According to this report, 7% of consumers stored their content in the cloud in 2011. It’s projected that by 2016, that figure will be 36%.
Somewhat staggering, right? You can see the increase in the trend for anytime/anywhere content accessibility especially as it pertains to the world of photography. Photo sharing is growing at an exponential rate. In a previous post, it’s cited that 3,125 photos are uploaded to Flickr each minute; Instagram has 3,600 each minute. With so many photography apps on the market, is it any wonder that the # 1 camera used on Flickr is the iPhone?
With an abundance of Cloud Service Providers (CSP’s) the cloud is showing no signs of becoming overcrowded…so far.
The article also goes on to make these storage growth predictions:
“Average storage per household will grow from 464GB in 2011 to 3.3TB in 2016.”
With the increased penetration of the tablet market, this feels completely feasible to me. The appeal of the tablet is portability and the ability to do anything you can do on your laptop/desktop but the ease of putting the device into your backpack. But naturally, the one drawback of these devices is storage capacity.
Cloud storage won’t be for everyone. There are many who won’t feel that the CSP will be 100% secure and would prefer to have their data “closer” with an external hard drive, or even their own mini-servers as those prices become more consumer friendly.
Me? I like to exercise all my options. The idea of cloud storage is still new and exciting to me, but I also like the feeling of assurance that an external hard drive provides.
Regardless of whether you stick to the traditional method of an external drive or you spread your wings and take to the cloud, storage is still going to be the center of your digital life. Get ready for the storage revolution.
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