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Cloud storage

  • 29-08-2014 1:58pm
    #1
    just do it
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,422 ✭✭✭


    Laptop is dying so considering all things IT. Anyone using cloud storage / computing? Your thoughts?


Comments

  • #2
    Manach
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 9,768 Mod ✭✭✭✭Manach


    There are a number of free offerings out there: Google, Amazon, Dropbox etc. The make a very handy backup for vital documents and given the storage capacities there is rarely a need to buy extra space. Saying that, don't think it is a replacement for a weekly backup to an external drive as uploading data does take some time depending on the connection.


  • #3
    Kovu
    Closed Accounts Posts: 14,241 ✭✭✭✭Kovu


    I use both. Have dropbox and also Google docs for certain files that I may need in a hurry. Used that a lot in college for writing up stuff and saving off different computers.

    But can't beat a TB hard drive, or even a SDHC card.


  • #4
    Roundbale
    Closed Accounts Posts: 57 ✭✭Roundbale


    Using a Microsoft account you now get a onedrive with 25GB storage. Great stuff altogether for all your files and photos. Windows Laptop/Tablet and phone all sync up automatically.

    Dropbox have had a few security issues in the past.


  • #5
    Oldtree
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,109 ✭✭✭Oldtree


    Mega free 50gb here but they like you to use an updated IE or Chrome

    https://mega.co.nz/update.html

    Mediafire 10gb free but I got 50gb in an earlier offer.

    https://www.mediafire.com/

    I go with Mega mostly.

    But I have a 500gb hard drive seperate to the laptop to back up to as well.


  • #6
    just do it
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,422 ✭✭✭just do it


    So what I'm gathering is it's fine for working docs but for larger long term storage of videos, music and photos you're better with a separate hard drive.

    Is anyone being brave enough to use the cloud exclusively? Is that still considered unwise?


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  • #7
    Oldtree
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,109 ✭✭✭Oldtree


    The cloud is fine for sharing, but for anything else back up constantly on a seperate hard drive at home. That way you are covered.


  • #8
    Roundbale
    Closed Accounts Posts: 57 ✭✭Roundbale


    Oldtree wrote: »
    The cloud is fine for sharing, but for anything else back up constantly on a seperate hard drive at home. That way you are covered.

    Cloud only fine for sharing? That's bad advice. Use the cloud for everything. A backup hard drive needs one hop off the ground and it's finished. Any cloud service is backed up multiple times. The obvious constraint of having to be connected to the internet of course.


  • #9
    Tokyo
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 22,656 ✭✭✭✭Tokyo


    just do it wrote: »
    So what I'm gathering is it's fine for working docs but for larger long term storage of videos, music and photos you're better with a separate hard drive.

    Is anyone being brave enough to use the cloud exclusively? Is that still considered unwise?

    Cloud is lovely if you're living in Chicago or similar, where you have constant access to high speed internet, unlimited data, so on and so forth. Not so much so in rural Ireland IMHO. Not to mention that cloud storage goes into ridiculous prices if you're looking to store 100's of gigabytes of videos and such.

    Personally at the moment, price and security wise, you can't beat having an external hard drive (2Tb for less than €100), as backup, and using cloud storage for things that you REALLY don't want to lose, or want to access on the go, where carrying an external hard drive or laptop with you isn't always practical.


  • #10
    tim04750
    Closed Accounts Posts: 216 ✭✭tim04750


    I'd use a solid state hard drive for backup if I was using one at all, had an external hard drive for backup and the effin' yolk died on me , using a couple of 64 gb usb sticks now.


  • #11
    Oldtree
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,109 ✭✭✭Oldtree


    Roundbale wrote: »
    Cloud only fine for sharing? That's bad advice. Use the cloud for everything. A backup hard drive needs one hop off the ground and it's finished. Any cloud service is backed up multiple times. The obvious constraint of having to be connected to the internet of course.

