Cloud storage is believed to have been invented by computer scientist Dr. Joseph Carl Robnett Licklider in the 1960s. About two decades later, CompuServe began to offer its customers small amounts of disk space in order to store some of their files. In the mid-1990s, AT&T launched the first all web-based storage service for personal and business communication. Data storage demand is expanding at an exponential pace. In a recent Aberdeen Study (“How Much Of Your Data Should Be In The Public Cloud?”), companies polled indicated that typical data storage needs were rising at a rate of over 30% per year. This is a trend that is forcing IT managers to review their current IT infrastructure and proactively obtain increasingly cost-effective ways to store the increased data safely and with the same or better level of access that they enjoy today. Cloudnine
Advantage of hard drive
Most people store their photos, videos, and content files on their desktop or laptop hard drives. Storage devices are the computer hardware used to remember/store data. Physical storage includes devices like external hard drives, SD cards, and flash drives. There are some real advantages to such storage devices. This type of storage device allows users to access their files without internet connection and share their information by actually handing their media to others, knowing that no one else will be able to tamper with the information. The advantage of these devices is a fast read and write speed; shock and drop resistance; low power consumption; no noise; large operating temperature range and lightweight.
The issue with physical media is the possibility that the device itself will break when dropped or may become lost. Due to the nature of its moving parts, they will eventually wear and break due to their limited life. Another disadvantage is a small capacity. There can be Hard drive failure or due to malware/virus attack sometimes it is impossible to recover data.
But you want to keep your data safe, secure, and accessible. You have various options for storage, but some are choosing to rely on a growing trend: cloud storage. Cloud storage refers to saving data to an off-site storage system maintained by a third party and accessing through the internet. This is in contrast to the computer’s hard drive (or network).
The cloud is simply a metaphor for the Internet.
The terms “cloud storage” and “cloud computing” are oftentimes used interchangeably. One may be tempted to believe they have the same meaning, but this is far from the truth. Cloud computing and cloud storage have a lot in common, but they are actually different concepts.
What is Cloud Storage?
Cloud storage is essentially a system that allows you to store data on the Internet, as you would save on a computer. Typically, you connect to the storage cloud either through the internet or a dedicated private connection, using a web portal, website, or a mobile app. Google Drive, DropBox, or iCloud, Google Apps, MailChimp,iCloud all are examples of cloud storage. It enables you to upload data through the Internet to cloud-based servers. Once you’ve stored your data on the cloud, you or any other person having authorized access can use it from multiple devices using the Internet. Cloud storage is quickly replacing physical storage systems. Cloud storage, is utilized both for professional and personal reasons. Cloud storage is simply a data storage and sharing medium.
Advantage of cloud storage
1..Businesses use cloud storage to store documents and share them with others. It helps in preserving your important documents and files.
2. It gives you almost unlimited data storage space.
3. it’s cheaper and more secure than traditional storage mediums.
4. Cloud storage services provide elasticity, which means you can scale capacity as your data volumes increase or dial down capacity if necessary.
5.By storing data in a cloud, your organization save by paying for storage technology and capacity as a service, rather than investing in the capital costs of building and maintaining in-house storage networks. You pay for only exactly the capacity you use.
6.Cloud storage stores the same data on multiple machines for redundancy. In case a server is taken down for maintenance or suffers an outage, you can still access your data.
Disdvantage of cloud storage
1. Security concerns are common with cloud-based services
2. Delays in data transmission to and from the cloud can occur as a result of traffic congestion
Three type of cloud storage
There are three main cloud-based storage access models: public, private, and hybrid. Public cloud storage services provide a Multi-tenant storage environment that is most suited for unstructured data on a subscription basis. Data is stored in the service providers’ data centers with storage data spread across multiple regions or continents. Customers generally pay on a per-use basis similar to the utility payment model. This market sector is dominated by Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3), Amazon Glacier for cold or deep archival storage, Google Cloud Storage, Google Cloud Storage Nearline for cold data, and Microsoft Azure.
Cloud computing gives you the ability to remotely work on and transform data (for example, coding an application remotely). Cloud computing is essentially targeted towards businesses.
