Why You MUST Move Your Footage and Data To A Cloud Storage

18 Dec,2024
4 Min Read
Tips & Tricks
Video Editing

The year was 2016. One day like any other normal day I just woke up, did my normal everyday morning routine and then sat behind my PC to finish up an editing project I was working on. I pressed the power button and waited for my system to boot up. But it didn’t! At first, I thought it may just be a minor thing with Windows, but after two or three boot loops I decided that I need to recover my windows. I made a new bootable flash of Windows and began the recovery process. When I got to the window where I was supposed to choose my storage media I was shocked to see that it was not recognizing my hard drive and it was then when the horror hit me, my hard drive was broken! Immediately I shut off my PC, took my hard drive out and drove to the nearest recovery center but it was too late, all my data including all my footage, photos, video projects were lost and back then I was too naive to have a backup, I mean after all “it’s only a thing that happens to other people”! I could not be more wrong and I learned it the hard way. But the message was loud and clear, I needed a more secure medium for storing my assets. I could not afford to lose my videos again, so I began to search and the best and most hassle-free solution I found was using Cloud-based media storage.

Benefits of Cloud Storage

Of course, I was always aware of cloud storage and backing up files in the Cloud but I never took it seriously. but that incident made me realize how important it is to have a reliable and safe backup of everything that is precious. Cloud storage has been around for quite a while now and with the constant increase in quality, adopting a platform and beginning to use it has turned into an easy task that almost everybody should do.

Moving To A Cloud Storage Service

Data Access

One of the biggest benefits of having your data in the Cloud is that you can then access it on any platform as long as you have internet. For example, now moving between Windows and Mac is much easier. Previously I had some issues moving my videos between the two devices because of some file system protocols that may not be compatible between the devices like NTFS and FAT32. But now all I have to do is to make sure my device is connected to the internet! Not having to move your footage data around using physical media like hard drives, flash storage, or even SD cards is a big plus because not only it will give a peace of mind knowing your files are always with you, but also it means that your data files are always safely stored, and that brings us to the next point.

Safe Storage

As I mentioned before, physical forms of storing files and data, while still good for backing up and storing away, are far more unreliable than you might think! Everything from a shake to the hard drive to a falsy data write can put all your data in danger. These sorts of things can always happen and your footage is far more important to ignore these issues. In the case of Cloud Storage, you can always be sure that your data is safe. Reputable cloud services like Google Drive, DropBox, and Amazon with their high tech and high-quality data centers can almost guarantee that your data will always be safe and secure on their servers. Something no normal consumer physical form of data storage can ever claim!

Secure Storage

Security is one of the big advantages of going cloud. Videos stored on a physical drive can easily be corrupted as we talked about before. The other thing that can also happen a lot is losing your drive! It might fall out of your bag somewhere or even get stolen. These things happen all the time especially since media storage drives are getting smaller and smaller every day. The other thing that is also taken for granted is that data stored on Cloud Storage services are also guaranteed to be safe from viruses. Big Cloud Storage services always use top-notch and up to date tools to keep the data stored on their servers safe and secure from any sort of malicious software.

Safe and Secure Storage Storage

Data Sharing

Almost all Cloud Storage services give users the opportunity to share their data with other users. Some may even take one step further by giving sharing options like share links that have an expiration time or giving access to just view a certain file and not be able to copy, edit, or manipulate the file in any shape or form. Also, keep in mind that this form of sharing data is in the cloud and is instant! The moment you decide to share data with another individual, they can access it. Imagine an editor who can start working on footage the moment filming is done! This is a big step up over the traditional ways of sharing a video which meant sending the files using physical hard drives or flash storage. Cloud Storage can make collaborative work a lot easier and much more simple. Not to mention saving a lot of time which makes production and post-production a much faster process.

Conclusion

Moving footage and data to the cloud is not only convenient but also necessary! The reliability and safety of tons and tons of video, audio, footage, data, etc. that you can store on your cloud storage medium greatly outweigh its minor cons like the need for a relatively fast and reliable internet connection. So if you ask me, moving to the cloud is one of the best moves I made in my career and you should do it too before it’s late!