Online storage, one of the first manifestations of "the cloud," is unavoidable. If you have an iOS or MacOSX device, you have iCloud. If you have a Microsoft product such as Windows 7 or Office 2010, you have SkyDrive and LiveMesh. A Google account merits you tons of storage space via Gmail, Google Drive, and Google Docs. The most popular cloud storage service today is arguably Dropbox, which is lauded for its cross-platform features. However, I have a strong feeling iCloud is tops due to the proliferation of iPhones and iPads.
Some power users are incredibly dependent on their cloud storage, shelling out money to backup their computers to remote servers located elsewhere handled by third-party who-knows-who. Personally, I would rather scrape for a Buffalo NAS or Western Digital external drive than upload all my files to the cloud (or burn them to DVDR).
Unnecessary
For my part, photos, projects, documents, image scans, and my journals are the most essential files in my storage. What isn't essential? Sure, I love my ebook library and my collection of MP3s but they can be easily replaced given time and some money. If you have a few "legal" copies of movies/TV series on your hard drive or a "spank bank" (not that I know anything about that stuff), you don't need to back that up, do you? (Unless you suffer from withdrawal symptoms when you're too long away from Maria Ozawa or Sasha Grey)
"You're going not going to delete me, are you?"
Clean Install
While working as technical support for Dell a decade ago, I remember instances when the situation called for a "clean install". That is, you had to guide the customer to wiping out the hard drive and reinstalling the operating system and drivers (sometimes debug the HDD, too). Now, this scenario normally comes up when the customer thoroughly killed his system or was infected with a virus or just felt the system was too slow. What surprised me was that some customers actually didn't care if they lost all their files. In fact, they were enthusiastic about doing a clean install despite my advice to back up all their files first. In a hundred "clean install" calls, I would probably get maybe 2 or 3 people who told me they'd call back after backing up their files. The rest of the time, the user calmly/cheerfully tells me there was nothing important in the hard drive anyway. I would then spend the next 5 minutes trying to convince the caller that maybe your wife/girlfriend/brother/sister saved some precious files on the system - you should at least check. Back then, hard drives and cloud storage weren't cheap nor were they easily accessible, so I felt worried they were losing a huge chunk of data impulsively.
Today, I like to think users are more sophisticated when it comes to backing up their files. After all, people today spend more money on non-concrete and immaterial purchases such as apps, MP3s, and downloadable movies than ever before. Online storage would be perfect for online consumers because it just makes perfect sense.
Online Storage
My paranoia prevents me from syncing folders (even files) on a regular basis but for moving huge files, online storage is a great alternative to SD cards and flash drives. I've long forgotten my login and password for Mediafire, but I do have a few places to park my files on the Internet:
1. Ubuntu One - As a long-time Ubuntu user, the free storage was just icing on the cake. The storage provided for me when I signed up awhile back was 2GB, but the synchronization feature has improved quite a bit, making it more useful than I thought it would be. I mostly use Ubuntu One to sync Tomboy notes, Evolution e-mail, and backup text files.
2. ASUS Webstorage - ASUS Webstorage, which comes with many ASUS products, has a fairly functional interface and is pretty fast on a good connection. ASUS has apps for Windows, iOS, Android, and even a beta one for Windows 8 though the online web access is pretty friendly and fantastic on its own. ASUS Webstorage is pretty good for archiving compressed projects of a large file size.
3. SkyDrive - With the recently revamped interface, I'm looking forward to using SkyDrive more often though again using too many cloud services is overkill for my simple needs.
4. Dropbox - I signed up for a Dropbox account back when it had the dowdy and plain interface and didn't have much functionality yet. I've been meaning to access it again because it has been gathering cobwebs. I think the free storage will be useful when I decide to do a "clean install" on my Linux or Windows machine.
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