What is life like when all your files are in the cloud?
Move your files to the cloud and stop worrying about them
Updated: 2020–06–15
Are you the reluctant IT guy for your family and friends? I am for mine. I’m consumed with how to get photos off of phones, where to store them, and how to share them. I tirelessly organize financial documents, health records, credit card statements, and other files. Thankfully a lot of it is already digital, so I can skip the scanner. But it takes a lot of work to fight the digital sprawl.
Years ago, if a blazing fire were to have broken out in my house and my family members could have grabbed only one thing to save, my daughter would have grabbed her favorite stuffed animal. My wife would have reached for her purse and made it to safety. I probably would have died of smoke inhalation disconnecting our NAS, tucking away our USB sticks and drives, and grabbing our laptops.
It was clear that I had a very bad problem. (But a fixable problem, at least).
These days, I’m a lot more laid back now that my files are in the cloud. Here are some reasons why.
No more hunting for photos on physical media
“Hey, do you know where that photo is of my cousin and I on our trip last year?”
Those kinds of questions used to precede a chaotic flurry of searching laptop hard drives, my NAS, USB sticks, memory cards, Facebook, and cloud storage to find that one file for some project that’s bound to be underappreciated by the recipient in the end. But now at least the file is in the cloud… I still have to find it, but it’s much easier.
And if I would have been willing to use Google+ for my photos, I could have used their visual image search capability to make it even easier. The cloud enables these capabilities.
No more buying storage hardware
Drop $300+ for a 5-bay NAS. Set it up. Buy disks. Replace case fan. Replace disks as they go out. Buy newer, bigger disks. Rinse. Repeat. (Well, I certainly hope you never have to buy yet another NAS).
Buy USB drive, backup stuff from my computer… now I have multiple copies to manage… NO! Physical media sprawl! Rinse. Repeat. See therapist. Take anti-depression meds.
It’s easier to outsource this to a cloud storage provider. Even the $300 NAS chassis without disks could pay for a few years of service. Physical storage has rapidly been going out of style. For years, the best laptops haven’t even bothered to include a built-in DVD drive.
The internet rules. And by extension, cloud storage rules.
Sharing files becomes natural
USB drives, memory sticks, and SD cards, get misplaced, stolen, broken, or traded around until you’ve lost track of them. Also, there are multiple copies of files to juggle now. Dropbox largely solved this problem back in 2007 by allowing instantaneous, simple sharing with weblinks. Later on, folder sharing became ubiquitous, allowing deeper levels of collaboration.
Interestingly enough, while sharing seems to have been around for a while now, I think how we work with our files in the cloud is still evolving.
No more lugging my laptop around
I used to drag my work laptop home from the office every night. I don’t anymore. All the files I need are in the cloud… OneDrive has my Word and Excel docs, and GitHub has the code I need to access. So I can leave the machinery at work and still be able to work from my home computer or mobile device.
Bonus: it makes moving your company, occasionally working from home, and even fully remote working much easier, too. Everything can be light-weight and mobile.
Desktop sync minimizes downtime effects
Do I ever worry that the storage service will become unavailable right when I need it? Yes, there are a lot of 9’s after the 99% availability that’s promised, but… it’s my job to worry. Desktop sync has my back. I can work on changes even if there’s a brief power or network outage.
Zero-knowledge encryption ensures that hackers can’t hack
Nothing is safe anymore. Everything must be encrypted, and you must control your own keys. I’ll admit I don’t care about hackers getting into a lot of the stuff I have in the cloud (e.g. photos, files from various personal projects, etc.) as long as they leave it alone.
I do care about things that have social security numbers and other private data, though. And for those things, I’d feel safe only if I had a zero-knowledge encryption solution handy (e.g. odrive) for that set of important files.
So go ahead, take a load off and relax.
Get your files into the cloud and stop worrying about them. And your family’s files or your company’s files. Then kick your feet back and enjoy some peace and comfort, finally.
And while you’re at it, take a look at how odrive can further transform your cloud storage experience even more… odrive isn’t a cloud storage provider itself, but we offer a way to unleash the full benefits of the cloud with whatever existing cloud storage you use.
- Consolidate access to all your storage under one login
- Get infinite, flexible sync to everything (even sources like Amazon Drive which don’t have a sync client)
- Protect your files through strong, zero-knowledge encryption
The cloud is still changing everyday lives!
