Save your projects to a cloud drive

This is a pretty simple thing but something I just started doing myself.  I use SkyDrive myself but I am sure there are many out there.  Although SkyDrive is free.  When you do this instantly your project is backed up onto the cloud.  So even if total hard drive failure you won't lose your work.
 
Just wanted to share in case it helps someone.
 
 
 
 
Before this I was doing this with Amazon.com but had to do it separately, like after I saved normally.  This just feels so secure and easy to do it this way and instant!

Well I don't know about that but it is secure in the sense you won't lose it.

I know I couldn't care less if someone "stole" my music files but I honestly don't see anything to worry about myself.
 
 
edit:  I did a search and it is safe as long as you don't screw up the permissions, like allowing other people to access it. 
 
There is lots of info on it out there and there are very secure alternatives but most likely cost money.

Here's what I think of the cloud idea: It is simply idiotic.


Proof:

http://www.news-press.com/article/20130507/NEWS01/130507005/CenturyLink-reporting-Internet-outage?odyssey=nav%7Chead

I find it funny that people are so worried about their privacy or whatever. Are you kidding me. TBBH, your just not worth the time. That goes for me as well.

Why would the government want my music project? 

Hard drives fail all the time, it is nice to instantly back up my project where I don't have to worry about it.

I think a lot people need to take off their tin foil hats :D

I"m just getting into this cloud s.. stuff.  I wouldn't put something that could be of use to hackers on it.  Music?  I mean, who would want my music.  IF someone did, it would be making money?

As far as the government - I know even paranoids have enemies, but come on.  Who is going to be looking through all the dreck.  They have programs that can find key words/phrases, but as long as you're not singing about your own personal jihad and blowing up the new world trade center you should be fine.  And if you are doing other neferious business on your computer, well, you shouldn't have any proof on it.

In principal I'm agin government weaseling into private matters, but there is a lot more I would be concerned about before getting all worked up about some gunshoe rumaging through my deleted files and anything I put on the cloud.  It is there, sure, but so are the files of millions of others, each producing millions of pages.  We'll overwhelm them w/ electrons and they'll drown trying to keep up.

@

I have been taking some on line college courses. I use Drop Box to save my course material. It's a bunch of very boring word and PDF docs.
 I also save the actual web site pages for later reference as the College recommend doing this. Once you complete the course you cannot access the material.  It's like your text book. 

Drop box has been a huge time and work saver. I've been traveling about a bit and use 4 different computers,,, including my smart phone. 
It is very cool to do a little work on a document and save it. It's stored both locally and on the net. 
Sky drive doesn't seem to sync as well as drop box. Also Google drive seems badly done. 
I wouldn't use it for music as those files are to big for my slow internet and limited bandwidth. But I would if I could. 

AT


I"m just getting into this cloud s.. stuff.  I wouldn't put something that could be of use to hackers on it.  Music?  I mean, who would want my music.  IF someone did, it would be making money?

As far as the government - I know even paranoids have enemies, but come on.  Who is going to be looking through all the dreck.  They have programs that can find key words/phrases, but as long as you're not singing about your own personal jihad and blowing up the new world trade center you should be fine.  And if you are doing other neferious business on your computer, well, you shouldn't have any proof on it.

In principal I'm agin government weaseling into private matters, but there is a lot more I would be concerned about before getting all worked up about some gunshoe rumaging through my deleted files and anything I put on the cloud.  It is there, sure, but so are the files of millions of others, each producing millions of pages.  We'll overwhelm them w/ electrons and they'll drown trying to keep up.

@

For you that is fine the way you look at it but I find it a little short sighted. I really think that I have a right to privacy. I don't want my information run through at all. Its very much like how everyone seems OK with being frisked when they enter a government building or wish to visit a friend or relative. I grew up in a time when those things were unthinkable. Now we have gladly let others decide that its find to probe and prod into all our lives at their will. This is not a right you or anyone else has a say in giving up for me but its long gone.

Each and everyone of us has data that defines us for various purposes. It may seem benign but if an error causes you to loose a loan or put you on the no fly list come back and tell me how you like your life open to any and all. 

