What's a Cloud?

pornofan

I've looked at clouds from both sides now
From up and down and still somehow
I really don't know clouds at all.
–Joni Mitchell

Would someone please explain how this whole cloud thing works? I don't mean "where in the multiverse is my data?" I mean, as a practical matter, how does a cloud
work. I have a home computer, not a tablet, smart phone, or portable. Just an ordinary little tower with a display screen etc. etc. And I have massive amounts of data that is in danger of being lost.

So:
How do I put all this stuff onto the cloud?
Can I watch a video or listen to music directly from the cloud on VLC without having to download each item first?
Can I refer all torrents from their current physical location to their cloud location so I can seed 24/seven?
Can I delete stuff off the hard drive because it will stay securely available via cloud?
If my VPN protects me when files have a physical location, what happens when they move to cloud backup or even cloud existence without a physical location?
If slithering copyright terrorists come around in hopes of getting rich by abusing me, can they see my cloud possessions?
Will a VPN thwart their nefarious plans to threaten some potential victim of their profitable poutrage?
Or is a VPN even needed for cloud contents because profiteering villains can't peep through the keyhole to begin with?
Does the cloud prevent seeding? Can something be leeched (DOWNloaded?) directly to a cloud?
Or is this mostly silly, ignorant stuff because torrents and clouds are incompatible and don't work together, the cloud only being useful for backup?
Some of these questions maybe amount to trying to "compare and contrast" (as schoolteachers at least used to say) clouds with lockboxes.
Supposing I love cloudcuckooland (Νεφελοκοκκυγία, Nephelokokkygia) and decide to homestead:
--How much does it cost?
--Are all companies providing access equally safe, reliable, private, competent?
--Is there a size limit? I mean, it's not like the entire Internet is up there, right? Or that Microsloth is an eleemosynary institution, right?

There may be a forum for general computer/Internet questions, answers, and discussions, but like a lot of other things, it is unknown to me. However, since a major point of all this puzzlement is not just for me to obtain backup, but to be able to seed more and longer and more safely, so perhaps this forum is not a bad choice anyway.

No doubt those who have no good answers or lack enough patience to deal with a sea of ignorance so broad and wide as displayed in this post, will let me know my mistake. At least that way I will know that while my sins are scarlet, my posts are read.

teenboy14

I will try and answer all your questions in the easiest way to understand, as the actual definition of some of this stuff is pretty technical.

So this is an extreme oversimplification of it, but the cloud refers to computers (servers) that are not inside your house, but instead are made available to people over the internet and provide some service. In this case file storage. For example, if I upload something to dropbox, it is on the cloud, because it is no longer stuck in my house, but it is on someone else's server where I can access it.

In terms of your data on your computer that you are afraid of being lost, I would recommend buying an external hard drive in order to back up stuff to. This is much easier for a number of reasons, and more secure.

Now to all the questions:
1. You really wouldnt backup your entire home computer to a cloud provider if you have a lot of stuff on it. Or just in general. Doing that would not only be slow, but also would slow down your internet, and also is really not available. You can back up specific things to the cloud, like photos or videos, but again if you have a large amount of data its not practical.

2. You can watch media like videos right from most cloud storage providers sites. Mega, Dropbox, Onedrive, Google Drive, are a few examples. But you wouldnt be using VLC, no.

3. No…. Just no

4. I wouldn't recommend it for things you frequently use. Or just in general you should always have a copy of your data that you can physically access. But, for example, if you have a bunch of old photos from college that you dont want to delete, but dont really care about, yeah you could upload them to a cloud storage provider and then delete the local files.

5. Ummm. A VPN doesn't protect your files. When you move a file into the cloud, it still has a physical location, its just that location is not in your home any more, it is some companies server. These companies have their own file protection and other stuff.

6. Depending on the website, they could. Again seeing as I am assuming some of your data is torrented you really wouldnt put that in the cloud.

7. No.

8. A VPN isnt the protection you seem to think it is. But what you would do is check the cloud providers policies and security history to see how reliable they are. Mega is good in that regard, as they encrypt all your shit.

9. Technically sites exist that let you torrent using the cloud, but it generally costs money, and I wouldnt recommend it. Its kind of shady, and not really how torrents are supposed to work.

10. A bit silly.

11. So there are free options, I am surprised you dont use one already like Google Drive or iCloud or Onedrive. There are also paid options as there are limits on how much free storage you get on every site

No. But as long as its with a company that you have heard of, its probably fine.
Yeah theres size limits, and you can pay for more storage. It all differs from site to site

So here is my suggestion, grab this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822236894
And set your computer to back up to it.

–Disclaimer: I dont work for newegg or anything, its just a easy site.