How Safe is Your Data in "The Cloud"?

There has been so much said about "The Cloud" over the last few years. There are so many companies that are telling everyone to store you information in the cloud, so that you have access to it where ever you are. So what is "The Cloud"? In reality is a place that has many servers, thousands of hard drives and a lot of complex computer equipment. People are encouraged to put their data in "The Cloud" so that it can be accessed from almost anywhere and where it will be "safe" from loss.

So the other day I was going through my email and my interest was peaked by a headline about a site MEGAUPLOAD that was shut down by government because they were storing illegal data on their site, as well as legitimate information. The shutting down of this site not only stopped those where were following the "wrong path", it also shut down all of the legitimate users of the site. Not only were those users denied access to their information, it is highly likely that all of their date WILL BE LOST forever.

So many people think that since my information is in the cloud, it is safe. So you take all of your family photos, movies of your kids, pictures of your parents and all of the memorable memories and upload them to the cloud. Then one day that site is no longer available. it is gone because, another company bought it and decided to delete all of the old data, or the fee for storage is increased or maybe you stuff was up there for free and it is no longer free. How do you get the data (photos, papers written, memories, movies) back? Did you back it up somewhere else, like on your computer, on a thumb drive, on a CD or DVD, or another site? My guess is probably not. It is lost, gone,deleted.

Lets take this one step further on, you are a Real Estate Agent, you have been in the business for a long time 10, 15, 20 years and you have accumulated a large data base of past clients, prospects, contacts, friends, leads, etc. and all of this information (name, address, email address(s), phone numbers, source, relationship, birthdays, anniversaries, date property was sold or purchased, everything about your client. You have loaded all of this information to "The Cloud" and have not backed it up for a year or two, the laptop that all of this information was replaced and the old hard drive was reformatted. In short all of the original data is gone. Then you find out that "the cloud" no longer words, that site is gone.

What do you do now?

For a link to the article I was referring to Cllck Here. I encourage you to read the article and review the comments, I found them to be  very interesting

As a reminder, no matter where your data is. be sure you have a copy of it somewhere else, just in case it disappears.

Your ccomments on"How Safe is Your Data in "The Cloud"?" are invited.