The Future of Storage
By Shea Garner
Say goodbye to your passé storage drives of the external, thumb, and flash variety: cloud storage is here. Although it has been available to the public for a number of months from giants such as Google and Amazon, Steve Jobs and Apple have seemingly arrived at a final solution: iCloud.
Cloud storage is a system in which your files and data are stored on a large external server, provided by companies like Apple and Google. Your wireless computer or device can access your music, video, and other files from virtually anywhere.
Now there is no need to worry about pesky and expensive external hard drives to store your indie music side-project or avant-garde Sundance entry—they’re stored in the cloud to be accessed anywhere. Transferring stolen porn videos from your computer to a friend’s can now be done without hassle by simply accessing them wirelessly from the cloud.
Choosing which cloud service to use can be tough. Before you choose to side with Amazon or enter the Apple universe, here is a rundown of what each company has to offer:
Google offers a $5 a month no-contract plan with unlimited storage space. A one-year contract can also be purchased for $60. They’ll also sync your Google accounts like Gmail and calendar with Microsoft Outlook for easy email and scheduling. This seems like the perfect choice for a Maxwell or Whitman graduate.
Amazon
Upon sign-up, Amazon will give you 5gb of storage space for free and anything beyond that is charged per gigabyte. The rates are low and the options are pretty basic. The music available to purchase in the Amazon mp3 store will be transferred directly to the cloud to be played anywhere -- like Funk n’ Waffles.
Apple
Apple clearly has the upper hand here. They are offering the iCloud for free for anyone with an Apple device and account (aka: do you buy from iTunes?). Anything downloaded or sent on your Mac is automatically synced with your iPhone, iPod, or iPad to be played anywhere on your account. But Apple is offering another killer deal -- they will automatically store all of your illegally downloaded music and replace it with iTunes quality tunes in the cloud. That’s right, all of that Ke$ha you got from MediaFire can be played on all of your devices at a mean 256kps. Hot damn.
The verdict: enslave yourself to Apple. If the upgrading of illegal music did not sell you, remember it is free. Perfect for a college student’s budget.