It is rediculious to me that people still store files locally on their computer outside of a cloud-backed storage folder or tool.
Expect it. Count on it. It's happend to me half-a-dozen times before I learned my lesson. It happens to everyone.
Never store files that you actually care about or want to keep in local folders.
There are so many cloud-backed storage options, and many of them are free!
Every company these days has their own cloud-backed storage option, and with both private and shared stores.
Shoot you can even create your own LOCAL CLOUD with a Synology device. They also has it's own 'local cloud folder' option Synlogy Drive that has the same Google Drive / Dropbox like experience.
Even most phones these days support cloud-based storage so that you don't run out of room for photos, messages, etc. Using those lets you get a much smaller memory phone and have nearly unlimitted storage.
Windows and Mac have OS built-in support for cloud-backed storage now. The way most of these work today is when you install the local cloud storage client, it looks like a folder on your computer. You still access your files the same way out of that folder structure, but they're replicated to the cloud behind the scenes. Files not used regularly still appear in the folder, but are removed from your computer's actual storage and kept in the cloud. When you open a file that's not cached locally, the cloud service downloads the file in the background seamlessly you don't even notice, and keeps it local for awhile.
- Redundancy -- Files don't get lost when your computer dies.
- Access Away from Any Device -- Access your same files from laptop, work computer, phone, tablet, etc.
- Access Away from Your Tech -- Somewhere without one of your devices? Login to web experience to sill have access to your files.
- URL to Everything -- Any file you do have that you want to share with someone, don't waste space in email/txt/etc, just right-click "Copy Share Link" and share the URL
- Extended Storage -- Ever worry about running out of disk space? With cloud backed storage that's not an issue.
- Version History -- Most cloud back options can keep a history of changes saved, so you can go back and restore an earlier version if needed.
- Storing large numbers of files (10k+) for like a local code repro that must be read at large scale quickly
- Temporary files .. and by temp I mean VERY temp, like that you'd be okay deleting everyday
- Applications .. yes of course applications locally bc easily re-installed, need fast local access when running, etc
- Like putting them 'on your desktop'? Then create a shortcut to your cloud folder on your desktop so it's easy to get to.
- Like having files in a different location than in a cloud folder? I sure do. You can create symbolic links locally to a folder in your cloud folder. Like I have
~/.ssh > ~/dropbox/conf/dot/sshor~/txt > ~/dropbox/txt - Privacy .. concerned about big brother being interested in or mining your data? okay, proton.me out of Switzerland has thier own google drive cloud storage like option that's deeply encrypted
- Offline access .. when you have to have access to your data without being connected to the internet, but even that's not quite a reason bc any of the services let you mark any folder/files a "store locally" so they're kept local to your computer for offline access
I'm tired of people (me too) being like "oh my computer crashed / got lost / stolen / corrupted /etc and I lost my files". That's a dumb thing to happen in today's world. Please, let's level up as a intelligent society.