Advances in cloud computing make storage easy

Internet giants Google Inc., Amazon.com Inc. and Facebook Inc. have relied for years on cloud computing, where information is split up and stored across large networks of remote servers, or rather than all in one place. When storing a holiday dinner photo, to illustrate, Google slices it into many shreds of data that are at the time duplicated and sent to dozens of data centers all over the world. That way, if one data center melts down or has a long power outage, your family portrait can be reassembled from the pieces however stored in the center’s surviving peers.

The good news is that as the Internet has gotten faster and data centers have multiplied, the price of storing files in the cloud has dropped. For many consumers, storing copies of all of your music, photos and documents in the cloud is now an affordable option — and one that will protect you from waking up with your memories erased.

Set of cloud storage services

Amazon as well has a set of cloud storage services. Its Cloud Player will let you upload your music collection to the Internet so that you can access it from any of your computers or mobile devices. The software automatically searches your computer for music files and uploads them all into nice, organized categories.

Apple has a somewhat more limited system called iCloud, which tends to store only documents or music files that you create or purchase through Apple. Unlike with Amazon or Google, you can’t upload music files that you didn’t purchase in Apple’s store, nor can you back up your work documents if they weren’t created on Apple’s word processing tools. ICloud does have an interesting tool called iTunes Match, nevertheless, which will scan your music collection and, if the songs are available on iTunes, will create a virtual copy of your music collection in the cloud that you can access from any of your Apple devices.