Wednesday, March 14, 2012

What Is Cloud Storage And Syncing Service And Why Is It Important?

By Timothy Gorecky


Five in every ten people have experienced a computer crash where they lost all of their digital files. This underlines the importance of making back-ups of your files. However, there is also no denying that making back-ups by saving copies of files into external hard drives or optical disks can be tedious and time-consuming. The good news is that there are several cloud computing services available these days.

Apart from safeguarding important data, this type of service will enable you to retrieve documents, pictures, business presentations anywhere provided you have an Internet connection. In other words, you can work off-site like during your international travels. Also, since the data is stored in servers or clouds, you can retrieve and work on files no matter which of your computing devices you decide to use with little or no issues at all.

Fast uploading and downloading, ease of use, and mobile access are features that many consider as must-haves with regards to cloud storage and syncing services. Reliability and security are the biggest concerns about these services. In this regard, when looking around for back-up or syncing software, you have to make sure that it uses encryption, and that actions need to be authenticated and authorized by you, the user. Below are some of the popular cloud services available today and the pros and cons for each.

Backblaze review

Backblaze reviews submitted by end-users highlight the products two strongest points, namely, unlimited storage per PC, and continuous backup monitoring. It also is simple to install, and even has the capability to find a lost computer. The issue commonly pointed out in Backblaze reviews is that it lacks a file sharing capability, and mobile access clients.

Dropbox review

Those who have sent in Dropbox reviews claim that this cloud service is very user-friendly. One strong point of Dropbox is that it is compatible with many operating systems, mobile or otherwise. It is also easy to set up, supports file-sharing, and free accounts give users 2GB to work with. One of criticisms mentioned in Dropbox reviews though is that where exactly the shared data are located on the PC or computing device is somewhat not clearly specified or may take a while to locate initially.

Safecopy review

One of the pros mentioned in Safecopy reviews is that this cloud service does not slow your computer down. This means, you can use this cloud service without affecting your system performance. Like Dropbox, files can be accessed from any computer, smartphone, or other Internet-connected mobile device.

SugarSync review

Consumer and expert opinion about SugarSync are superlative. In fact, Gizmodo stated in its SugarSync review in 2011 that it is essentially everything that consumers can want in a cloud service because it combines the best features from other services and weaves them together into a fast and easy to use package. Another point highlighted in SugarSync reviews is that its free account provides more storage space in comparison to its competitors. One criticism of the software though is that drag-and-drop function from desktop to file manager is not yet available.




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