How do cloud drives work? | How is your data stored in cloud?
Have you ever wondered how a cloud service is able to give you storage for granted? Do you think it is unlimited? Why does the provider charge you for extra storage? You get the answers here.
Let me dispel your belief that internet is a vast amount of data. Internet is only a gateway to the cloud, And the cloud stores all the data you see on the internet.
Where does the cloud exist?
The immense mass of data sent to the so called ‘cloud’ is stored in places called Server farms or Data centers. These are not the same, but are used interchangeably. We can call them the Warehouses of the World’s Data or the Brains of the Internet.
These are way more huger than you can imagine. Some data centers are even larger than football grounds! All the data you download everyday, you watch, you enjoy is stored in these places only.
These contain vast amount of immense storage devices in multitude interconnected among themselves, working relentlessly. These are never switched off, and are constantly working for the sake of uninterrupted service for the customers. The data is processed with the fastest processors to ensure every bit of highly fickling data is noted in real-time.
Is my data stored there too?
Yes. All of your Facebook, Instagram photos, the assignments you’ve uploaded, your WhatsApp chats, your mails and what not? All the data is present there.
As soon as you upload something to the cloud, the data centers immediately download and jot it down to themselves. They store it for you till you delete them, and you’ll be able to redownload it whenever you need.
How is our data secured?
Utmost security is provided to your data. As they hold the whole world’s data, the companies don’t take it as a joke. No unauthorised entry or access is welcomed. IT professionals work 24/7 to secure the data. High encryption algorithms are used to prevent the man-in-the-middle or any other security breaches.
How are the Data Centers maintained?
Due to the unabating work of the processors and the storage drives inside, the equipment tends to overheat. Hence, air-conditioning and coolants are provided to cool them. The temperature of a data center shouldn’t exceed 27°C. Optimal condition of 20–22°C is maintained. Designated employees are always vigilant in checking for errors in the disks. They immediately repair the disk if an error occurs. If any disk stops working, it is mutiliated beyond recovery, and is sold to scrap, so that none would be able to recover the data.
What if a catastrophe occurs at a data center and our data is lost?
There is nothing to worry about it. There are many data centers in the world and multiple of them are owned by each company. A provider stores your data in more than one data center, to ensure your data isn’t lost if any catastrophic incident occurs in one of his centers. For security reasons, the cloud provider doesn’t disclose where exactly your files are stored.
What about companies without data centers? How do they store my data?
Huge companies like Google, Microsoft, IBM, Amazon, Facebook have their own data centers, while other companies pay them to store their own data. One needs to pay them extra money for extra storage for their business purpose, so that they could upgrade their drives to provide you service.
Data created every — — — — — !
This gives you a proper understanding of the velocity of data rushing right into data centers, and power of data centers processing it in real-time.
•Snapchat users share 527,760 photos every minute.
•456,000 tweets are sent on Twitter in a minute's time.
•Instagram users post 46,740 photos every minute.
•More than 300 million photos get uploaded per day.
•Every minute there are 510,000 comments posted and 293,000 statuses updated.
•Each day 95 million photos and videos are shared on Instagram.
•We send 16 million text messages every minute.
•There are 990,000 Tinder swipes in a minute.
•156 million emails are sent every minute.
•15,000 GIFs are sent via Facebook messenger every minute.
•Every minute there are 103,447,520 spam emails sent.
•There are 154,200 calls on Skype each minute.
•100 million people use the Instagram “stories” feature daily.
•Spotify adds 13 new songs per minute.
•There are 600 new page edits to Wikipedia in a minute.
Source (As of May 21, 2018)Can I get unlimited storage for free? – My tip ;-)
Generally, you’ll need to pay for extra storage than the company gives you by default. However, as of now, if you want Unlimited Storage for free, you can use Telegram.
It is a cloud-based messaging app, so you need not backup your chats and files in regular intervals like you do in WhatsApp. You can upload unlimited number of files (<1.5GB each). Come after a long gap, and you still find it safe there. You can be assured your data is absolutely safe and secured in Telegram
Conclusion
The data centers, without our knowledge, help us a lot in our daily life. Without these, we wouldn’t be able to store our data, recover our old memories, store important documents in the cloud without collywobbels! The data centers too are obeying the Moore’s Law, with each trying to shrink their size with advanced enhancements every year!
Who knows? A data center in 2045 might fit in your pocket, and might be sold for the price of today’s SD card!
Gain Access to Expert View — Subscribe to DDI Intel
Related stories by me:
