So we all use cloud storage to some extent. For email, photos, whatever. But I recently uploaded just about EVERYTHING digital I have to the cloud. Documents, music, photos; all of it. One of the perks of paying for an Office 365 account from Microsoft is unlimited OneDrive storage. Not 10GB, not 100GB. UNLIMITED. And that's true. Right now, I've got well over 100GBs of data uploaded, and on my computer, my documents and music are synced to that so the files are available offline (or if OneDrive goes down). About the only thing that isn't backed up to OneDrive are my professional photo archives, which I could (and should) do (though waiting for several terabytes worth of photos to upload doesn't sound fun, and Comcast would likely cut me off). Now, there are plenty of people who will say I'm an idiot.
"The cloud isn't secure enough." It's encrypted and I use two-factor authentication for access to my Microsoft account for exactly that reason. That's about secure as it gets. If that gets hacked, anyone's data can be hacked.
"Microsoft has all your data." And Google has it all too. We all give the big guys a ton of our information. Personally, I reconciled years ago that in order to experience tech how I want to, I had to give up my privacy. That said, the data is encrypted and only I can see it. Same with Dropbox, iCloud and any other uploaded data. Besides, Microsoft would probably be pretty bored digging through my data. lol
"One hack or crash and you'll loose it all." Sure, I guess. A crash would be recovered, and if a hacker goes in and blows all the data away, I have local copies of it all. Not worried about it at all.
"Windows Phone is a bust, and you switch devices all the time."Windows Phone, iOS, Android, Windows or Mac, it doesn't matter. There are solid OneDrive apps for all of them. All of my data is available to me no matter where I am, on any device I have. I've been backing up all my mobile photos for several years to OneDrive (and SkyDrive before it was renamed to OneDrive), so I literally have access to every mobile photo I've taken for years. Unlike Google (who only supports Android and iOS) or Apple (who refuses to work with anyone), Microsoft has made sure their apps and services are available across all ecosystems (and often, Windows Phone is the last to get updates).
The payoff for all of this is ultimate convenience. It's fantastic, and fairly seamless. And when Microsoft flips the switch soon on the Xbox Music locker service, all of my music is already uploaded and ready to go. Microsoft just today announced new features in how you can work with photos in OneDrive, showing continued effort to expand the features of it's cloud storage system.
Is there a risk? Sure. But my computer could also get stolen, or my apartment could burn down and take my physical backups with it. Both of which are probably more likely than my data getting hacked and wiped.
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