Do you use cloud service?

[chang beer]

Hi. I was thinking about changing from external hard drives to cloud service to keep important files. How difficult is it to encrypt a huge container withing let's say in a 4 TB cloud service and just start throwing stuff in there. I know they do encryption themselves but don't want people snooping around for that's why people use them in the first place. You know I used to use a free service called ADrive but they became paid service. Fish and bate kinda stuff. Had to get rid of everything for the rates were way too high. I'm also aware that one needs fairly fast upload speed as well. I think I would go for 1 time fee instead of paying extra when the service feel like jacking up the rates whenever they feel like it.  What do you think?

 

[Farangkie]

I use Cryptomator, to encrypt my Dropbox files , it's free and easy to use.

https://cryptomator.org/

Edited January 27, 2023 by Farangkie

[TheNaturat]

Keep in mind that any cloud provider offering lifetime storage for a one-time fee is very likely a scam - costs on their side like bandwidth, electricity, server maintenance and so on are recurring, so it doesn't make any business sense. Also, you can buy cheap Google Drive/OneDrive accounts on eBay, but they are typically from universities or companies that haven't setup their stuff correctly, and get banned after few weeks maybe months. I've spend a lot of time looking for option to cheaply store a lot of data online, and came to conclusion that one doesn't exist - cloud storage is expensive, much more so than external HDDs.

Edited January 27, 2023 by TheNaturat

[Kale]

You can never 100% rely on either so you should do both imo.  Windows has a free app called SyncFolder.  I have it set to one way sync my cloud storage over to my external HD every night.

Edited January 27, 2023 by Kale

[little_me]

I have DSL at home, can download at about 10 mb/s, upload is about 1....

Saving 4 TB of data to any cloud would take months.

[momo5]

I don’t keep anything in the cloud; just for transfer and backup of my iPhone.
 

Critical docs/info go on a thumb drive and encrypted on a home network drive.  Media goes onto the home network drive.  It’s a RAID setup and I think about 40 TB.  Smaller RAID set up for work.  Personal porn is encrypted and locked.   Everything is backed up and stored elsewhere; backup media with critical docs/info in a safety deposit box at the bank. 
 

Just don’t feel at ease with the cloud for regular storage. 

[CaribbeanDelight]

I use Dropbox and Google Drive.

In your case you could zip all the files you want encrypted. That way you have the cloud service their encryption and your .zip encryption

[Soi7]

Been using Mega for cloud storage for 10 years at least. They gave me 50 GB no strings and no getting bugged for buying their paid service

[Garzan]

I have a "free" 1TB Microsoft OneDrive subscription that comes along with my yearly Office subscription (and yes, I know Libre Office is free.) 

I have several Windows computers and when I set them up, I redirect my user folders (documents, music, videos, etc) to folders within OneDrive. That way, a document on my desktop is also accessible on my tablet, and via the OneDrive app, accessible on my phone. I used to share "Desktop" but that didn't work out too well when the desktop has two screens and nothing else does. 🙂 I also don't do that with "Downloads" even though it could be handy. I'm just too lazy about moving files off to the NAS, so "Downloads" is commonly too darn big to do that with. 

Anything that I'd worry about needing to encrypt to put into a cloud site, I don't put on any remote cloud site. For high-volume storage, I use my own local NAS.  

[jetdoc]

Storage is so cheap so don't pay to use someone else's hard drive.

[Arnie85]

A bit more to it than that.  What if your place burns down?  Computer gone and backup in the other room gone. 

If it’s on the cloud you still have it.