What is Cloud Storage?

You may keep asking yourself, what is cloud storage? It’s a data management solution that lets you keep your data and documents safe in an off-site location. It can get accessed anytime from anywhere, but not by anyone. Only a person with the password can access it, using a public or private internet connection. As soon as you transfer all your data and files to the cloud, the storage becomes the concern of a third party who is the cloud provider.

It is their responsibility to keep your data safe and away from the hands of hackers and unknown individuals

The past few years have witnessed hundreds of technological revolutions. Yet, none has comprehended the advantages of using cloud storage. Do you know what is the benefit of saving data in a cloud? It ensures that you get what you need from the cloud with no delay!

This article is going to share some quick benefits of Cloud storage and the providers currently leading the market.

What are the Potential Benefits of Cloud Storage?

Well, there is not one but many advantages. For instance, when you use computer hard drives, you can only save a finite number of files, documents, and data. Probably with less capacity than you need. Upon facing this problem, you may get moved to make storage area networks (SANs) where they can archive data and files.

BUT, hold up! That will be too expensive.

What other option do you have that should be safe, easy, and economical?? YES, CLOUD STORAGE!

Here are a few more advantages:

Cloud storage is easy to use and maintain.
Secure
Virtually Unlimited Capacity. It provides elasticity and allows you to increase the storage capacity as much as you have to.
Cost-effective as they will help you save from paying extra dollars for storage technology and capacity.
You can access the data from anywhere. All you need is a stable internet connection.
A scalable alternative to on-premise hard drives or storage networks.
Considering off-site management, you can minimize your staff.
It lets you exercise a quick implementation. You can set up things effortlessly in no time.
Business continuity is a key appeal. Your data gets stored and saved offsite, where it’s secure from natural tragedies or terrorist attacks.

Types of Cloud Storage

There may be many categories, but let’s start with the basics:

Object Storage with vast scalability, flexibility, and metadata options. You can use Object storage solutions such as Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3) to enhance the features.
File Storage. Making a secure file system supported with a NAS (Network Attached Storage) server. It helps you keep large content away from the eye of hackers.
Block Storage. Dedicated, ultra-low latency storage designed to deliver high performance even in unbearable workloads

Jumping to the next domain, the cloud storage is available in:

Public storage clouds – A storage cloud that you can access by the third-party (cloud provider) and other companies who are in the loop of clouds storage services
Private cloud storage – A cloud storage only you, as a user, can access. Banks and retail companies mostly use this method
Hybrid cloud storage – A combination of both private and public cloud storage characteristics. It comes with the choice of uploading data to any of the clouds, private or public. It means, you can save your high-security and sensitive info in a strict private cloud whereas less sensitive in the public cloud.

Issues that May Emerge

You may experience some security concerns such as occasional breaches even after updating IT solutions and technologies
Control of third-party (cloud service providers) over your accessing, transferring, sharing, and monitoring your saved data
With high traffic or slow networks, you may encounter delays in data transmission. It happens particularly when using shared public internet.
The regulatory compliance might restrict you and disturb your business comfortability. Complying with strict rules can get really bizarre.
Data privacy and archival rules can create uneasiness.

Leading Cloud Storage Providers

IDrive

Understandable working
Easy to maintain
Loaded with standard features
Outstanding custom support
Best for personal backups

pCloud

Easy to manage
An economical option
Lots of Media management tools
No option for live chat for phone support

Sync.com

Ideal for legal, healthcare, and accounting business
Free 5GB storage
Encrypted storage
Robust privacy laws
Saves files with no size limits
Likable security features

Google Drive

15GB free storage
Backup Support
Integration with Google Docs
Don’t have strong privacy rules
Easy team collaboration

Cloud storage is an off-site model or storage space where you can store data. Digital data gets stored on the cloud using the internet. These storage services get managed and maintained by third-party service provider companies. They manage and regularly backup your data.

These services are very much secure, fast, and easy to use from anywhere.

You do not need physical storage servers on multiple locations managed by the hosting company. You can store data on a safe remote database. You can easily access our data safely and securely from anywhere on the go, anytime.

Let’s dig deeper:

How Does Cloud Storage Work?

When you need cloud service, you purchase it from third-party service providers. Based on the purchased services plan, these vendors manage the capacity and security to ensure maximum uptime and high quality. Service should be accessible from anywhere worldwide through traditional protocols or via API.

It works as a network of connected data servers to share files across various devices and upload files to servers and access the data via the website, desktop app, or mobile app. There are various cloud storage benefits that you can use for commercial and personal purposes. First, It’s available in different forms, including private storage, public storage, and hybrid storage.

You do not need any own storage device to keep files and apps. There is no risk of losing data as there are regular backup options. You can easily share the contents via links or API with anyone in your team or organization. You need to pay only for how much capacity you used to store data. Cost can get minimized whenever you want by changing your plan or membership.

Cloud storage allows you to store, access, backup any files over the internet. You can protect and recover data easily over the internet. You can upload any file and access it from various locations on multiple devices.

Leveraging this will also reduce the resources as per business requirements.

Cloud Storage Benefits

Low Total Cost of Ownership

One of the top benefits is the total cost of ownership. The cost of ownership of cloud storage is low. You are saving time for your own staff to manage things. You are also just paying for the resource being used. You can opt-out of the service whenever you want to bring down the cost, and opt-in again whenever needed. Here we do not need any hardware to purchase for the storage of the data or files.

Quick Deployment

The time needed to deploy the data over cloud storage is very little. This facilitates you to concentrate more on solving the complex application problem instead of focusing on managing the storage systems.

Information Management

Management of information becomes quite easy with the help of cloud computing as you can sync all your devices to have the same information from the cloud. You can lock down your data with the help of cloud storage life-cycle management policies.

Off-site Management

We do not need to deploy additional staff to take care of store data. The cloud service provider takes care of it.

Quick Configuration

It is quite easy to configure and access cloud storage services. So time to set up things is very competitive.

Cons of Cloud Storage

The cons of Cloud storage are:-

Security

Cloud services present data vulnerability risk, especially that data gets managed, transferred, and accessed through the internet.

Administrative Control

Cloud service administrators can view or access the data without your permission, so it is a big drawback of cloud storage.

Cloud Storage Service Providers

Conclusion

It is now clear that Cloud Storage helps you to store and access your data and resources globally from anywhere. Cloud storage makes life easier, by enabling quick and easy access to data even on mobile devices.

You can leave us a comment below to add some more benefits if you know any.

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