best Google drive When you consider the importance of the information stored on your computers, these rates become unacceptable. If you are lucky it might just cost you a few months of work. If you are unlucky it could doom your business. Four percent may seem like an incredibly low rate of failure until you consider what that failure could cost you. I came close a couple of times when I was doing web and course design work and working with a lot of multimedia. If I need another gig of data, it's only $10 a month and I'd never go over 5 gigs. Verizon provides free 4 gigs of data per month and I've never gone over that. I've used Spring, AT&T, Virgin Mobile, and a few others. If I want to do anything on any of those devices via internet, I just turn on the smartphone hotspot. My smartphone hotspot provides internet access on my tablet, laptop, and notebook. I've tried a few other provider plans and wifi cards, but the problem with those has been slow and intermittent connectivity. cloud drive We now use multiple external hard drives. Again, only purchase a big-name storage array box and big-name external hard drive to put into it. Even if one or two drives fail, we would still have several more still working. They are installed together and they work as one unit within a storage array box. This way we can store a large amount of data on multiple drives that are all stored within one small, desk-top box. A backup internet line is advisable. At some locations the internet goes down on occasion. Is your internet connection reliable enough? If it does you will have lost all access to your data and applications. There are a few factors to consider. Upload speed, many of the free providers limit your upload speed to keep costs down, so it takes a long time for the initial backup. cloud backup can range from free to $20/month. Once you are attached to the cloud you have access to an enormous amount of resources around the world. In other words a document stored in the cloud can be accessed from work, home, school, or from a vacation spot anywhere on Earth. It is also helpful in insuring you have access to documents and files no matter where you are physically. This can be a big help in increasing the capacity of your storage and not having to save all this to your local drive. cloud backup The 'cloud' is just a term for the Internet system of connected computers. Is additional bandwidth affordable? If you are forced to upgrade to a fibre line is it affordable for the business? With all that traffic going through your internet connection you will generally need more internet bandwidth. But I'm relieved to be able to share the burden with the vendor instead of taking all the heat when something goes wrong. When I sell a typical premise based application, and something goes wrong with the installation, I'm the one onsite at the client taking all the abuse. Sure, this lack of control concerns me a little. With a cloud based app it's now up to the software vendor to stand by their product. One reason is that I can finally rely on software companies to own their product. That is why, you must have content on your site that is not regurgitated but is highly useful and of top quality. In the case of Google, post the panda updates, the search engine is weeding out sites with bad quality, spun & duplicate content. Search engines will love your site if it has high quality and topical content. Your site must have relevant content that is unique and informative. Content Is The King - It is all about content. B.What type of server specs (CPU, RAM,) does the host say that your account will be held on? So, if the host is offering 5gb disc space and 100gb bandwidth for $5 a month, you can be pretty sure you are not getting as good a deal as it may seem! If you do some further research, you'll see that a reliable server with even a single P4 3.0GHz HT server with 1gb RAM is going to cost $150 AT CHEAPEST, and if you go up into the dual CPU servers, the price of a single server can go up to $300 a month EASY. Most data centers only include up to 10Mbs bandwidth in that $179.00/month lease. Sure, most static sites will never use more than 11GB bandwidth monthly, but if you have a growing site, and start using resources beyond these specs, your account will normally get flagged for termination. if we factor in included bandwidth, now we're looking at 3.3 terabytes divided by 300, or 11GB per user. Zip Cloud is a relatively new player in the online backup marketplace. Zip Cloud is one the most user friendly online backup services you will ever use. Originally from the UK, they now have an online presence in the US. If they are something precious to you like family photos or archived records sometimes they can't ever be replaced and you are totally screwed. LayerOnline Often we can't get those files back. Seriously, can you afford not to use cloud storage? Do you ever work on something from your job at home like a presentation that is due Monday and you are putting the finishing touches on it? Or perhaps your senior thesis is due and someone pops into your dorm and steals your laptop.