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Backing up your iPhone is always a good idea. Maybe your phone is misbehaving and you hope to restore it to factory conditions and then apply the latest backup. Perhaps you're upgrading to a new iPhone and want to transfer all your current data. Or you want to back up certain data or content for safekeeping. Whatever the reason, you can back up your phone and restore the backup if and when needed, a process you can perform on an iOS or iPadOS device.

How you back up your phone varies based on the platform. Windows users can back up their phone through iTunes or iCloud. If youre running macOS Catalina or higher, turn to the Finder application. You can also bypass your computer entirely by backing up your phone to iCloud. Subscribers to the Google One online service can also back up specific iPhone data such as contacts, calendar appointments, and photos.

There are pros and cons for each method. Using iTunes or Finder means you don't have to rely on the cloud, though it also means you can restore the backup only from the Apple account on your computer. If your computer crashes, there goes your backup. The good news is that you can encrypt an iTunes or Finder backup if you want to back up your passwords, health information, and other sensitive data.

If you use iCloud instead, your backup wont be affected by computer problems, is automatically encrypted, and is available anywhere. You can even back up to iCloud and restore the data from your phone itself, so you don't need to go through iTunes or Finder. Unfortunately, if your backup uses too much data, you may need to upgrade to a paid iCloud account.

Apple doles out 5GB of iCloud space for free. The paid plans give you 50GB of storage for 99 cents a month, 200GB for $2.99 a month, or 2TB for $9.99 a month. For example, my 512GB iPhone 12 with around 190GB of data required more than 20GB of space on iCloud for its backup, so I needed the 50GB storage plan just to get started.

Google One is another cloud storage option, but it comes with some limitations for iPhone users. You can only back up your contacts, calendar, photos, and videos. Your apps, settings, and other items wont be included. There is also no direct way to restore this data through the Google One app on your iPhone. Google One is available for free with 15GB of space or as a paid subscription with 100GB to 30TB of storage.

First, connect your phone to your computer and fire up iTunes. Click the icon for your phone, then make sure the option for This Computer is selected in the Backups section. Click the Back Up Now button. iTunes syncs and backs up your phone to your computer. After the backup completes, the timestamp under Latest Backup indicates the latest backup date and time.

If you want to back up passwords, Wi-Fi settings, website history, and health data, you'll need to encrypt the backup. Check the box next to Encrypt local backup. Enter and then re-enter a password and click Set Password. With Encryption enabled, iTunes should immediately start backing up your phone. If not, click Back Up Now.

After the backup is finished, you can confirm that it was encrypted. Click Edit > Preferences in the programs top menu. In the Devices Preferences window, click the Devices tab. A lock icon next to a backup indicates that it was encrypted. As long as you keep the encryption option enabled, all future backups will be encrypted. To stop encrypted backups, uncheck the box next to Encrypt local backup and confirm your encryption password.

Okay, now let's say you need to restore your iTunes backup, either to the same phone or to a new phone. Before you can restore a backup to an iPhone, you need to disable the Find My iPhone feature. On your phone, go to Settings > [Your name] > Find My > Find My iPhone. Toggle Find My iPhone to off, type your password, and tap Turn Off.

With Find My turned off, connect the phone to your PC. Click Restore Backup. Make sure the correct backup is selected by the date and time. If not, click the drop-down menu and select the backup you want to restore. Click Restore. Type the encryption password if the backup was encrypted. iTunes starts restoring your phone.

Sign into your phone when prompted. After the restoration finishes, sign in again. You may need to wait for all your apps to be updated and accessible. Then browse your phone's home screens to make sure all the apps and information are intact.

If you have a Mac running macOS Catalina or higher, you will use Finder instead of iTunes to back up and restore your iPhone. To set this up, connect your iPhone to your Mac and open Finder. Click Go > Computer in the menu, then click your phone under the list of locations. The first time you do this, click the Trust button on Finder. Then tap Trust on your phone and then enter your passcode.

The next steps are similar to those in iTunes. At the General tab in the Backups section, choose whether you want to back up your data to iCloud or to your Mac. You can also opt to encrypt the backup. When you're ready, click Back Up Now.

To indicate the backup, the buttons in the Backups section in Finder get grayed out, and a status message and graph at the bottom show that your iPhone is being backed up. When the backup is complete, the buttons become available again, and the date for the Last backup on this Mac will indicate today as well as display the time.

To restore your phone from the backup, click Restore Backup. Choose the correct backup from the drop-down menu and click Restore. Wait for the restore to complete and then sign back into your phone.

Back up your phones data directly from your iPhone by using iCloud. Open Settings > [Your name] > iCloud > iCloud Backup on your iPhone. Turn on the switch for iCloud Backup and tap the Back Up Now button that appears. Your phone is then backed up to iCloud. After the backup completes, return to the previous screen to see how much iCloud space the backup ate up.

After you turn on iCloud Backup, a backup automatically runs every 24 hours after the last successful backup. For this to occur, your phone must be turned on and connected to the internet through Wi-Fi. It must also be connected to a power source, and your screen has to be locked or turned off.

If you connect the device back to iTunes or Finder on your computer, youll notice that the option under Automatically Back Up is now set to iCloud.

