Superman saves…his data in the clouds!
Nicknamed in 2013 as “Superman Memory Crystals” but more accurately explained in the past week as a 5D Glass Data Disc, this incredible technology is able to be encoded with up to 360 terabytes of data, with an estimated lifespan of up to 13.8 billion years even at temperatures of 190°C. That’s as old as the Universe, and more than three times the age of the Earth! Whether it’s as old as Krypton was, we’re not sure.
Amazingly, this method of nano-structure data storage was first imagined in 1996, when most of us were struggling to keep a solid dial up connection long enough to load a decent sized image.
We won’t be seeing a commercial version of this any time soon, given the need for expensive lasers we can only dream wistfully of, but it does push us to think more about the necessity of data storage for business.
The loss of a file or document, mid-edit, losing hours of work – or worse, an irreparably broken device that can strike fear into the hearts of most! We also know the relief of finding a previous revision or a backup, safely stored!
If you do happen to be the one who uploads images to your website, you might think you don’t need the original anymore. However, unless you wish to hark back to the days of slow page downloads, all the images you upload to your website or your social media pages are compressed and can’t revert back to the original resolution. Solution – is it a bird, is it a plane? It’s not Superman and his crystals yet, but the cloud! We’ve lined up our favourite storage solutions!
- Dropbox
When it comes to design and photography, cloud storage service Dropbox is usually the most broadly used for businesses and certainly a quick and easy sign up process. If you’re a small business and you are primarily only backing up documents, you can probably get away with their free basic subscription of a tiny 2GB and even bump it up further by referring others, taking the intro tour – up to 16GB. It’s also the only service to offer clients for Linux and Blackberry. For that complete editing experience, we recommend treating yourself to an upgrade. - Google Drive
If you work off a Windows phone, proceed to number 3 – Google and Microsoft’s Game of Phones has left you a little exiled on this one. Whilst it can back up your Microsoft files if you’re on a tablet or iPad, you can’t edit in app. On the whole, a very easy to navigate interface with some handy allowances such as letting photos and videos to be uploaded at their ‘High Quality’ resolution for free rather than original sizes. If you have a Gmail, YouTube, or Play account, then you actually have a Drive account – why not take it for a spin? - Mega
Did you say 50GB of free storage? Like seeing the first Lord of the Rings preview, NZ based company Mega offers plenty of joy for free, while making you want to shell out for the full experience. Premium users enjoy increased bandwidth with each package, making sharing between friends and colleagues a more instantaneous feature and in another echo of LOTR (we can find one in anything) security of your precious data is paramount with a comprehensive encryption process soon to be applied to their upcoming video chat function.
- Dropbox
You don’t need Clark to sort through the mountain of choices available to help keep your digital world intact – we can help you figure out what works best to optimise your online experience – for you and your users as well as your business.