Insure your Data!
Meet Sorry Sally, a graduate student and top executive at a major company. Sorry Sally uses her laptop to store all her academic, business and personal files.
During a routine backup, her computer crashes and all her data is lost! This happened the night before a major term research paper and a work presentation are due!
Sounds familiar? “What could Sorry Sally have done differently?”, you ask? She could have used cloud storage as a file disaster recovery mechanism. Cloud storage is a cloud computing model in which data is stored on remote servers accessed from the Internet, or “cloud.” It is maintained, operated and managed by a cloud storage service provider on storage servers that are built on virtualization techniques. Prime examples of cloud storage are your email providers and cloud storage providers. Below are descriptions of 4 free cloud storages.
- Google Drive: Google automatically offers 15GB of Google Drive storage (files, photos, videos and emails) to individuals who own a Gmail account. Your files are accessible from the web portal or your devices and are editable on-the-go. You can also, set permissions and share files and folders with anyone. It however, tends to duplicate files when faced with syncing issues.
- OneDrive Personal: 5GB of OneDrive cloud storage is automatically offered to persons with Microsoft accounts. Your files are accessible from the web portal or your devices and can be edited using Microsoft Online or the Microsoft Office. Additionally, OneDrive allows you to set permissions and share files and folders with anyone. However, OneDrive tends to have credential syncing issues especially within Windows 10.
- Dropbox: You are given 2GB when you sign up for a Dropbox account. You can, however, earn more space using referrals (500MB for each friend who joins, up to 16GB). Once the Dropbox app is installed, you can access your files from any of your devices. Also, you can share your files and folders but the individual must have a Dropbox account in order to view or use the shared documents unless you share a link.
- Box: Box gives you 10GB of storage when you sign up for a personal account. You can access your files across your devices once the Box app is installed or using the web portal. Box allows you to upload/create popular file types and folders. However, you can only upload 250MB in one go. You can also collaborate with individuals on documents.
The truth is many of us are like Sorry Sally. We believe our laptops and devices are invincible. We need to be prepared in the event they do fail our expectations. If the cloud doesn’t catch your fancy, you can always opt to use an external drive to preserve your data. The important thing is to ensure that you have a data recovery method in place.
Place value on your photos, music, files and videos. Don’t be a Sorry Sally! Backup up your data.
Chanel Robe is a Business Analyst Intern at tTech Limited. She can be contacted at 656-8448 or by email at chanel.robe@ttech.com.jm.