To restore your iPhone from the iCloud backup, go to Settings > General > Reset on your device. Tap Erase All Content and Settings. Youre then asked if you want to update your iCloud Backup before erasing. If you need to create a new backup, tap Backup Then Erase. If you know you have a recent backup, tap Erase Now instead.

In order to erase everything, youll need to enter your passcode. Then tap Erase iPhone twice. The device gives you ample warning that this will delete all media and data and reset all settings to ensure that you dont do this accidentally.

Once your data has been backed up, you can restore it in the event of a problem or use it to set up a new phone. Follow the screens to set up the phone either manually or automatically through another iOS device. At the Apps & Data screen, choose Restore from iCloud Backup and then sign into iCloud with your Apple ID and password. At the Choose Backup screen, tap the backup you want to restore.

If you don't see it, tap the Show All Backups link and select one from the list. Next, choose the settings you want to restore. Your iPhone is restored from the backup and restarted. Sign in and wait for your apps to be installed and updated.

You can also back up your iPhone using the Google One service. This backs up your contacts, calendar, photos, and videos across Google Drive, Gmail, and Google Photos. First, download and install the Google One app from Apple's App Store.

Open the app, and on the Home screen, tap Set up data backup. Then, select the content you wish to back upContacts, Calendar, and Photos & Videos. Decide if you want to back up data over a cellular connection. Tap Back up now, and your data will be backed up to Googles servers. You must keep the app open during this time, otherwise the backup will pause.

Return to the home screen and swipe down to the Storage section or tap the Storage icon on the bottom toolbar to see how much space has been used for the backups and other content. The app has a graph that shows how the backups were allocated among Google Drive, Gmail, and Google Photos.

Swipe down to confirm what data was backed up from your current device. You can tap Backup settings to change which data gets backed up in the future.

Since there is no restore function in the iPhone app, you will have to visit each individual service when you want to view or potentially restore the data. Open Google Drive, Gmail, and Google Photos and search for the specific data you wish to access.

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How to Back Up and Restore Your iPhone - PCMag

GlusterFS

Today, GlusterFS [13] is an open-source scale-out file system, offering NFS, SMB, and HDFS. With more than 8000 user-developers at the time of writing, it has a solid following in the HPC market segment. The software was designed to address the problems of scaling out file and NAS systems, where crossing the boundary between appliances presented a severe roadblock to petabyte-sized configurations.

GlusterFS is also discussed in File Systems for Big Data section of Chapter 8, where the emphasis is more on software structure.

GlusterFS is deployed on COTS servers, either within virtual instances or on bare metal. Scaling capacity is achieved by adding more appliances to the cluster, while performance scaling can be controlled by spreading data out across the appliance pool. Clusters with several petabytes of storage are achievable and multitenant environments with thousands of tenants can be created.

Gluster avoids the scaling issues of centralized metadata by distributing that data across the nodes. It copies from the RAID concept to mirror stripe and replicate data for integrity purposes, but it does so at the appliance level rather than at the drive level. This is critical in large-scale storage, since the failure rate of appliances is sufficiently high that data availability would be at risk if only drives are involved.

GlusterFS is a Linux user-space file system, a deliberate choice allowing faster integration into systems. It utilizes a Linux kernel file system to format the disk space. It can be deployed in environments such as AWS as a result, and this is a good way to get started with the approach. Networking is very well supported, and since January 2015 it has been possible to connect clusters with RDMA for low latency and high performance. iSCSI is supported, too. In common with object storage, replication control is well featured and supports geodiversity.

GlusterFS supports Hadoop seamlessly without the need for application rewrites. This brings fault tolerance to the Hadoop space and allows the choice of file or object access to the data. In fact, APIs have been created to allow objects to be accessed as files and vice versa.

It is also possible to install GlusterFS as a file system for Cinder, the block-IO access model in OpenStack.

Cloud storage can be built around GlusterFS, as virtualized systems, and large NAS systems can be created. These constitute the bulk of GlusterFS deployments, according to Red Hat.

The file system serves the analytics market particularly well, with strong Hadoop compatibility on the big data side and Splunk support for machine analytics. Rich media and data streaming can take advantage of performance tuning and scaled-out capacity.

GlusterFS, under Red Hats direction, is adding features rapidly. The 3.1 release, Everglades, adds in erasure coding, keeping up with the object storage companies, data tiering, and also SMB 3.0 support.

In common with many storage solutions, GlusterFS is destined to become much more automated, with provisioning by users and more policy-based management, with terms like File-as-a-Service and NAS-on-Demand being used by Red Hat. Being a Linux-based solution, its unlikely to ever lose the CLI control process, which makes large-scale operations more error-prone.

Additional features are planned such as deduplication and compression. Performance tuning is on the table, though there are questions about how best to handle all-SSD clusters, as with any software stack in storage today. Planned support for NVMe acknowledges that the issue is understood to some extent.

Data integrity issues still exist in GlusterFS, due to the way data is replicated. Rack-level awareness is on the roadmap, to better distribute replicas and erasure coded data sets.

Theres no good answer to this question, at least for now. Both Ceph and Gluster have strengths and weaknesses, but not enough to give one model a decided edge. The fact that Red Hat drives both of them also reduces competition between them. Generally, Ceph addresses the object space very well, while Gluster might be the choice for data centers focused on more traditional file server networked storage.

