I was more confused than you about what is “Cloud Computing”, the new thing that everybody talks about these days until I decided to do my own research and try to understand more. Unfortunately, most of the articles were too technical they talk about servers, hardware sharing, databases, analytics, blah blah blah, and all these types of jargons which don’t make any sense to me and confused me even more. I didn’t give up, I kept trying until I think I do understand it a bit more now and I am sharing what I learned with you in this article.

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The “Cloud Computing” Simply, is renting someone else (Computer’s Hard Drive) to store your Documents, Pictures, Videos, etc because your computer Hard Disk is getting full, or to save a copy of your critical files on that ”someone else” Hard Drive, to keep them safe.

By the way “someone else” mentioned above might be Google, Microsoft, Dropbox, and many other names.

You may have a question “ Why do we save our critical Data on these people Storage (Hard drive), and why do we trust them?”, and that would be a very smart question.

The answer is that these guys have invested a lot to build huge storage (hard disk), and they designed it in a way that it’s almost unbreakable and very secure, or at least more secure than your own hard disk inside your computer at home.

And we trust them because their business models are based on peoples’ trust, and if they lose our trust, they lose their business.

What is Cloud Computing? To make it even simpler.

As you and your family grow, you need a bigger house and more space. What would you do when your house becomes small to contain all your stuff?

The first thing you would do is to get rid of unnecessary things that you don’t need anymore, you might give them away or chuck them in the bin, or maybe you pay money to other people to take them away.

But what if after all of that, you still have space issues to store the valuable things you want to keep? Options are:

• Buy another bigger house, if you can afford it
• Ask a friend to keep your things for a while
• Rent storage.

It is the exact same story on computers. When we use computers, every day we will be downloading music, movies, etc, and this way the Hard Drive ( where all our family photos, videos, documents are saved) will have less free space until it gets FULL.

Of course, you should not get to that stage, where the hard disk is totally full because that will have major issues you need to avoid, and you should always watch that, and try to take an action when it is getting 70%-80% full.

What options do you have when the hard disk is (70 or 80)% full?

1. Delete unneeded stuff
2. If that was not enough, you would get an external Disk to move some data to.
3. Rent third-party storage (Cloud Computing).

For pint 2 and 3, each option will have its pros and cons

External Disks Verus Cloud Computing

Security

Less secure because if your computer is hacked there is a good chance your external disk is hacked as well.

Synchronization

Nightmare, you have to keep copying your new files to the external disk and make sure there are no duplications, especially if you are a Windows user. If you are a Mac user, you can use Time Machine

Availability:

Risky, Hard drives are the most broken parts of computers. You may use a Solid State Disk which is way faster and has fewer chances to break, but you have to pay more.

Cost:

You buy the External Hard drive and that’s it, the price will depend on the size, the bigger the size the more the price, logic.

Cloud Computing

Security

Is way better than the external disks, because these guys are putting their reputation on the edge. But you always need to remember to have a strong password or even (Two-factor authentication) to access your cloud storage.

Synchronization

Fully automated, all files will be synced to the cloud without doing anything. The cloud is smart and will always make sure you have the last updated version of any file saved to the cloud.

Availability:

Very high, chances of losing data on the cloud is almost zero

Packages And Pricing:

Ongoing, you pay as you go, you can check these pages for more info

Related Questions to Cloud Computing:

Which one is the best Cloud Computing Storage for me?

That all depends on you, if you are a Microsoft Office user, maybe OneDrive is the best choice for you, and if you know how to use Google Docs, Google Sheets, Google Slides which are all for free, then you can go for Google One (or Google Drive, they keep changing these names)

What is the best option for Cloud Storage for small businesses?

Please check the case study done by PC Magazine

https://www.pcmag.com/roundup/350118/the-best-cloud-storage-and-file-sharing-providers-for-busine

What happens if I accidentally deleted a file on the cloud?

Basically, it is the same if you accidentally delete a file on your computer, it goes to the trash bin. Each vendor may have a different technique but they will keep it for you for a certain time (which is normally 30 days), within this period you can recover the file.

How do I backup and restore my data on my PC?

How do I backup and restore my data on my Mac?