Over the past year Amazon, Google and Apple have all launched “cloud” music services of one kind or another. From the press, one could be forgiven for thinking that cloud storage is the hot new thing; but while it is certainly hot, it is not especially new. Generally speaking, “cloud” storage simply refers to data storage that is accessible over a wide area network (usually the Internet).
Typically, the term is used to refer to storage space sold as a service by third parties who own, manage and control the servers to users who need a place to store their data. The owner of the servers leases out space at a certain price per gigabyte, often with some free space up front, and the user can store whatever he or she wants there. The model has been around for a many years, but it is becoming more and more popular as fast Internet connections become ubiquitous and devices shed storage capacity and processing power to become cheaper and more mobile.