Ceph is still coming to terms with the world of filers, and the file access gateway is still evolving towards full production. GlusterFS came to the object space late and it shows. Still, it seems likely that the overlap between them will increase as time goes on and the feature sets converge. This may not matter to Red Hatthey get paid either way and both products are leaders.

Performance is something of a mystery. At time of press there were no published articles on relative performance that had real credibility. Configuration setup and software tuning have a big impact, and it seems that this is still an area needing more study.

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Cloud Storage - an overview | ScienceDirect Topics

Best Lifetime Cloud Storage Plans

Cloud storages are ever more popular, thats a fact. Their popularity can be attributed to the fact that using cloud storage increases your productivity, makes your life easier and allows you to store your files in a secure manner. As the demand for cloud storages increases so does the amount of available cloud storage services. These services then search for various ways to differentiate from other cloud storage providers on the market. One recent trend that came up is the offer of lifetime cloud storage space for a one-time payment instead of the monthly/yearly payments. Its an interesting concept but one that must certainly be taken with a bit of caution. The best lifetime cloud storage plans are offered by reliable and quality cloud service providers and well explore them together down below.

Cloud storage has over the years become increasingly popular. Not just for private usage but also within enterprises. Research conducted by Eurostat shows that more and more enterprises use the cloud computing services for various purposes such as storage of files, email and office software.

According to Gartner.com, the worldwide public cloud revenue will grow by 17,3% in 2019 when compared to 2018. That number will go from $175.8 billion in 2018 to $206.2 billion in 2019. In 2021 that number will reach $278.3 billion which is almost double the number of 2017.

Public cloud storage is without a doubt on the rise and it doesnt seem like the trend will stop due to various advantages that it offers.

With the progress of technology, were expected to see a growing number of cloud service providers with larger capacities. Over the past 5 years, the cloud storage providers offer certainly increased by at least 30%. Various public cloud storage providers such as Dropbox, pCloud and Sync.com increased their previous storage capacities from 1000 GB to 2000 GB or 3000 GB. This is certainly a consequence of the increased need for larger storage. As images and videos increase in quality due to technology advancements so do the file sizes. A one minute of 1080p at 30 frames per second video requires 130 MB, a 4K video at the same frame rate would require a 375 MB. When we convert that to a few hours of videos it certainly stacks up.

Now, this does not mean that the prices remain the same. In fact, with the recent increase of storage at Dropbox the prices for their plans rose up as well which lead to a number of furious Dropbox users leaving their service for a better alternative.

The point being here that if youre planning to get lifetime cloud storage you can certainly expect that there will be larger storage capacities 10 years down the line but its also very probable that they will be more expensive.

Lifetime cloud storage is definitely a newish trend. Perhaps youve never heard that it even exists, perhaps are still debating whether its worth the investment or perhaps youre just searching for various cloud storages that offer such plans. It doesnt matter at what stage you are, its important to check various factors with each cloud storage that offers such plans to prevent getting yourself into an undesirable situation.

Lets say I am looking for a cloud storage that will provide me with lifetime plans. That is, of course, the first thing I will check, does it offer lifetime plans for a single payment instead of monthly/yearly payments? If the answer is yes I will proceed with checking all the other features the cloud storage offers. What good is a lifetime cloud storage if its absolutely useless and untrustworthy? Thats like walking into a shoe store, buying yourself a nice pair of rubber boots only to find out later theyre leaking in water. Theres nothing worse than a buyers remorse. Of course, you can go back and return the shoes but not the same might be possible with a cloud storage. Some offer a return-money guarantee and some dont.

The first thing you should check is whether the cloud storage in question has an in-house built infrastructure or they are simply utilizing a bought system. Some cloud storages utilize a bought script such as BeDrive that costs a total of 39$. Then they use it in combination with their own or rented servers and thats that. A cloud storage like that is not going to evolve with time as they most probably lack the technical knowledge and personnel to do so. Quality in-house infrastructure and software are important in the long run. Bugs can get fixed, new features are deployed whenever needed and the cloud service has complete control over their future development.

When buying a lifetime plan with a cloud storage youre committing yourself to use that service for at least a few years. Depending on the initial investment, you will be able to choose another cloud storage after a few years if youre not satisfied with your choice without losing any money in the process. And yet you should search for a cloud storage that is stable and has been on the market for a while. I am not saying that the new cloud storages dont provide a quality service because its certainly possible but you need to be sure that your investment wont go into nothing after 6 months.

A cornerstone of a great cloud storage is ensured security & privacy. The first is achieved with secure server data centres that include disaster recovery (multiple copies of your files on various locations). Your files must also be encrypted while on transit and at rest. Client-side encryption is taking it one step further by ensuring that only you and nobody else has access to your files.

Privacy is also a big topic. It depends on the location of cloud storage servers (privacy laws apply here) and the privacy system put in place. Is the cloud storage GDPR compliant? What other compliances has it gained? Does it provide zero-knowledge privacy? Does it use your information for advertising purposes? Does it sell your data to 3rd parties? All of these questions are extremely important, not just in the long run

Everyone knows the standard saying: If its too good to be true, it probably aint. The same applies to cloud storage. If a new cloud storage pops up with rented servers and a bought software offering 2000 GB of lifetime storage for $30 you should skip that storage in a heartbeat. No amount of magic can make that storage profitable and it will go underground sooner rather than later.

