11 Cloud Storage Facts And Features

Cloud Storage Facts And Features

Cloud Storage Facts And Features

Today we’ll be discussing some cloud storage facts and features in general. I’ve decided to do this since it can and hopefully will be beneficial to a lot of you.

Now we know what cloud storage is and what are all the advantages of using it (if you haven’t read it yet click here). But there are some terms in this industry that might be unknown to some of you. Various cloud storage providers offer different features that can be more or less beneficial to the user. I don’t have a favourite regarding this since they’re all different and offer distinctive features. However, some general terms are present in each cloud storage service. Here’s the list.


Cloud Storage Features explained:

Hosting companies often offer multiple features, while saving data to the “cloud” remains the “main” thing.


Synchronisation (File syncing) – What this essentially means is that whatever you save to your cloud on one device will be accessible on any other device as well. Whether it is videos, images, documents or music – it can all be placed into the cloud. Most of the hosting companies already have this implemented, because it just represents the very essence of cloud storage. Upload your data at work and access it when you come home. They also create a desktop version, which looks like an imaginary drive to which you can store your files. It’s much more easy to use the desktop version instead of logging into your account in your browser over and over again. It came as a surprise to me when I first saw it. It just seemed such a fascinating way to store your data. It’s just there, waiting for you like it was on your computer. Amazing. Here’s an example of how that looks.

Cloud Storage Facts And Features pCloud Drive

One of our readers remembered me of something that we used to, and some are still using today – Sending an e-mail full of files to yourself. This is something you won’t have to do anymore with this feature enabled. You upload it on one end, and it shows up on the other.

pCloud, Sync.com and Dropbox provide excellent synchronisation.


Cloud Storage Facts And Features Backup example

Backup – While cloud storage requires you to save your data online manually, the backup feature enables you something better. It allows your data to be seamlessly transferred to the cloud for safe keeping. This comes very handily in case your hard drive breaks, or you lose your smartphone/notebook. Another way of using this is by downloading backup applications on your mobile, which are many times provided by the cloud storage companies already. You can just choose to store your photos in your backup folder, deleting the photos saved on the phone and that way creating an unlimited storage.

Multiple cloud storage services don’t even have the backup option available. On the other hand, there are a lot of them that focus precisely on backing up your files.

Here’s an example of the backup feature on an iPhone.


Cloud Storage Facts And Features pCloud share options

Share files – The feature already explains itself. Are you working on a school assignment with your friends or a project with your colleagues? Use the various options through which you can share your files. You can add your folders into joined use, or you can just create download links that you can then share with your friends. I guess this is one of the features that you don’t have on your hardware storage. To be honest, I can’t imagine working without cloud storage support. In the last few years, it’s become such a widely spread way to store your data, in particular between the businesses. Not to mention the personal users that are counted in hundreds of millions, but we’ll get to that later.


Object versioning – Cloud storage allows you to enable this feature. Once you enable this, a history of modifications of files is kept for all objects. This allows you to retrieve older versions of your files or even get your deleted files back. Every object has some properties attached to it which make it easier for you to recognise it. When you delete an object that has this feature enabled, a copy of the object is automatically saved with properties that will help you identify it. I guess I should warn you that not all of the service providers offer this feature in the free plans. Moreover, some don’t even have it in their payable plans.


Retrieving files – It’s a similar thing to object versioning. What some/most cloud services offer either by default or by installing various add-ons is for you to retrieve the files you deleted. Some have a time limit in which you can recover the data while the others store them indefinitely. They’re usually stored in a “trash” or “deleted files” folder. If you can’t find it, that means it’s probably not available on your current plan. You can contact me, and I will be glad to help you by doing the research instead of you or just providing you with the information straight from my head. You can also check my reviews section for more information. Here’s an example of it.

Cloud Storage Facts And Features pCloud retrieve feature

3rd party programs – One example of this is Box. It has 3rd party programs like Microsoft Word, Powerpoint, Google Documents, Google sheets and other integrated within the program itself. It’s one parameter that you should look at when deciding on what cloud storage to use. Not many cloud services have 3rd party applications integrated.


Cloud Storage Facts


Popularity

  • Cloud storage is becoming one of the most favorite ways to save your data.

Security measures

  •  3/4 of service providers intend to increase or have increased their budget for the safety measures in 2016.

The number of users is going through the roof

  • There are about 1600 millions of cloud storage personal users worldwide, which equals to 1,6 billion.

Global cloud service revenue from storage services

  • Global cloud service revenue from storage services is about 4 billion in U.S. dollars.

Mobile data traffic

  • A whopping 85% of data is transferred through cloud services.

Lifetime cloud storage plans

Data has been retrieved from Statista.com. Check it out for more extensive information.



What do you think of the above cloud storage facts and features? Let me know down below!

20 thoughts on “11 Cloud Storage Facts And Features”

  1. Hi Dejan, thanks for the information on your site. I am fairly new to cloud storage. If I were to do a complete backup of my PC to the cloud would it be stored as one large file? If I had to perform a backup later and grabbed it from the cloud, would this be done automatically? I’ve been doing my back-up to external hard drives and am wanting to go away from that. I look forward to your response.
    Jerome

    1. Dejan Administrator

      Hello,

      Many backup services allow you to choose exactly which files you want to have backed up. Once you decide on that all the files will be transferred to their servers, not as one large file, but individual files. While on their servers you can always download them separately back to your computer, if something goes wrong. So if you had to perform a backup you would just have to pick which files you wish to be retrieved back to your computer and it would be done automatically.

