Question: Cloud Storage FAQ: The Advantages and Disadvantages of Storing Music Online
Why store music in the cloud?
The term cloud storage is really just another buzz word for online space where you can upload your files to. But the real question is, “why use it for your music library?” There are many advantages to using an online service that centrally stores your music. However, there are downsides to using this technology too. This cloud storage FAQ introduces you to the benefits as well as the pitfalls of using online storage.
Answer:
Advantages:
- Disaster recovery – one of the great benefits of storing your valuable music library online is to guard against a disaster. Using remote storage isolates your expensive collection from major disasters, such as flooding, fire, theft, virus, etc. You can then recover your music library after the event from your personal online locker.
- Access data from anywhere – Another advantage of using online services to store your music files is ease of access. Rather than being locked down to a local storage device that may not even be portable, you can use the power of the Internet to access or even stream in some circumstances from any location that has an Internet connection.
- Share music – Storing your music online using some services makes it possible to legally share it via playlists. Many social music networking sites now provide tools to share your media on popular social networks like Facebook etc. That said, keep in mind that you should never directly share music files with others over P2P networks or other forms of distribution that would infringe on copyright.
Disadvantages:
- Need Internet connection – To be able to access your online storage, you obviously need an Internet connection. If you find that you urgently need to access your music collection and don’t have an Internet connection, then this could lead to delays.
- Security – because access to your valuable music library is controlled through security credentials (username, password, etc.), your media files may be insecure if this area is weak. Always use strong security passphrases when using cloud storage.
- Less Control – even though your music files may be secure, you will have less control on how or where (server locations) it is stored. The company that hosts your files can choose how it stores the data on its virtual servers. Worse case scenario is, "what if the company goes out of business?"
