Cloud storage, what's your thoughts?

Clouds are very convenient; this is a great invention. But I am staying away from them. The reason is, that I don't like the idea of putting all of my eggs in the same basket, or more precisely, in the basket of someone else.

The problem is still the same: hackers prefer to target big companies, more than individual people. There will be the day hackers can enter into a big cloud network, and this will be millions of accounts they can hack at once.

I prefer to keep my data myself, I make backups on external disks, that I do not leave connected to my computer, outside of backup sessions.

Now, about the convenience of sharing data among several devices, that is a very neat feature. You might be able to achieve it yourself ! You can use your own computer as a cloud server. There are several softwares, often free (like ownCloud), that you can install on your home computer, and it lets you share a folder among other devices, including remote devices, like a smartphone or a tablet, worldwide. It's not very hard, but, it requires a minimum effort, and to read tutorials and things like that. But that's very nice.

Some companies are proposing to lease you your own cloud server, for a moderate price. That is also a good alternative.

I don't know in the USA, but in Europe, some ISP are enabling the possibility to use their modem as a cloud server.

Just to say I wouldn't risk to put my data elsewhere. May be I am wrong, and too old, but I think you are never paranoid enough, and careful when it comes to new hardwares and softwares.

John G.

I stayed away from cloud storage.

My worries are :

- loosing my data because of a failure or mistake of the cloud host,
- getting my data stolen by hackers,
- having my data hostages from the cloud host,

So I keep my data at home, I use external disks to make back ups, and I am fine with that.