When making an investment such as this one you need to be sure that there are people on the other side of the line ready if something goes wrong. Maybe you dont like the service and want a refund, maybe you need help with client installation, maybe the speeds are weirdly low No matter what it is there needs to be someone there willing to help you in a timely manner.

All of the features and important factors listed above have been taken into account after extensive research to spare you some time when crafting this list of best lifetime cloud storage plans.

Below I am going to list all the current cloud storage services on the market that offer lifetime plans. Theres not many of them so please read the descriptions as well as I dont believe you should opt-in for a lifetime commitment with some of these.

pCloud $4.99/month 500 GB

Additional Features 9.0/10

pCloud is a Swiss cloud storage with their servers based in the U.S. It has been on the market for a number of years and can attribute their success to their secure client-side encryption combined with all the various features I would expect from a cloud storage. It enables me to work efficiently and securely. It has 10.000.000+ users and is the first cloud storage that introduced lifetime plans. In case something goes wrong their support is always there for you via email or through social media. They obviously have an in-house system that they develop regularly and release updates and improvements to their features, all of which we pointed out in our pCloud review.

pCloud definitely picked up my interest when they introduced the lifetime plans. I have been using their service for a couple of years now and its worked great so far. They also offer a 10 days money-back guarantee. If youre interested in the lifetime plans they offer, feel free to check them here:

Premium

500 GB Storage

500 GB Download Link Traffic

Premium Plus

2000 GB Storage

2000 GB Download Link Traffic

Family

Up to 5 users

2000 GB Storage & Link Traffic

Icedrive 4.99/month 1000 GB

Additional Features 8.5/10

Icedrive is a cloud storage based in the UK. It offers both the client-side encryption and is GDPR compliant. Their lifetime plans are quite interesting since they go up to 5 TB in cloud storage. Its the new kid on the block but it offers an in-house built infrastructure with new features coming out every month. After conducting the Icedrive review and using it for months, my guts tell me Icedrive is going ways and is a good investment. They also offer a 14-day money-back guarantee so you can always reverse your choice if something is not to your liking. Check out their lifetime plans here:

Lite

150 GB Storage

250 GB Bandwidth/Month

Pro

1 TB Storage

2 TB Bandwidth/Month

Pro +

5 TB Storage

8 TB Bandwidth/Month

Koofr 10/month 1000 GB

Additional Features 9.5/10

Koofr is a Slovenian cloud storage that has been on the market serving businesses for a number of years. Not long ago they made the switch to personal users as well. Its a quality and reliable cloud storage that takes great care of your privacy (theyre fully GDPR compliant). Read the full Koofr review to get more details about their service.

They dont offer the lifetime plans within their standard offers but they do connect with partners where you can get the lifetime plans:

ThunderDrive $5.00/month 500 GB

Additional Features 1.0/10

ThunderDrive is a new cloud storage on the market that makes use of the BeDrive script (thats sold for 39$). They also advertise having a 30-day refund. Many customers report that when they asked for it, ThunderDrive simply refuses to refund, coming up with excuses. They also offer their lifetime plans for ridiculously low prices on various partner sites. With these prices, its certainly not possible to stay afloat as a company which makes me think theyre only in it to make some quick money and disappear. Weve had a look at this service and we werent impressed, check the full ThunderDrive review for details.

The interview below certainly sounds compelling though some of the facts they make are simply ridiculous such as their claim that their speeds are 6 times faster than Amazon S3.

With lifetime plans becoming more and more popular one must keep an eye to not fall into traps like ThunderDrive. Apart from that, I believe theyre a great investment and save us a lot of money in the long run. You will be safe if you go with any of the recommendations I mentioned above. I tested them all myself and use most of them on a daily basis.

What are your thoughts on the best lifetime cloud storage plans? Let us know down below!

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Best Lifetime Cloud Storage Plans - April 2021

The global cloud storage market size was USD 61.15 billion in 2020. The global impact of COVID-19 has been unprecedented and staggering, with cloud storage witnessing a negative impact on demand across all regions amid the pandemic. Based on our analysis, the global market exhibited a significant growth of 24.7% in 2020 as compared to the average year-on-year growth during 2017-2019. The market is projected to grow from USD 76.43 billion in 2021 to USD 390.33 billion in 2028 at a CAGR of 26.2% during the 2021-2028 period. The rise in CAGR is attributable to this markets demand and growth, returning to pre-pandemic levels once the pandemic is over.

Cloud storage is a model that stores and provides the management of data on the internet through cloud computing. According to the Cisco Global Cloud Index Forecast 2015-2020, 92% of the business workloads are likely to be processed on cloud data centers. This shows that the market is expected to have unprecedented growth in the upcoming years. Also, the global market is set to show significant growth driven by the outbreak of COVID-19. Market players are offering storage services to support organizations in remote location management. For instance, in July 2020, Google Cloud announced its strategic partnership with a cloud content management company, Box, Inc. The partnership would help them in focusing on supporting clients for transforming on the remote workspace.

