Head in the Cloud

It's hyperbole, but it's almost entirely true that I keep much of my head -- or at least the important contents -- in cloud storage of some sort.  My embrace of the cloud began after a series of unfortunate coffee spills left my poor laptop gutted and left out to dry in the desperate hope that not everything was erased.  I was able to get the thing on life support long enough to extract a few files, but a lot went the way of the dinosaurs.  I started using a few different types of cloud storage, which I'll discuss here.

Dropbox

Dropbox is one of those services that I hesitated before trying, but now completely rely on.  I was concerned about privacy and permanency of cloud storage for starters.  How did I know this service wasn't just some fad that was going to go out of business in a year or two and delete all of my files with it?  I'd had this problem using photo gallery sites in the past that had gone out of business and deleted my (thankfully, backed-up elsewhere) photos along with it.  I've since come to trust Dropbox for files that won't get my identity stolen, like school papers, creative writing file back-ups, and back-ups of some pictures.  I especially like uploading PDFs of course readings into Dropbox so I can read them on-the-go on my phone.  On my computer at home I have Dropbox's app downloaded so that I can - you guessed it - drag and drop files into it directly without any fuss.

With the free account you get 2GB of storage, and thus far I haven't outgrown it.  I'm not sure I'd ever need the $9.99 1TB storage plan, which is the next upgrade, or the $14.99 business unlimited plan.  But either of those seem relatively affordable for a library who might want to have some cloud storage for their staff.  

Google Drive

Google Drive

Formerly just Google Docs, Google Drive was one of the first cloud storage and collaboration software programs I used.  The best part about Google Drive is that if you have a Gmail account (which many people do), you already have this built in.  No separate passwords to remember!  Inside Google Drive is the original Google Docs, which was a life saver in that post-college pre-job period where I couldn't afford Microsoft Word (which also has a new cloud storage service called One Drive that I haven't tried yet). There is also a basic spreadsheet and slide sharing service.  The things I don't like about Google Drive for my personal use are a bit nit-picky.  I don't like how you can't right-click to copy and paste (instead you have to use keyboard short cuts) and I don't like how all the formatting and fonts available in Microsoft Word get converted when you upload a Word document to Google Drive.  This is pretty petty when you consider that the service is free, so I'll leave it alone.  One thing that does need improving is their mobile app, which got all kinds of confusing when they decided that Google Drive and Google Docs were like, two different things now.  My family uses a Google Doc to keep up a running grocery list that we share with each other, which is our favorite use for it.  I also use Google Drive all the time for collaborating with classmates.

As far as organizational use, our library has been relying on Google Drive pretty heavily during its consolidation with Southern Polytechnic State University.  The downside is that I have to use my personal Gmail account instead of my work email, which seems iffy to me.  I don't like mixing personal life with business, especially when it comes to files.  Libraries that use Gmail as their official work email should have no problem though.  The other problem is that unlike a Dropbox, Google Drive really doesn't work as intended if you only have on institutional account.  To collaborate, comment, and otherwise edit documents together everyone ideally should use their own account.

Carbonite

The final program I have experience with is Carbonite, a service that will back up your secure documents and entire computer for a fee.  We tried doing this with our home computer, which is chock full of years and years worth of high-resolution pictures, home videos, and downloaded music and movies that we store in iTunes.  I have heard that a lot of people have success with Carbonite, but during our first year of service the company was not even able to upload half of the contents of our home computer.  Granted, our computer has external hard drives full of data as well, so we are an extreme case of data hoarders.  If you're interesting in a solution to backing up secure files, I'd look into this as I've heard others have had positive experiences.  The basic personal plan is $59.99 a year though, so if your files aren't that secure you might consider going with a free cloud storage service like Dropbox instead.    

There are limitations for cloud storage, but so far I have appreciated the ease of access to my information as well as the ability to easily share the information with others.  I can access my information on my work computer, home computer, mobile device, and even on a public computer.  Neither software requires downloading anything, although Dropbox does have a downloadable option.  I am in the market for a robust, high storage photo back-up site if anyone has any recommendations?