30+ Free Cloud Storage Services For Storing Your Files

Many people unknowingly use free cloud storage but they are not aware of the other services. Here I am talking about Google Photos.

This is what exactly happens with most of the people:
Google Photos is an inbuilt app in almost every smartphone. It asks out if you want to ‘Turn on Backup’ by syncing your Google Account to Google Photos.
Most of us end up accepting it without a second thought.

Now, Google keeps sending all your images and videos to Google Drive. This is how you still get to see your photos 3-4 years later on the same date.

Then one day your Google Drive storage exhausts and you start looking for hard disks to store your images.

I am not kidding! This is what people do and here’s a real anecdote.

As it was a good day and everyone was dressed formally, my friend insisted on clicking a picture together.

Click… Click… *Failure in saving the picture*

When she was scrolling in her gallery to empty it, there were more than 5000 photos and 150+ videos in the camera section. Mind you, I didn’t even mention the folders of Whatsapp, Instagram, etc.

“Why the hell do you keep so many pictures in your phone memory?”
“Dude! I need a new hard disk,” she replied.

I have observed many people just never clean up their phone gallery. They keep stacking all the media files until the phone chokes up and asks for mercy.

Use cloud storage.

What is a Cloud Storage?

Keeping it simple, Cloud storage is nothing but storing all your files and media online. Huge companies like Google, Amazon, Microsoft, etc have made huge servers so that people like us can store our data on their servers.

Related Post | How Microsoft Makes Money?

Here Is A List of Free Cloud Storage Services For You

5 Reasons Why You Should Ditch Your Hard Disks & Start Using A Cloud Storage Service

1] Multiple Cloud Services

Cloud storage is similar to your pen-drives and hard disks. Except that, your complete data is stored online. All you need to do it upload your files there. Then you can view it, download it, and even share it anywhere and anytime.

2] Hard Disks Are Not Reliable

I lost most of my precious data just because of some silly mistakes.

First, Hard Disks have physical coils in it which makes it very sensitive. Hence, if you drop your hard disk by mistake then it is surely going to be damaged. Water, heat, drops, pressure, and every other forcible thing can damage it. Accidents just happen.

The second mistake that I committed was pulling out the hard disk cable from my laptop while the data was still getting transferred. As a result, my data got corrupted completely. Sad life!

However, this is not the case with cloud storage. You store the data online which generally doesn’t get corrupted or destroyed if you use a trusted and well-known service. Google and Microsoft are highly reliable.

3] Shortage of Physical Storage

How many Hard Disks will you buy? My phone’s memory is 64 GB and my laptop has 1 TB ROM. But you know what? It still feels insufficient. I have used my previous devices which had much lesser storage capacities but I faced the same issues even then.

That clearly means that this is a never-ending problem. Storage is never sufficient. So why not use online servers to manage our data instead of storing everything in an infinite number of physical devices? It is really difficult to maintain multiple pen-drives, SD cards, and Hard Disks.

4] Data is Dirt-Cheap

Storing online needs Internet connection. Also, uploading files need data. But honestly, how many of those hundred selfies do you actually use? Hardly one or two for posting on some social media. What about the rest? We ignore them.

This makes online cloud services to be better. It just a one-time investment to upload all the pictures and media on Google Drive. Nowadays, internet plans are not costly as well. Almost all of us get 1 GB of data per day.

Even if you buy premium services from cloud services, it will be still cheaper than your 1 TB hard disk which costs no less than a few thousand Rupees.

5] Anywhere and Anytime

Imagine that you have a presentation for which you stayed up all night. You forgot the pen-drive at home in which all the data was stored. What will you do now?

Here is where your cloud storage comes in the game. If you store your documents on the cloud server, you can access it from any device across the globe. All you need is your login details and an Internet connection. You simply don’t have to care for your data loss because of some stupid carelessness or an accident.

Heads Up! There Are Some Disadvantages of Free Cloud Storage Services As Well

1] Avoid Sensitive Data

I’d strongly recommend avoiding using free cloud storage services if you have highly sensitive and confidential data. Especially the free services.

There is a saying on the Internet, “If you are not paying for the product then you are the product!”
It means that your data is used to show you ads or some shady services can even sell your files. It’s their server and you don’t know what they might use your data for!

2] Use Reputed Services

I have mentioned a few unknown services which don’t really have any reputation. Avoid them.

Also, there are chances that a service with weaker security might get hacked by hackers. Your data can get compromised.

Then you might be thinking why did I mention them at the first place? Because people like us who just need to store unimportant data like movies, memes or those educational files 😉

For important files, use reputed services like Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive or Apple iCloud.

3] Unavailability of Network

You might not get an Internet connection everywhere. So, it’s always good to have a backup on physical devices as well. Don’t completely rely on online storage services.

Summing Up

Use these storage services wisely to store your not-so-important files. Technically, the combination of these services gives you unlimited storage.

Which storage service are you currently using? Let me know 🙂

P2