Adoption of Distributed Work Environment Owing to Spread of Novel Coronavirus to Drive Market Growth

As organizations are shifting towards a distributed work environment, cloud-based solutions are empowering the workforce to collaborate and stay connected. To enable organizations to securely manage the stored data and support remote working amid the COVID-19 pandemic, companies are offering various cloud storage solutions to deal with the current unprecedented situation. For instance, Microsoft Corporation is offering extended Microsoft Azure cloud credits, increased Windows benefits, and other services for critical care and non-profit organizations such as health support, public safety, food and nutrition, and others. Similarly, Amazon and Salesforce have teamed up to provide cloud-based contact center services to customers under the challenging circumstances of the pandemic. Thus, the onset of coronavirus would fuel the adoption of these solutions across all industries.

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Emergence of Analytics, Mobility, and Social Media is a Vital Trend

Cloud analytics has given new opportunities to market players in the sectors where users require analytical insights for decision making. Considering the massive computing power, the requirement for additional storage to support big volumes of data is increasing exponentially. Enterprises are leveraging platforms and delivering advanced storage technologies with more accessibility and flexibility.

Similarly, social media analytics has influenced end-users to adopt automated storage services to offer real-time enhanced customer experience. For instance, in October 2020, Facebook LLC collaborated with a cloud service provider called Backblaze, to securely transfer the social media photos and videos over cloud encrypted storage. Backblaze offers 10GB free capacity to users and also provides personal safeguarding, file sharing, and the ability to manage and modify the content. These technological trends are likely to boost the market value.

Exponential Growth in Data Volumes to Surge Demand for New Storage Capacity

The advent of remote sensing technologies, Internet of Things (IoT), and advanced video systems such as 4K resolution cameras has led to the generation of high-capacity data. As a result, there is a growing demand for this type of storage technologies and networking. Similarly, the rising adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) is likely to surge the usage of storage to improve data protection services. For instance, in February 2021, California-based start-up NextBillion AI announced its collaboration with Google Cloud to enhance time-to-market solutions using cloud SQL and cloud storage. This collaboration is expected to offer data security and 99% uptime for NextBillion AI clients.

Additionally, machine learning and autonomous systems such as autonomous vehicles are likely to drive the adoption of cloud computing services including data storage for providing real-time assistance. For instance, in February 2021, connected car provider, Ford, announced its strategic partnership with Google Cloud to accelerate the connected vehicle experience. The company is shifting toward autonomous and driverless cars and is aiming to offer an enhanced experience by integrating AI, machine learning, cloud, and other technologies.

Stringent Government Laws and Legal Obligations to Restrict Market Growth

Data privacy and confidentiality are the most essential elements of the cloud storage ecosystem. Mandatory rules and laws imposed by governments on using cloud services and other legal obligations are likely to limit the market growth. For instance, the Government of India has made a provision in the Information Technology Act 2000, that any unlawful act regarding the computing models/transactions containing confidential information will be subjected to punishment. Such regulations and laws imposed by governments across the world are projected to act as a barrier to the growth of the market. Also, data breaches are likely to pose a threat to service providers which may restrict the market growth.

High Data Security of Storage Models to Augment This Segments Growth

By the component, the market is bifurcated into storage models and services. The storage model segment is expected to hold the maximum cloud storage market share. There are three categories of storage models offered by players including object storage, file storage, and block storage. Each of the storage models offers its own advantages and use cases. The object storage sub-segment is likely to lead during the forecast period. The file storage cloud sub-segment is expected to showcase maximum CAGR owing to its increased storage capacity. For instance, in February 2021, a file cloud storage provider, Nasuni Corporation, announced its partnership with Google Cloud owing to the massively growing demand for enterprise file storage.

Storage models cater to the fundamental requirements of enterprises such as data security, availability, and durability. These factors are driving their adoption across businesses. Whereas, services play an essential role in maintaining proper connectivity and data flow thus the services segment is projected to exhibit significant growth in the upcoming years. It is further bifurcated into managed and professional services, out of these, the professional services sub-segment is expected to lead the market.

Benefits of Private and Public Cloud in Single Hybrid Cloud to Drive its Demand

Based on the deployment type, the market is classified into private cloud, public cloud, and hybrid cloud. Among these, the public cloud segment is expected to account for a major market share. The most adopted way of implementing cloud computing services is public clouds. The cloud infrastructure such as storage and servers are operated and owned by a third-party cloud service provider (CSP) and delivered over the Internet. Microsoft Corporations Microsoft Azure and Google Inc.s App Engine are some examples of public cloud storage. Public cloud deployments are usually used to provide online office applications, web-based emails, storage and development, and testing applications.

The private cloud segment is likely to showcase steady growth during the forecast period. In private cloud deployments, services are provided on a private network and the hardware and software are dedicated completely to an organization. This ensures more safety of the data stored. The hybrid cloud segment is anticipated to gain rapid growth during the forecast period. Enterprises implementing hybrid cloud can gain benefits from both private and public deployments. For instance, businesses can use public clouds for low-security needs and high volumes of data.

