THE BENEFITS OF CLOUD STORAGE

IT IS POSSIBLE that your computer could crash tomorrow.  The hard drive could just lose everything.  A hacker might gain access to your machine and destroy or encrypt everything you have.  What can you do in order to protect yourself?
 
Computers will fail.  It is inevitable.  While there are only limited moving parts in a computer, there is no way to stop an eventual system crash.  You need to have a way to make a backup.
 
On a desktop computer, you can install a second drive that makes a copy of the first drive.  You can also add an external USB drive.  These are hardware backups.  This solution is good except for a natural disaster such as hurricane or fire.  Also, it is possible for these hardware solutions to fail as well at some point.
 
What is cloud storage?  It is hard drive space available to store your data

The best solution is an offsite backup or cloud backup.  A cloud backup offers greater protection because your data is copied to a remote location that literally has backups of their backups.  They use multiple locations to make  copies of your data so that it can be restored. Your data s encrypted so that only you have access.  Even the employees at the cloud storage site can't see your data.

Here are the pros and cons for using a cloud based backup service

Pros:
They have a redundant system that won't lose your data
It's off site and not subject to physical damage
It's automatic and runs in the background
Your backup is stored by date.  If you delete something and then need to go back a few days and restore it, the data will be there for a few days or months
 
Cons:
It costs money each month
It's only as fast as your internet connection
The first initial backup could take days or weeks

Finally, while it is slower than connected drives, it is much more reliable than using a physical hard drive.  The initial backup takes a while, but it is worth it to leave your pc connected for a few days in order to get your data backup.