You’re having your morning coffee, sitting at your desk, not fully awake and suddenly- you drop your hot beverage all over your external drive. Your pictures, gone. Your documents, gone. Your memories, gone. Now let us imagine you dropped your coffee on your laptop, but you have cloud storage, you’re completely in the clear. External drives for the longest time used to be the favored method for storing data. It’s a one time purchase, you do not need an internet connection to access it, and it’s relatively quick. But what if you had the option to have a secure storage system, that ensures longevity, is cost friendly, guarantees recovery of your data no matter what, and can be accessed from anywhere? The answer is simple – you convert.

Cloud storage has gained a lot of popularity due to the many advantages it offers and the peace of mind it provides. To begin, let me offer a brief description of what cloud storage really entails; It’s an easy to use online system that allows you to store, back up and retrieve your data much like a hard drive, but from remote servers using an internet connection. Some of the advantages need to be highlighted, if you need further convincing.

1)  Secure system

Many people seem to think that external drives are safer than cloud storage. What people fail to take into consideration is that your hard drive can get lost, and your data can be easily stolen or viewed by third parties. With cloud storage however, you don’t need to worry about that. Many providers such as Polarbackup have military grade AES-256 encryption, in other words your data is secured with the highest possible levels of encryption, while also being GDPR compliant.

2) Cost

For many individuals and businesses, external drives are just not going to cut it storage wise. If they have to buy enough drives for all their data it is going to be costlier than signing up with a cloud service, in many cases 10x or even 20x the cost of equivalent cloud storage. Considering that external drives have a 3-4-year life span, it’s far more cost effective to use a cloud service.

3)  Longevity

As mentioned above, external drives have a very short life span in comparison to cloud storage. You can keep your data stored for as long as you want in the cloud, some cloud storage services even offer lifetime plans if that’s something you’re looking for.

4)  Data recovery

Things happen in life, our laptops crash, are external drives get lost or damaged, but that doesn’t mean our data should suffer. The beauty of cloud is that it allows a user to retrieve their data from anywhere, provided there’s an internet connection. You never have to worry about losing your data again.

5)  Variety

Due to the rise in popularity of cloud, so many different companies have different plans in place for you to choose from to match your needs. Whether its difference in storage capacity, price, speed, number of users, connected devices or even features like AI, you will be sure to find the perfect cloud partner to suit your needs.

In summary, cloud offers more advantages and peace of mind, which is enough of a reason to convert to cloud and ditch your external drive. With the vast number of providers out there and plans in place, you’re sure to find the right one for you. 

Find out more about our products and pricing by visiting www.polarbackup.com