Advanced Storage Capabilities to Boost Small and Medium Enterprises Segment Growth Rate

Based on the enterprise size, the market is bifurcated into large enterprises and small & medium enterprises (SMEs). The large enterprises segment is expected to account for a maximum revenue share owing to the availability of IT infrastructure, substantial technological investments, and digital adoption. The small and medium enterprises segment is projected to exhibit a higher growth rate in the forecast years. The advent of advanced cloud storage capacities has enabled small and-mid sized enterprises to optimize their spending on data computing infrastructure. This is likely to drive market growth.

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Rapid Digitalization to Drive the Demand for Cloud Storage in BFSI Industry

By vertical, the market is categorized into banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI), IT and telecommunication, government and public sector, manufacturing, healthcare, and life science, retail and consumer goods, media and entertainment, and others.

The BFSI industry contains large volumes of consumer data and tends to provide efficient services to customers. The growing implementation of digitalization is driving the demand for this type of storage to offer services such as web fund transfer, payment gateways, digital wallets, and other related services. For instance, in February 2021 Global Financial Services collaborated with Google Cloud services to prevent security threats against its banking infrastructure using its AI-powered platform.

The healthcare and life sciences segment is expected to exhibit a remarkable growth rate during the forecast period. Cloud services enable healthcare providers to achieve real-time data insights and reduce IT complexities with precise data storage solutions. For instance, in December 2020, Amazon Web Services launched HIPAA-eligible HealthLake, cloud storage and data management service for healthcare and life science organizations. The HealthLake helps in reducing healthcare workers time in transforming health data and analyzing it in real-time.

The surging demand for over-the-top services (OTT) and other digital natives have influenced telecom service providers in adopting this type of storage services. Similarly, manufacturing, government, and public sector, retail and consumer goods, and other industries are actively investing in cloud data management services. For instance, according to the State of Manufacturing Report 2017, 90% of manufacturing companies leveraged cloud-based productivity applications. This is likely to boost the market growth.

North America Cloud Storage Market Size, 2020 (USD Billion)

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The market has been divided into five major regions including North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, the Middle East and Africa, and Latin America. The regions are further divided into countries.

North America is projected to dominate the market throughout the forecast period. According to Cisco's regional cloud traffic trends, it is estimated to generate the highest cloud traffic among other regions. The United States holds the major market share attributed to the significant adoption of e-commerce, electronic signatures, and other digital services that generate heaps of data each day. North America being a mature market would ensure to continue the use of these storage services.

Asia Pacific is expected to showcase a rapid growth rate during the forecast period. Developing economies such as India and China have made significant contributions in facilitating the region's adoption of cloud-driven technologies. For instance, according to GSMA Intelligence 2018, Asia Pacific registered 67% mobile social media penetration and 61% online service index score for e-government. Owing to these growing digitization trends, businesses are turning towards cloud-based data analytics to identify customer behavior. All of these would lead to an increase in data consumption and generation which would further drive the demand for storage.

Europe is expected to gain a significant share of the market. As per the statistical office of the European Union, 26% of the European Union enterprises leveraged cloud computing in 2018 for storing files in electronic form and hosting email services. The report also states that about 18% of the enterprises used the public cloud, whereas, 11% were using the private cloud for their exclusive infrastructure usage in 2018. This is likely to drive the Europe cloud storage market growth.

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The Middle East and Africa is anticipated to show potential market growth during the forecast period. According to the Cisco Cloud Index 2015-2020, the region is expected to show the highest cloud traffic growth rate of approximately about 41% CAGR. The rapid growth is attributed to the rising migration towards cloud architecture due to its ability to replace traditional data centers and manage more workloads. Similarly, Latin America is projected to exhibit steady growth. According to the Cisco Digital Readiness Report 2018, Latin American countries such as Brazil, Mexico, and Argentina are at the middle stage of digital readiness.

Key Market Players to Enhance their Product Offerings and Adopt Partnership Strategies to Achieve Organizational Goals

Being a fragmented market, key market players such as Amazon.com, Inc., IBM Corporation, Dell, Inc., and Microsoft Corporation are likely to expand their product offerings. By expanding their product lines, these companies are ensuring to increase the revenue share. Also, it is likely to enable them to take advantage of the market opportunities across different sectors. Strategic partnerships are likely to promote the business expansion of market players. For instance, in August 2019, IBM Corporation enhanced its software portfolio to make it cloud-native and compatible to run on Red Hat OpenShift.

An Infographic Representation of Cloud Storage Market

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The cloud storage market report highlights the leading regions across the world to offer a better understanding of the user. Furthermore, the report provides insights into the latest industry trends and analyzes technologies that are being deployed at a rapid pace at the global level. The report examines various paradigm shifts associated with the transformation of the software. It further highlights some of the growth-stimulating factors and restraints, helping the reader to gain in-depth knowledge about the market.

ATTRIBUTE

DETAILS

Study Period

2017-2028

Base Year

2020

Forecast Period

2021-2028

Historical Period

2017-2019

Unit

Value (USD Billion)

Segmentation

Component; Deployment; Enterprise Size; Vertical; and Geography

By Component

By Deployment

By Enterprise Size

By Vertical

By Region

Originally posted here:
Cloud Storage Market Size, Share, Growth | Industry Report 2028

Valencia-based startup Internxt has been quietly working on an ambitious plan to make decentralized cloud storage massively accessible to anyone with an internet connection.

