Well that is a rather complicated, uncomplicated thing. It isn’t one place. You can’t go to a building and see a bunch of machines that are “The Cloud.” That isn’t how it works. The cloud is a series of servers that all work doing slightly different things, or at the very least they replicate different parts of data. The data is overlapping to various servers, so if one server should fail the data is backed up on other servers. Say you write a seven-chapter book, and make ten copies because you don’t want to lose it. To make sure the book is safe you spread it out over many different people, so no one person has the entire book, but everyone has some of it.

Person A has chapters 1 and 2
B has 2 and 3
C has 3 and 4
D has 4 and 5
E has 5 and 6
F has 6 and 7
G has 7 and 1

So on and so forth, until your book is backed up in many hands. If one person were to lose it, or even if many were to lose it, you could find the contents with someone else.

This replication of your data (in this case your photos) makes them much more secure. For example- if your hard drive fails on your home computer, your photos are gone forever. We have all had that happen, or know someone who has. Your photos may appear secure in a box on a shelf, but a fire or flood could quickly ruin your illusion of safety. The cloud may sound like a mysterious, amorphous place that doesn’t exist, but it is a way for you to truly know that your items are not going to be suddenly destroyed by either technological malfunction or act of God.

The cloud service I personally support is www.Forever.com I am an ambassador for the company, but was a customer first to make sure it was something I personally believed in. They do not sell your photo information. You buy the data storage and it is yours for your lifetime plus 100 years. Part of your payment for storage is put into a trust to convert the data to the next thing (we all know there will be a next thing. We don’t use 3.5 floppies anymore!)

I will write about how Forever is different from other cloud services soon. Until then, gather your photos into one place! Delete or throw away the bad ones. Keep the best for the future!