• You won’t waste time or storage space by uploading duplicated files, because – before files are uploaded – three de-duplication levels are applied: at machine level; at company level; and at global level
• A lifetime of storage of up to 1 TB
• The feeling of total security that comes from knowing that the system rests on Amazon AWS
• Whether you use Windows or Mac, Zoolz Cloud Storage supports you

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