5 considerations before going for cloud storage

weather_summer_clouds_sunnyToday everyone talks about cloud computing especially digital storage.

There is also saying that you don’t need to carry your USB flash memory around anymore because your cloud storage is already your walking storage.

Companies like Dropbox, Sugarsync, Amazon and many more are making good profit by selling cloud storage space to end users. So, it is clear that the cloud storage has a bright future.

To those who are still new to cloud storage, here are 5 tips for you before going for cloud storage:

1. Storage Space

The first question you need to ask yourself is whether how much storage space you need? Some need as much as hundreds of Gigabytes to store movies while some just need as low as few Gigabytes to store documents. The rule is, you can’t have everything in the cloud because it is not going to be cheap. So, you need to know how much storage space you need in order for you to choose the best provider.

2. Price

As mentioned previously, cloud storage is not cheap. When I say not cheap here, I mean for end users and not business owners. Definitely established business owners will find cloud storage is a cheap and reliable solution, but not for end users and probably business start ups. As a result to that, you should be very careful on what you are paying and do a lot of research before making your final decision.

3. Purpose

Why do you need the cloud storage for? Music? Photos? Movies? Documents? The reason you should consider this is because all the cloud storage providers have certain uniqueness. For example, if you are looking for cloud storage for your documents, then Google Drive is suitable because of the Google Docs engine enables you to edit and save your document on the web browser. If you are looking for file backup, then probably Ubuntu One can do the job because you can just pick any folder on your computer and sync to the cloud. So, if you pick the right cloud with the right purpose, you will be able to enjoy your cloud storage to the fullest.

4. Synchronization capability

Not all the cloud storage offer the similar synchronization feature. Synchronization here means having a folder where you can just put anything inside and it will automatically synchronized to the cloud. Like Skydrive, you can’t choose a folder to sync. If you need Skydrive to sync to the cloud, you must put everything into the Skydrive folder while Ubuntu One works a little more flexible than that. Since all cloud start off by offering you free services, you should try each of the synchronization out to see which suits you the best.

5. Security

Last but not least, you need to know the security that you will have. Provider like Dropbox offers you two factor authentication where you needs to first authenticate with username & password and then the second factor which could be either the SMS, mobile app or even command line. The main question here is, do you need such security? Generally yes, but if you are not storing something critical, such as movies, I do believe Google Drive works better since you can watch your uploaded movies on the web via Google Drive using the Youtube engine.

My Final Say

In my opinion, there is no such thing as the best cloud storage. Every provider has their pros and cons and everything is pretty much rely back to end user whether what is their requirement. I personally think that Skydrive is the best free cloud storage but this does not apply to everyone because large storage space might not be your objective of cloud storage. So, keep trying all the cloud storage before making up a decision to purchase one.

Guest article written by: Alan Tay is a blogger who runs [tp lang=”en” only=”y”]Cloud Storage Tips[/tp][tp not_in=”en”]Cloud Storage Tips[/tp], a blog which publishes posts on cloud computing and [tp lang=”en” only=”y”]free cloud storage providers[/tp][tp not_in=”en”]free cloud storage providers[/tp]. Find out more from his blog on how to make full use of cloud storage

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