Windows 10 Will Use the Cloud To Free Up Disk Space (arstechnica.com) 204
The next update to Windows 10, due to be released in October, will be smarter about how it frees up disk space and cleans up temporary files. Ars Technica reports: As part of its Storage Sense feature, Windows will be able to automatically remove the local copies of OneDrive files (unless they've been set as always available offline). The operating system will determine which files to remove based on when they were opened: files used more recently than a certain number of days will be retained locally, while those that haven't been used will be replaced with placeholders. The system will remove files until the operating system reckons it has enough free space for normal operation.
Storage Sense will also be able to remove temporary or otherwise unneeded files such as system logs and image thumbnails. It will also be able to remove old files from the download directory. The temporary-file cleanup (which can also remove certain cache files, driver packages, old anti-virus definitions, and more) was previously handled by the Disk Cleanup tool. That tool is now deprecated, as Storage Sense does everything it used to do and more. Storage Sense can perform its cleanup process periodically (every day, week, or month) or automatically whenever the system is low on disk space.
Storage Sense will also be able to remove temporary or otherwise unneeded files such as system logs and image thumbnails. It will also be able to remove old files from the download directory. The temporary-file cleanup (which can also remove certain cache files, driver packages, old anti-virus definitions, and more) was previously handled by the Disk Cleanup tool. That tool is now deprecated, as Storage Sense does everything it used to do and more. Storage Sense can perform its cleanup process periodically (every day, week, or month) or automatically whenever the system is low on disk space.
why I won't use onedrive (Score:5, Interesting)
That's all I need, files magically disappearing from my local media.
Thanks but no thanks.
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And Microsoft promising not to leak your files or snoop in them. Oh wait, will they even promise that.
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And Microsoft promising not to leak your files or snoop in them. Oh wait, will they even promise that.
Microsoft... still evil. Not changed at all.
Re:why I won't use onedrive (Score:5, Informative)
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Those are true enough. Each app has its own policy on storage, synchronization and master/source-of-truth.
I'm onboard for file storage - I don't use iPhoto, and iTunes contains only music I provided, not bought from their store.
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Re: why I won't use onedrive (Score:4, Informative)
Friend of mine has an iPhone and wants to go to Android. But somehow she is unae to download her 6000 photos of her travels around the world.
So eother ditch sevetal years of memory, or stick with Apple.
There are many ways to accomplish this. One would be prior to ditching her iPhone, sync those photos to service of choice. Google Photos I assume can do this for instance.
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Another option, if your friend has Amazon Prime, is to sync to Prime Photos. It comes with unlimited photo storage.
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Apple's approach in insane. Its either 'let us do it all for you' or 'well fuck you, you are on your own'. Also, they have two different paradigms for how they treat the device. Itunes treats the device as disposable, where all master copies reside on the computer. For photos, it treats the device as a sacred repository where anything deleted of it also deletes the master copy on the server. Its outright stupid.
If you use Apple Music (or iTunes Match), the behaviour is similar to what you describe photos as. If you don't use iCloud photos, the behaviour is similar to what you describe for iTunes. Not evaluating the sanity of the situation, just pointing out you're comparing.. well Apples to something.
What's lacking in both instances is a method of saying "purge my local copies, but keep it in the cloud." It's somewhat achievable on a Mac via terminal. On an iDevice, you can toggle syncing of Photos, or documents
Re:why I won't use onedrive (Score:5, Funny)
"Storage Sense can perform its cleanup process periodically (every day, week, or month) or automatically whenever the system is low on disk space."
That's a great feature.
If it's 1987.
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It's slow, it's crappy and I advice against getting such machines (I have a Chinese tablet with 64GB, split up in something like 40GB for Win10 and 20GB for Android or so... The specs are
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I can imaging Windows automatically uploading ALL user files to the cloud as it makes roo
Re:why I won't use onedrive (Score:5, Interesting)
That's all I need, files magically disappearing from my local media. Thanks but no thanks.
Don't enable the "Files On-Demand" function and it'll make every file available always."Files On-Demand" is there today but all it does is, for example, not download a file you created on PC#1 to PC#2 until you try to access it on PC#2. The new feature uses access statistics to do things more automatically if you let it. No reason to think your files will magically disappear. There's plenty of reasons to not use OneDrive, but this isn't one of them.
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Or just don't use OneDrive, or any cloud service.
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Yes you won't have files magically disappear if they have never appeared on your device in the first place. Bring back the hour long IrDA transfers! Woot.
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Don't enable the "Files On-Demand" function and it'll make every file available always.
That thud you just heard was my jaw dropping to the floor. How many times does Microsoft have to ignore user settings before people stop using the, "your Microsoft ass reaming is a selectable option that Microsoft will always honor"?
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Don't enable the "Files On-Demand" function and it'll make every file available always.
I think you're missing the point. There's no sane reason to let a 3rd party decide if you need stuff or not, and the fact the company is doing this strongly suggests they have an agenda. Combine this with the massive push many companies are making to get people addicted to the cloud, plus the rise of EULA changes that automatically opt you in to certain behavior, making you jump through hoops to opt out, and it should be clear this feature is not being implemented for the benefit of end users.
In other wor
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What could possibly go wrong with this. (Score:5, Insightful)
From a company that still has not figured out how security works.
security (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh, MS knows how security works. Their income security, their relationship security with Big Surveillance.
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From a company that still has not figured out how security works.
