Your Own Personal Cloud Service
Way back when I was in college, I was the historian for our chapter of Delta Sigma Pi, the business fraternity that was the catalyst for my relationship with Scott. I loved taking pictures, organizing them and creating fun scrapbooks. Back then, we snapped pictures with normal cameras then took them to a store to have the film developed. If we wanted to use them for scrapbooks or sharing, we had additional copies made. In addition to the developing costs, we paid something like a nickel or dime per picture printed. It was expensive, especially since we paid for every image no matter how blurry, dark or messed up it was.
Fast forward 12 years when we found out I was pregnant after already coming to accept that I would never be a mother. Because my road to motherhood had been so difficult, I vowed to capture my daughter’s life so I could scrapbook, share photos or do whatever I wanted. For the first two years of her life, I took at least one photograph per day. Most days, many more. And video. I captured a lot of that too. I didn’t like deleting the blurry ones because I could still see glimpses of her personality and life even in the images that any normal person would have gotten rid of. It didn’t cost anything except space on my computer.
Fast forward another 12 years and here we are living in a digital age. Just like photos transitioned from paper to digital format, so did a lot of other things. Kids’ homework, permission slips, spreadsheets, phone books, contracts, tax documents, receipts and more. Everything gets stored on a hard drive somewhere. We take photos with our digital cameras but also with our phones. Even kids are taking quality pictures and showing how life looks through their eyes. Not only are we finding that we save everything on our computers, we have discovered the need to be able to access it on the go. The most important and mobile things (like address books and phone numbers) are stored on our mobile devices but there are a lot of times when we need access to other documents as well.
If you own a mobile device then you no doubt have heard about “the cloud”. Do you know exactly what that is? I consider myself to be pretty educated on technology but I learned something new recently. I always thought the cloud was a service that was maintained by some outside company, saving whatever files I indicated on some remote server somewhere. I decided to ask my friends on Facebook and found that they thought the same thing.
“Data center somewhere”, “offsite server”, “stored in data centers all around the world” and “not saved on my computer” were common responses. My favorite was “not in a reliable place.”
What I discovered is that saving to “the cloud” has become a generic term for saving data remotely. The location can be anything from the company that runs your phone to a multi-billion-dollar entity. But did you know YOU can have your very own personal cloud right in your very own home that allows you to save your own data in a location that you have control over? Me either. Until now.
I now have a cloud on a shelf in my home. It’s hooked up to a battery backup, onto my network and available for me to upload my own photos, videos, music and documents from (drumroll, please) anywhere I have internet or WiFi. I can back up my phone to the WD My Cloud Mirror instead of some major corporation’s cloud service. All those photos I have taken of my girls over the years and all the documents related to SahmReviews can now be store on a drive that I can access on the road. We’re even researching whether we can have our daughters upload their schoolwork to their own folder!
The price is affordable because it can serve as a backup system for important documents. In the past, we have burned data to CDs or Zip drives then sent them to relatives living elsewhere. If there is ever a fire, I know copies of important files and documents are secure outside our home. The My Cloud Mirror has the benefit of running a mirror drive so it self-copies. If one drive fails, the other is the backup.
It’s easy, too. With sync features for your computer as well as apps for your mobile devices, setting up your cloud preferences can be done in a matter of minutes! If you’ve ever been skeptical about using cloud services, check out the WD My Cloud products. The person in control of it is you. Learn more about WD products by following them on Facebook and Twitter. If you’re looking for a gift idea for someone, the WD My Cloud products are perfect for anyone who wants to have backups of their data.
Have you considered having a cloud in your home?
This is such a great idea, particularly because of the mirror back-up!
I am much more comfortable with the idea of a ‘cloud’ in my office instead of a ‘cloud’ somewhere out in cyberspace! I like the idea of my own personal cloud service!
I honestly have to get on board and test out the my cloud mirror. I am using USB and some other virtual space. Thanks for the great suggestion and overview
This is neat–I should definitely look into this!
Now THIS is definitely a product I could use. Adding it to my wish list!
Cloud really has turned into a generic term for anything that saves data remotely. That’s okay though, it’s good stuff no matter how you name it. 😉
This sounds perfect for me–I need a dependable back up system and I don’t want to have to send it via the internet which no one will ever convince me is really all that secure.
That sounds like the perfect solution for storing all of the pictures, documents, stuff that we need to keep track of. I love that it’s just your “cloud” so you are in control.
It’s sooo important to back-up your important docs and devices. I learned that the hard way when my computer fried. I’m glad there’s options like My Cloud products available.
That is such a cool system. I take a lot of pictures of my daughter too so I definitely need one of these.
Oh nice and this way I know where it is! Still, the price is a bit too high for my budget yet. I will keep an eye out for when I can find a good sale because I do really like this idea.
This is AWESOME! And exactly what we need! It will make a great Christmas gift to family who are super tough to buy for too! Thanks for the great idea!
This is pretty cool!
This is really cool! I don’t had a cloud but I think this important to back up my important documents and files.
This is a great gift idea too this coming Christmas! This is really worth to have it.
I quickly grew tired of everyone throwing around the term ‘cloud’. It just means that it is on the internet and it is pretty easy to make any harddrive accessible through the internet. But it is nice when it comes ready to go out of the box for those less technically savy, assuming they don’t like any of the free online storage, or it simply is not enough. Good find.
Thought about it