    Your trust in someone else to mind your data is commendable. :rolleyes:


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  • #12
    Roundbale
    Closed Accounts Posts: 57 ✭✭Roundbale


    Oldtree wrote: »
    Your trust in someone else to mind your data is commendable. :rolleyes:

    Are you serious? You think Microsoft or google are capitalizing my photos of fields or excel files of fertilizer usage. You sell tin foil hats too? Ha ha.


  • #13
    AP2014
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 1,090 ✭✭✭AP2014


    just do it wrote: »
    So what I'm gathering is it's fine for working docs but for larger long term storage of videos, music and photos you're better with a separate hard drive.

    Is anyone being brave enough to use the cloud exclusively? Is that still considered unwise?

    Get yourself a 1TB external drive for €70. Also use dropbox or something in the cloud. Always have 2 copies if important info.


  • #14
    Oldtree
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,109 ✭✭✭Oldtree


    Roundbale wrote: »
    Are you serious? You think Microsoft or google are capitalizing my photos of fields or excel files of fertilizer usage. You sell tin foil hats too? Ha ha.

    Not sure what you mean by capitalizing :confused: I'm sure your data is of no value to anyone but yourself.

    Do you think they have a foolproof system that will never go wrong? If you trust them implicitly with your data than you are taking a risk, they are fallible.


  • #15
    Roundbale
    Closed Accounts Posts: 57 ✭✭Roundbale


    Oldtree wrote: »
    Not sure what you mean by capitalizing :confused: I'm sure your data is of no value to anyone but yourself.

    Do you think they have a foolproof system that will never go wrong? If you trust them implicitly with your data than you are taking a risk, they are fallible.

    Nearly all of the higher education institutes in Ireland use Microsoft or google hosted mail and storage. Microsoft store all the data in a data centre in Dublin and replicates it to a data centre in Germany. So no, it's not as fallible as your hard drive.


  • #16
    Oldtree
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,109 ✭✭✭Oldtree


    Roundbale wrote: »
    Nearly all of the higher education institutes in Ireland use Microsoft or google hosted mail and storage. Microsoft store all the data in a data centre in Dublin and replicates it to a data centre in Germany. So no, it's not as fallible as your hard drive.

    It is probably cheaper for them to do so, but that is non-personal data. Data centers can be hacked and data destroyed. My backup hard drive is not connected to the internet and thus impervious to hacking, and I dont hop my hard drive off the floor either.


  • #17
    just do it
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,422 ✭✭✭just do it


    Ok lads back on topic.


  • #18
    just do it
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,422 ✭✭✭just do it


    I have a 1 TB hard drive - Synology I think. I researched if quite a bit at the time and have a sonos speaker which connects wirelessly to it. That's cool as all our CDs are now stored away and from our phones we can scroll through our music collection.

    However between the house laptop, my personal laptop, and phone, it would be good to share between all devices. Moving storage to the cloud would mean easy syncing of docs etc. It would also mean a cheaper laptop.

    So essentially the cloud is good for upto 25GB of storage which will cover all documents. After that you're better off with 1 main computer with regular back-up to the HD.


  • #19
    Tokyo
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 22,656 ✭✭✭✭Tokyo


    Do you need to share all of this stuff outside the home? If it's just a matter of sharing stuff between devices under your own roof, then some kind of NAS storage might be worth looking at....


  • #20
    just do it
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,422 ✭✭✭just do it


    mike_ie wrote: »
    Do you need to share all of this stuff outside the home? If it's just a matter of sharing stuff between devices under your own roof, then some kind of NAS storage might be worth looking at....

    It's coming back to me now as you mention it. The Synology is a NAS hard drive. Yes I'd like access away from home.


  • #21
    just do it
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,422 ✭✭✭just do it


    What are lads using to back up files? I've a programme downloaded on the laptops (allway sync) but between being away with work, different laptops and memory sticks it's easy for docs to go out of sync.

    And now I've also just remembered I back up to a seperate WD hard drive which isn't a NAS. I've the NAS essentially for music. May be I should be making better use of it!