Its just bagged $1 million in seed funding led by Angels Capital, a European VC fund owned by Juan Roig (aka Spains richest grocer and second-wealthiest billionaire), and Miami-based The Venture City. It had previously raised around half a million dollars via a token sale to help fund early development.

The seed funds will be put toward its next phase of growth its month-to-month growth rate is 30% and it tells us its confident it can at least sustain that including planning a big boost to headcount so it can accelerate product development.

The Spanish startup has spent most of its short life to date developing a decentralized infrastructure that it argues is both inherently more secure and more private than mainstream cloud-based apps (such as those offered by tech giants like Google).

This is because files are not only encrypted in a way that means it cannot access your data but information is also stored in a highly decentralized way, split into tiny shards which are then distributed across multiple storage locations, with users of the network contributing storage space (and being recompensed for providing that capacity with you guessed it crypto).

Its a distributed architecture, weve got servers all over the world, explains founder and CEO Fran Villalba Segarra. We leverage and use the space provided by professionals and individuals. So they connect to our infrastructure and start hosting data shards and we pay them for the data they host which is also more affordable because we are not going through the traditional route of just renting out a data center and paying them for a fixed amount of space.

Its like the Airbnb model or Uber model. Weve kind of democratized storage.

Internxt clocked up three years of R&D, beginning in 2017, before launching its first cloud-based apps: Drive (file storage), a year ago and now Photos (a Google Photos rival).

So far its attracting around a million active users without paying any attention to marketing, per Villalba Segarra.

Internxt Mail is the next product in its pipeline to compete with Gmail and also ProtonMail, a pro-privacy alternative to Googles freemium webmail client (and for more on why it believes it can offer an edge there read on).

Internxt Send (file transfer) is another product billed as coming soon.

Were working on a G-Suite alternative to make sure were at the level of Google when it comes to competing with them, he adds.

The issue Internxts architecture is designed to solve is that files which are stored in just one place are vulnerable to being accessed by others. Whether thats the storage provider itself (which may, like Google, have a privacy-hostile business model based on mining users data); or hackers/third parties who manage to break the providers security and can thus grab and/or otherwise interfere with your files.

Security risks when networks are compromised can include ransomeware attacks which have been on an uptick in recent years whereby attackers that have penetrated a network and gained access to stored files then hold the information to ransom by walling off the rightful owners access (typically by applying their own layer of encryption and demanding payment to unlock the data).

The core conviction driving Internxts decentralization push is that files sitting whole on a server or hard drive are sitting ducks.

Its answer to that problem is an alternative file storage infrastructure that combines zero access encryption and decentralization meaning files are sharded, distributed and mirrored across multiple storage locations, making them highly resilient against storage failures or indeed hack attacks and snooping.

The approach ameliorates cloud service provider-based privacy concerns because Internxt itself cannot access user data.

To make money its business model is simple, tiered subscriptions: With (currently) one plan covering all its existing and planned services based on how much data you need. (It is also freemium, with the first 10GB being free.)

Internxt is by no means the first to see key user value in rethinking core internet architecture.

Scotlands MaidSafe has been trying to build an alternative decentralized internet for well over a decade at this point only starting alpha testing its alt network (aka, the Safe Network) back in 2016, after 10 years of testing. Its long-term mission to reinvent the internet continues.

Another (slightly less veteran) competitor in the decentralized cloud storage space is Storj, which is targeting enterprise users. Theres also Filecoin and Sia both also part of the newer wave of blockchain startups that sprung up after Bitcoin sparked entrepreneurial interest in cryptocurrencies and blockchain/decentralization.

How, then, is what Internxts doing different to these rival decentralized storage plays all of which have been at this complex coal face for longer?

Were the only European-based startup thats doing this [except for MaidSafe, although its U.K. not EU based], says Villalba Segarra, arguing that the European Unions legal regime around data protection and privacy lends it an advantage versus U.S. competitors. All the others, Storj, plus Sia, Filecoin theyre all U.S.-based companies as far as Im aware.

The other major differentiating factor he highlights is usability arguing that the aforementioned competitors have been built by developers for developers. Whereas he says Internxts goal is be the equivalent of Coinbase for decentralized storage; aka, it wants to make a very complex technology highly accessible to nontechnical internet users.

Its a huge technology but in the blockchain space we see this all the time where theres huge potential but its very hard to use, he tells TechCrunch. Thats essentially what Coinbase is also trying to do bringing blockchain to users, making it easier to use, easier to invest in cryptocurrency etc. So thats what were trying to do at Internxt as well, bringing blockchain for cloud storage to the people. Making it easy to use with a very easy to use interface and so forth.

Its the only service in the distributed cloud space thats actually usable thats kind of our main differentiating factor from Storj and all these other companies.

In terms of infrastructure its actually pretty similar to that of Sia or Storj, he goes on further likening Internxts zero access encryption to Proton Drives architecture (aka, the file storage product from the makers of end-to-end encrypted email service ProtonMail) which also relies on client-side encryption to give users a robust technical guarantee that the service provider cant snoop on your stuff. (So you dont have to just trust the company not to violate your privacy.)

But while its also touting zero access encryption (it seems to be using off-the-shelf AES-256 encryption; it says it uses military grade, client-side, open-source encryption thats been audited by Spains S2 Grupo, a major local cybersecurity firm), Internxt takes the further step of decentralizing the encrypted bits of data too. And that means it can tout added security benefits, per Villalba Segarra.

