Are you making good use of online storage options? If you’re not, you could be missing a trick…and most of them are free.
The likes of Google Docs (soon to be Google Drive), Egnyte, Dopbox, Microsoft’s Live Mesh and many others give you the opportunity to free up space on your laptop, PC or tablet and access your documents wherever you are (as long as you have Internet connection, that is).
These days, you can access your important documents from your mobile smartphone across these online storage platforms, so you’ll always have access to them when you need them.
Here are some things to consider before you take the plunge:
1. Control
Online storage can be a good thing as well as a bad thing. On the one hand it is good because you can be easily control your files from one central location and even share them with other people to view and/edit them. However, since you don’t own or control the storage company anything could happen of the company is bought out or goes bust, for example. So, be sure to do a backup of your important documents to avoid disappointment.
2. Online it is
The main limitation with storing documents online is that they are online. Yes, you can download them, make changes and upload them again, but if you don’t, you’ll need to be online to access them.
So, if you want to have access to your documents while on the go, you’ll need to think about your mobile internet package so you don’t get any surprises when you get your bill.
One potential downside with storing data online is that when the internet goes down, so does access to your documents do always have a backup.
3. Easy to maintain
If you need mote than one person to be able to access documents, using an online storage solution will make it easy to simply give everyone a user name and password to access as required. Internet-based storage is typically browser-based, making it easy for people to use at home as well as in the office.
4. Easy access across multiple platforms
Internet-based storage is accessible regardless of the user’s operating system. With Internet-based storage, everyone can access the files using their operating system of choice, no need to keep upgrading and updating browsers and platforms.