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  • #22
    just do it
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,422 ✭✭✭just do it


    This is the problem when you only half know what you're doing :rolleyes:


  • #23
    Oldtree
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 8,109 ✭✭✭Oldtree


    I know a quarter of what I'm doing :P so all we need is another quarter and we are there :D


  • #24
    just do it
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,422 ✭✭✭just do it


    Now I'm thinking i should have some form of auto-sync of devices to the NAS when they come into the home network. And then use the WD hard drive as the back-up off the network. Does this make sense?


  • #25
    Tokyo
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 22,656 ✭✭✭✭Tokyo


    just do it wrote: »
    It's coming back to me now as you mention it. The Synology is a NAS hard drive. Yes I'd like access away from home.

    Then short of lugging a hard drive with you everywhere, cloud storage is the way to go. In your case though, seeing as you already have a NAS drive at home for general backup, it might be a good idea prioritising what you actually need access to outside of your home, vs what you can leave sitting back at the house. There are various cloud storage providers which offer a certain amount of free space, such as dropbox, which might turn out to be all that you need.


  • #26
    just do it
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,422 ✭✭✭just do it


    mike_ie wrote: »
    Then short of lugging a hard drive with you everywhere, cloud storage is the way to go. In your case though, seeing as you already have a NAS drive at home for general backup, it might be a good idea prioritising what you actually need access to outside of your home, vs what you can leave sitting back at the house. There are various cloud storage providers which offer a certain amount of free space, such as dropbox, which might turn out to be all that you need.
    Yeah I recall now this is one of the reasons I got the NAS. The cloud was in its infancy at that stage and then once we'd the music set up we ran out of steam and more pressing matters took over.

    So basically the NAS will act as a home server and frequently used docs are linked to cloud storage for easy access anywhere.


  • #27
    Tokyo
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 22,656 ✭✭✭✭Tokyo


    just do it wrote: »
    So basically the NAS will act as a home server and frequently used docs are linked to cloud storage for easy access anywhere.

    In a nutshell, yes. Of course if your NAS box were ever to fail, you'd lose all of your files on it. Setting up the NAS box as RAID 1 would be a safeguard against this.


  • #28
    just do it
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,422 ✭✭✭just do it


    mike_ie wrote: »
    In a nutshell, yes. Of course if your NAS box were ever to fail, you'd lose all of your files on it. Setting up the NAS box as RAID 1 would be a safeguard against this.

    Yes but now ill back up the NAS to the WD external hard drive rather than the laptops. Currently I've only music on the NAS I iirc.


  • #29
    HillFarmer
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 580 ✭✭✭HillFarmer


    just do it wrote: »
    I have a 1 TB hard drive - Synology I think. I researched if quite a bit at the time and have a sonos speaker which connects wirelessly to it. That's cool as all our CDs are now stored away and from our phones we can scroll through our music collection.

    However between the house laptop, my personal laptop, and phone, it would be good to share between all devices. Moving storage to the cloud would mean easy syncing of docs etc. It would also mean a cheaper laptop.

    So essentially the cloud is good for upto 25GB of storage which will cover all documents. After that you're better off with 1 main computer with regular back-up to the HD.

    Hey just do it, this sounds like a great setup. One question, do you need a pc turned on with itunes or does the NAS act as the server to play the songs and send to the speakers?


  • #30
    just do it
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,422 ✭✭✭just do it


    HillFarmer wrote: »
    Hey just do it, this sounds like a great setup. One question, do you need a pc turned on with itunes or does the NAS act as the server to play the songs and send to the speakers?

    The NAS is on 24/7 and is plugged into the router. The Sonos speaker is up out of the way and is solely operated from a simple app on our phones. No pc turned on. Neither of these are cheap but it money from a present that I put a few bob with and got something I otherwise wouldn't have got. The Western Digital 1T hard drive I'd picked up a few years ago for less than €100.


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