On top of that what we do is we fragment data and then distribute it around the world. So essentially what servers host are encrypted data shards which is much more secure because if a hacker was ever to access one of these servers what they would find is encrypted data shards which are essentially useless. Not even we can access that data.

So that adds a huge layer of security against hackers or third-party [access] in terms of data. And then on top of that we build very nice interfaces with which the user is very used to using pretty much similar to those of Google and that also makes us very different from Storj and Sia.

Storage space for Internxt users files is provided by users who are incentivized to offer up their unused capacity to host data shards with micropayments of crypto for doing so. This means capacity could be coming from an individual user connecting to Internxt with just their laptop or a data center company with large amounts of unused storage capacity. (And Villalba Segarra notes that it has a number of data center companies, such as OVH, are connected to its network.)

We dont have any direct contracts [for storage provision] Anyone can connect to our network so data centers with available storage space, if they want to make some money on that they can connect to our network. We dont pay them as much as we would pay them if we went to them through the traditional route, he says, likening this portion of the approach to how Airbnb has both hosts and guests (or Uber needs drivers and riders).

We are the platform that connects both parties but we dont host any data ourselves.

Internxt uses a reputation system to manage storage providers to ensure network uptime and quality of service and also applies blockchain proof of work challenges to node operators to make sure theyre actually storing the data they claim.

Because of the decentralized nature of our architecture we really need to make sure that it hits a certain level of reliability, he says. So for that we use blockchain technology When youre storing data in your own data center its easier in terms of making sure its reliable but when youre storing it in a decentralized architecture it brings a lot of benefits such as more privacy or its also more affordable but the downside is you need to make sure that for example theyre actually storing data.

Payments to storage capacity providers are also made via blockchain tech which Villalba Segarra says is the only way to scale and automate so many micropayments to ~10,000 node operators all over the world.

Discussing the issue of energy costs given that proof of work blockchain-based technologies are facing increased scrutiny over the energy consumption involved in carrying out the calculations he suggests that Internxts decentralized architecture can be more energy efficient than traditional data centers because data shards are more likely to be located nearer to the requesting user shrinking the energy required to retrieve packets versus always having to do so from a few centralized global locations.

What weve seen in terms of energy consumption is that were actually much more energy efficient than a traditional cloud storage service. Why? Think about it, we mirror files and we store them all over the world Its actually impossible to access a file from Dropbox that is sent out from [a specific location]. Essentially when you access Dropbox or Google Drive and you download a file theyre going to be sending it out from their data center in Texas or wherever. So theres a huge data transfer energy consumption there and people dont think about it, he argues.

Data center energy consumption is already 2%* of the whole worlds energy consumption if Im not mistaken. So being able to use latency and being able to send your files from [somewhere near the user] which is also going to be faster, which is all factored into our reputation system so our algorithms are going to be sending you the files that are closer to you so that we save a lot of energy from that. So if you multiple that by millions of users and millions of terabytes that actually saves a lot of energy consumption and also costs for us.

What about latency from the users point of view? Is there a noticeable lag when they try to upload or retrieve and access files stored on Internxt versus for example Google Drive?

Villalba Segarra says being able to store file fragments closer to the user also helps compensate for any lag. But he also confirms there is a bit of a speed difference versus mainstream cloud storage services.

In terms of upload and download speed were pretty close to Google Drive and Dropbox, he suggests. Again these companies have been around for over 10 years and their services are very well optimized and theyve got a traditional cloud architecture which is also relatively simpler, easier to build and theyve got thousands of [employees] so their services are obviously much better than our service in terms of speed and all that. But were getting really close to them and were working really fast towards bringing our speed [to that level] and also as many features as possible to our architecture and to our services.

Essentially how we see it is were at the level of Proton Drive or Tresorit in terms of usability, he adds on the latency point. And were getting really close to Google Drive. But an average user shouldnt really see much of a difference and, as I said, were literally working as hard as possible to make our services as useable as those of Google. But were ages ahead of Storj, Sia, MaidSafe and so forth thats for sure.

Internxt is doing all this complex networking with a team of just 20 people currently. But with the new seed funding tucked in its back pocket the plan now is to ramp up hiring over the next few months so that it can accelerate product development, sustain its growth and keep pushing its competitive edge.

By the time we do a Series A we should be around 100 people at Internxt, says Villalba Segarra. We are already preparing our Series A. We just closed our seed round but because of how fast were growing we are already being reached out to by a few other lead VC funds from the U.S. and London.

It will be a pretty big Series A. Potentially the biggest in Spain We plan on growing until the Series A at at least a 30% month-to-month rate which is what weve been growing up until now.

He also tells TechCrunch that the intention for the Series A is to do the funding at a $50 million valuation.

We were planning on doing it a year from now because we literally just closed our [seed] round but because of how many VCs are reaching out to us we may actually do it by the end of this year, he says, adding: But time frame isnt an issue for us. What matters most is being able to reach that minimum valuation.

*Per the IEA, data centres and data transmission networks each accounted for around 1% of global electricity use in 2019

More here:
Internxt gets $1M to be the Coinbase of decentralized storage - TechCrunch