A personal cloud is a collection of

digital content Digital content is any content that exists in the form of digital data. Also known as digital media, digital content is stored on digital or analog storage in specific formats. Forms of digital content include information that is digitally bro ...

and services which are accessible from any device. The personal cloud is not a tangible entity. It is a place which gives users the ability to store, synchronize,

stream A stream is a continuous body of surface water flowing within the bed and banks of a channel. Depending on its location or certain characteristics, a stream may be referred to by a variety of local or regional names. Long large streams ...

and share content on a relative core, moving from one platform, screen and location to another. Created on connected services and applications, it reflects and sets consumers’ expectations for how next-generation computing services will work. The four primary types of personal cloud in use today are: Online cloud, NAS device cloud,

server Server may refer to: Computing * Server (computing), a computer program or a device that provides functionality for other programs or devices, called clients Role * Waiting staff, those who work at a restaurant or a bar attending customers and s ...

device cloud, and home-made clouds.

Online cloud

The online cloud is also sometimes referred to as

public cloud Cloud computing is the on-demand availability of computer system resources, especially data storage (cloud storage) and computing power, without direct active management by the user. Large clouds often have functions distributed over multi ...

. Online cloud is the

cloud computing Cloud computing is the on-demand availability of computer system resources, especially data storage (cloud storage) and computing power, without direct active management by the user. Large clouds often have functions distributed over multip ...

model where online resources like software and data storage are made available over the

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, p ...

by a

service provider A service provider (SP) is an organization that provides services, such as consulting, legal, real estate, communications, storage, and processing services, to other organizations. Although a service provider can be a sub-unit of the organization t ...

. In an online cloud model, cloud services are provided in a virtualized system, are constructed using pooled, shared physical resources and are accessed by the Internet. Typically, an individual or organization has little control over the ecosystem in which the online cloud is hosted, and the core

infrastructure Infrastructure is the set of facilities and systems that serve a country, city, or other area, and encompasses the services and facilities necessary for its economy, households and firms to function. Infrastructure is composed of public and priv ...

is shared between many individuals and organizations. The data and applications provided by the service provider are logically segregated so that only those authorized are allowed access.

NAS device cloud

network-attached storage Network-attached storage (NAS) is a file-level (as opposed to block-level storage) computer data storage server connected to a computer network providing data access to a heterogeneous group of clients. The term "NAS" can refer to both the tec ...

(NAS) device is a computer connected to a

network Network, networking and networked may refer to: Science and technology * Network theory, the study of graphs as a representation of relations between discrete objects * Network science, an academic field that studies complex networks Mathematics ...

that provides only file-based data storage services to other devices on the network. Although it may technically be possible to run other software on a NAS device, it is not designed to be a general purpose server. Cloud NAS is remote storage that is accessed over the Internet as if it were local. A cloud NAS is often used for backups and archiving. One of the benefits of NAS Cloud is that data in the cloud can be accessed at any time from anywhere. The main drawback, however, is that the speed of the

transfer rate In telecommunications and computing, bit rate (bitrate or as a variable ''R'') is the number of bits that are conveyed or processed per unit of time. The bit rate is expressed in the unit bit per second (symbol: bit/s), often in conjunction w ...

is only as fast as the network connection the

data In the pursuit of knowledge, data (; ) is a collection of discrete values that convey information, describing quantity, quality, fact, statistics, other basic units of meaning, or simply sequences of symbols that may be further interprete ...

is accessed over and can therefore be fairly slow.

Server device cloud

In many ways cloud servers work in the same way as physical servers but the functions they perform can be very different. Typically, the cloud server is an on-premises device that is connected to the Internet and gives users the functions available on the online cloud but with the added benefit and security of the files being in their control on their premises. The server cloud has been historically enterprise-based deployed by businesses needing an in-house cloud. However, there are also in-house options available for individual users.

Home-made clouds

For the more technologically proficient user a common solution for using a personal cloud is to create a home-made cloud system by connecting an external USB

hard drive A hard disk drive (HDD), hard disk, hard drive, or fixed disk is an electro-mechanical data storage device that stores and retrieves digital data using magnetic storage with one or more rigid rapidly rotating platters coated with magneti ...

to a

Wi-Fi Wi-Fi () is a family of wireless network protocols, based on the IEEE 802.11 family of standards, which are commonly used for local area networking of devices and Internet access, allowing nearby digital devices to exchange data by radio wav ...

router. This enables both wired and wireless computers to access the USB hard drive and use it for storage or for retrieving files a user needs to share on the network thereby acting like a cloud. The challenge for the home-made cloud is that in order to set it up a user has to have a certain degree of skills in technology and network setup. This solution is not for novices and average consumers. If this setup is not done by a tech expert the biggest issue will be security and leaving the files accessible to anyone with technical knowledge. Not every router supports this type of access and modification.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Personal Cloud Cloud computing

Online cloud

NAS device cloud

Server device cloud

Home-made clouds

See also

References