What The Heck is The Cloud?

Today we’re getting down to basics and talking about The Cloud. I know, it's not a sexy subject but it's an important one to demystify so let’s dive in.

Before the internet, we used to save our digital images almost exclusively to our computer. That is to say, all of these files were saved locally on the hard drive that is found inside. Of course, we still do this today with most of us saving at least some of our image collection on our laptop or desktop computers. 

When computer storage was a bit tight, many people used to copy images to optical discs (CD, DVD) to free up space. While still feasible, many computers are no longer sold with disc drives which will make burning discs more and more difficult as the years march on. 

Another popular way to save our image collection is by using attached storage. Attached storage is space that we connect to our computer like an external hard drive or a thumb drive. Many of us use these devices when our computers get short on space - we buy an external hard drive, move a bunch of files to it and feel like we solved our storage issues. External drives generally connect to our computer using a USB connector. 

The last option for image storage is in the cloud. The cloud, very simply, is the internet. If you store images in the cloud, it means you’re transferring them from your computer, over the internet, to be saved on someone else’s hard drives (also known as servers).  

There are many cloud storage providers and chances are you’re already familiar with the services provided by large companies like Apple, Google, or Microsoft. We’ll explore some of the different cloud services available, and the pros and cons of each, in a future post. 

But for now, that’s a wrap on understanding the basics of the cloud. If you have any questions, drop them in the comments below.

p.s. Did you know I’m creating an online course to help families organize their digital photos? Check out this link to learn more!