      Dejan

  2. I’m yet to move into full utilisation of the power of cloud services you know, Dejan? Except of course with file sharing between companies I work with as a strategist, which I was kind of reluctant to take up in the first place but because they insisted. I appreciate the other uses your post highlighted, they’ll definitely make me a smarter user. Cheers

    1. Dejan Administrator

      Hello Koko,
      I am glad you found the post useful. If you have any questions don’t hesitate to ask me.
      Thanks for stopping by.
      Dejan

  3. Hey there.

    Cloud storages has saved my life more than once and the best use I’ve found for it is to sort my stock photos for figure drawing. I can literally store thousands of them on Dropbox and easily open them on my phone, iPad or computer. A real steal that’s much more intuitive like iCloud.

    Thanks for sharing!

    Cheers,
    Anh

    1. Dejan Administrator

      Hello there,

      As you said there are many benefits of using cloud storage. Dropbox is indeed one of the best cloud services and you won’t miss if you go for it. Thank you for stopping by.

      Deja

  4. Samsung mobile phone took the ability of users to add external memory cards into their phones because of cloud storage. Apps like dropbox and google drive are the best and most commonly used cloud storage nowadays. They are very easy to use and free from fees and subscriptions. I think this is why 85% of mobile traffic goes through the cloud.

    1. Dejan Administrator

      Hello there Von,
      I was just thinking about that today. I personally own an iPhone and as you know you have the 16,32 and 64 GB versions. And each version costs about 100$ more. This will change, now that cloud storages are getting more and more popular. Ther will be no point in paying for the 64 GB version since you can just store all your files in the cloud. Thank you for stopping by!
      Dejan

  5. Hi Dejan,

    Thank you for such an informative post. I’m a techie myself but I have been finding it difficult helping some family members backup their data as safeguard from loss. The conversation can be frustrating.

    For techies I really find it handy to be able to share files securely with clients or colleagues. Much of the information my clients trust me with is proprietary and needs to be protected.

    I’m going to show my dad your post and see if he can finally get it!

    Britt

    1. Dejan Administrator

      Hello Britt,

      I am glad you found the post informative and with some luck your dad will find it too.

      Thanks for stopping by.

      Dejan

  6. lifebeginswithyourhealth

    Very interesting and tempting article to learn more about cloud storage, you have shared very useful facts and features of this cloud storage in this article.

    Many people including myself are hesitant about this cloud storage for security reasons, as you shared in your article they are increasing security so does that mean this is not super secure at this time?

    1. Dejan Administrator

      Hello there,

      Thank you for your remarks. I am aware that there is still a lot of people that are not quite sure whether to trust the cloud storage. And I agree with them. If you look at this, you’re saving all these files that are perhaps the most important thing in the world, to somebody or some organization that you don’t even know. Questions like yours come up to many people. Well my answer to you is this: As long as you pick the right cloud service provider, your files are SAFE. As for the fact that cloud storages are increasing security measures, it doesn’t mean that they’re not safe now. It just means that they’re investing even more money in order to protect it’s clients. pCloud for example is one service that I would trust 100%. There are so many more that you can use without thinking about security, because they do provide it. Check the list here.

      Hopefully that answers your question.

      Dejan

  7. Online storage such as the cloud has always left me feeling leery. You seem to know a lot about the cloud though which has slowly gained my curiosity. My way of backing things up seems to be becoming obsolete and with as much writing as I do I could stand to use an upgrade. Thanks for the information

  8. Cloud storage has always been a fuzzy subject for me especially after a lot of news stories on some cloud services getting attacked. After this review, it’s easy to see that Cloud computing is the future and my fear of it is likely just fear of the unknown. It’s good to see companies increasing their security budget because now this makes me feel that they are paying attention to security. I use dropbox for personal use but will consider using it for it’s business features as well.

    1. Dejan Administrator

      Hello there Jerry,

      Cloud services will always be under attacks from hackers etc. What’s changing is that they have already and are improving various security measures. For example the pCloud cloud storage – They made an annoucment that they’re going to give 100.000$ to any hacker that manages to hack their Crypto protection. A year after nobody managed to do that. It just tells you how safe cloud storages are getting and as long as you pick the right one, you have nothing to worry about.

      Thanks for stopping by.

      Dejan

  9. Great article. I’ve always been hesitant about using a cloud. I have it on my phone but disabled it. I might enable it and give it a try. After reading this, I might give it a try. Thanks.

    1. Dejan Administrator

      I am glad I managed to help you out. If you run into any problems, feel free to contact me.

      Dejan

  10. I back up my data with portable hard drives and flash drives. I haven’t as yet gone with the cloud option, mainly because I am concerned about the security. You said that 3/4 of service providers will increase security measures. I wonder though whether any system is 100%. Are there any that come close to that?

    1. Dejan Administrator

      Hello there!

      There are multiple options you can pick from. Any cloud service that is any good has their own protection system. Many of them offer you to additionally protect and encrypt your files. Even the bad ones have some sort of a protection system in place, but we can only wonder how “bullet-proof” is that.

      What I would suggest you to do is read some of the reviews and choose the one that fits you the most. One that does come close or actually is 100% proof is pCloud. You can check why is that in the review here.

      I hope that helped you.

      Dejan

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