Trusting Microsoft? Not Sure, but now We're in the Cloud!

After this latest issue with my computer being out of service for five weeks, it became quite evident to me that even though my files were backed up safely, working with an external hard drive and memory sticks is a pain in the butt!

Hummingbird in our yard...

Many of my daily tasks ended up taking 50% longer than normal... something I can ill afford in a work climate where our income has been trending downwards for a while.

Maybe I'm just old-fashioned, because I have been skeptical of "cloud storage" except as a reserve backup. Maybe it's because I didn't grow up with the cloud, maybe it's because our Internet goes out at least a couple of times a week... but I just preferred the idea of keeping our stuff locally.

I spent some time chatting with the woman who owns our local computer repair shop... about cloud storage and backup. And about "pure" backing up, vs. backup that also lets you use any file you need "on the fly."

Whereas she no fan of Microsoft (aka "The Evil Empire") like most of us, she reluctantly admitted that Microsoft's "OneDrive" cloud storage is among the most secure and feature rich storage options in the industry... even earning 5-star ratings from techies who pretty much hate the software giant.

Well, since Mrs. Denmarkguy and I already have a family Windows360 plan that includes 1TB of storage per family user, I reluctantly decided to start using the online space we're already paying for.

It took three full days (75 hours, to be precise) to transfer my full file archive (all 312GB of it) to our online space. I'd hate to think how long it would have taken if we didn't have pretty "hot" Internet!

Of course, it's only the first time that's so cumbersome... from this point forward it only updates any files that shows changes or are new since the previous update.

I'm still not particularly happy about the idea of being in bed with Microsoft — you don't get much more CENTRALIZED than that — but at least I now have a "mirror image" of 10+ years of work in a place that's accessible from all my devices, and accessible (I hope) from whatever location I might find myself in.

Thanks for reading!

How about YOU? Do you use "cloud storage?" Or do you back up to your own local storage device? As always, comments, feedback and other interaction is invited and welcomed! Because — after all — SOCIAL content is about interacting, right? Leave a comment — share your experiences — be part of the conversation!

(All text and images by the author, unless otherwise credited. This is ORIGINAL CONTENT, created expressly for this platform — NOT A CROSSPOST!!!)
Created at 20210107 23:38 PST
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