It bugs me that when I make a purchase I am offered other like things on the Internet.  If I do a search for an item days latter I may receive an Email listing similar things for sale. To some this is convenient. To me it is profiling me. And I know the profile is wrong.

 

I don't look at the cloud-scenario so much as a privacy problem, but an "I'm powerless -problem".

If something goes wrong (legal issues concerning the system occur, major internet problem, ownership changes) what chances do I have to do anything if my files vanish or get unreachable? What are the actual responsibilities of the service provider?

HDDs do fail and get stolen, yes, but handling them is something concretete I'm in controll of.

The hacker-threat is one that should be taken seriously, anyway. You restore your project from the cloud...and it contains something nasty someone else put there???

So far I have no linked sound files to save, but when/if I do I will back them up as well.  I pretty much use all soft synths/samplers and all so... :)

Also, keep in mind that these cloud sites are business and business do at times close their doors.  What happens if all of a sudden they shut down? It's happend where your data is basically gone becuase they disconnected from the net.

Cactus (and others) are right - it is not the solution but a solution.  Nothing digital exists unless it is in three places.  I've learned that the hard way.

Privacy is an issue.  If you don't want info floating around on a cloud out there, don't use it.  But do have a storage solution offsite.  Not likely that your place will burn down, and if it does most files will be the least of your problems.  But no sense rubbing salt in the wounds, either.  I keep finished bu dvds at my mother's house 2.2 miles away.  Not far enough away for the wife, but close enough I can change them out every week or so.

@

At my day job, I build data centers as a Network Engineer. The hardware/software/deployment of data in a cloud is far more likely to be "saved" and recovered, should there be a fault. For example, imagine your data stored, not only 2 or 3 drives, but a nice, large array of them in multiple data racks an in multiple data centers with nightly backups. If a drive fails, you lose nothing. If a data center burns down, you lose nothing (except maybe an hour's or day's worth of work--if they aren't a good business). 

Electrical power is provided with full generator backups, and in some cases served from multiple power grids. In case of a power loss, you get no corruption of your data. In fact, it would not surprise me if Cakewalk/Roland uses Cloudfront from Amazon AWS to serve up downloads and other things. Many development forms use GitHub to version their code. They trust the privacy.

So, if you believe that keeping your data private is the only way to go, rest assured, your data is most likely less important to the rest of the world than the business who owns the storage machines where your data is stored and secured with encryption. I value the instance where an artist is very secretive about their music before release, but afterwards, it's all store-able in the cloud. Keeping reeled tape in Iron Mountain's caves is no longer the safest way to keep your data. 

Now, I don't recommend cloud storage for active sessions. Only archived ones, and right now, local storage is still cheaper. I'd just keep three hard drives with a backup of each project with audio. Have two onsite and one off-site. Sync them every week. For one, Cloud storage is relatively slow for DAW work, and two, if you're having connectivity issues at the moment, you're idle. 

I can still barely get on the net today.

Yesterday's Century Link meltdown is national news.

I've been having the trouble for 2 months that Century Link hasn't been able to diagnose.

I was working on a video at a IT business yesterday...  I took comfort in learning that it wasn't just my connection that was down. Now maybe someone will try and fix it.

Hundreds of businesses in Tallahassee were calling in for support and the support message was... "it's out of our hands... Century Link is down."


That was yesterday... they still haven't fixed it fully and I'm getting knocked off the net every few minutes.

ATS


This is a pretty simple thing but something I just started doing myself.  I use SkyDrive myself but I am sure there are many out there.  Although SkyDrive is free.  When you do this instantly your project is backed up onto the cloud.  So even if total hard drive failure you won't lose your work.
 
Just wanted to share in case it helps someone.
 
 
 
 
Before this I was doing this with Amazon.com but had to do it separately, like after I saved normally.  This just feels so secure and easy to do it this way and instant!

Maybe I'm wrong here, but reading through this thread, I think that some people are confusing keeping a backup/archive of your project files on the cloud with working in real-time from the cloud.  I'm pretty sure ATS is talking about using the cloud as a backup only (that's what I do).  The idea is that you work on your local HD, but make frequent backups to the cloud so that, in the unfortunate event that your HD fails, your studio goes up in flames, computer is stolen, etc., you can still retrieve your work.