[Citation Required] Can you point to an example of a breach of the OneDrive service? Or their cloud service in general? I mean sure I can come up with examples from Amazon and Apple, but when you make a claim like that you should be prepared to back it up.
Fortunately... (Score:2)
Fortunately, you can still save locally, in Documents, at least for now. There should also be a way to sync all OneDrive files and turn off this overbearing behavior.
Just because you didn't use a file recently doesn't mean it's less important, and it wouldn't be nice to find out it was deleted when you're doing a presentation somewhere with poor Internet access...
sigh (Score:5, Insightful)
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So you choose that today. Then Windows runs an update, decides it knows best, and resets the flag to "Save all files older than 12 hours online instead of offline."
This is YET another setting you need to check every single time Windows has an update to make sure it didn't get reset. Do you enjoy that game of whack-a-mole to make sure your computer does what you want it to do rather than what some faceless corporation wants?
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...but you can still choose not to save to OneDrive at all.
I refer you to the selectable option to not downgrade from Windows 7 to Windows 10 as a reference to how much Microsoft cares about your choices.
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I dual boot Windows and Linux at work, mostly using Linux. On rare occasion when I have to reboot into Windows it seems to take around 20 min to process whichever update it tried to apply last time I shut it down, wasting time. I'm not a fan of that little feature and the inability to control when updates occur.
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Windows
Which Windows? The shitty little consumer versions (which incidentally allow you to disable this feature we are talking about). Or the Windows versions actually designed for business which have none of the problems you complain about?
You simply cannot use it offline anymore and with this "feature" it is now pure garbage.
I have a better assertion for you: Ignorant people shouldn't use computers for business.
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Sure, the Indies have a greater percentage if Linux use, but the support for major titles is nearly none existent.
Outta my 99 games, only 14 run on Linux last I looked.
WINE forever gives me issues and never seems to work quite right.
Should be just the thing (Score:4, Interesting)
As it is, I'm sure 'Cortana guesses which files you don't really need access to right now' will be a hilarious game for the whole family.
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But I'm sure it won't remove... (Score:4, Insightful)
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Why do you leave suggested apps enabled? Do you enable it just so you have something to complain about?
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Or all the crap from Windows/Temp or Windows/winsxs. The former is all of the random crud from installs and updates (much like /tmp/). The latter is the pre-install downloaded patches and updates - which is kept around for god knows how long "just in case" something goes wrong. I've seen 50GB taken up between them, and their automated cleanup tool doesn't help. The winsxs folder in particular requires SYSTEM access to clean up.
For the stupid user only (Score:2)
I'll just stay with Kubuntu.
What a colossally stupid idea. (Score:5, Interesting)
Even 1TB SSDs are below $150 and good brands at $160. Even for an ultrabook user, you'd have to be an idiot to want this.
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Because the common desktop/laptop user out there still to this day does not backup files from their hard drives.
How many times over the years has someone handed you their old busted laptop and asked you if you could please recover all their old photos from there please?
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How many times over the years has someone handed you their old busted laptop and asked you if you could please recover all their old photos from there please?
Soon to be replaced with someone handing you their old busted laptop and asking if you can recover all their old photos from the Cloud that Microsoft unilaterally decided to delete. Or if you can recover the mission-critical programs that no longer run because Microsoft unilaterally decided you needed to buy them all over again. Or that Microsoft unilaterally decided were too much of a threat to allow to run at all.
Yeah, this is a tremendously stupid idea for end users, and a great idea for Microsoft.
Of c
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Exactly. For iphones it makes sense only because apple doesn't give the user a way to expand their storage and also because storing your photos on the cloud gives you a backup when/if your phone gets lost/stolen/destroyed. For desktop, online backup makes sense but if you've bought your computer in the last decade then you should have ample storage and if you don't then you probably need to spend the $40 needed to upgrade your computer. Anybody who needs more than the default amount of storage likely nee
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With local storage being so insanely cheap these days, it's just an idiotic idea that only benefits MS.
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Sure I'll just slot that 14TB HDD into my 8mm thick device to say nothing of my mobile phone.
In other words, don't be silly. The size of 3.5" HDDs have nothing to do with the benefits of any cloud service used on devices much smaller than the HDDs you are quoting.
What could POSSIBLY go wrong here? (Score:3)
This is the best idea since integrating Windows Explorer into Internet Explorer.
Arrogance + myopia + just plain stupidity = SHIT. (Score:2, Insightful)
Microsoft making a decision like this displays the same sort of arrogance as Apple deleting the headphone port from its iPhones.
Fuck the people who make such asinine narrow-minded decisions, fuck their products, fuck their companies, and fuck the horse they rode in on.
Man you idiots (Score:5, Insightful)
Look i hate microsoft, i hate windows 10, but I do have to support it. Out of control onedrive files, especially on a multi user computer, is a constant plague. People just dont set their files online only. They just dont. Having the OS manage that for them should have been a feature YEARS ago.
40gb in a teams filestore is like no problem for anyone but me. Now thats replicated to 20 people in a department, wasting all that local storage space and BANDWIDTH. So yes, microsoft finally got around to FIXING an obvious undersight and all you people see is "microsoft" and "cloud" and "delete" and are all like nooope! without actually thinking or knowing what you guys are talking about.
This is a windows admin's dream if you use teams or onedrive, which face it, many companies are moving to for various reasons i wont get into. Most features they put out are ass and break things, and this may be as well, but on paper it would be a HUGE help.
Look at the list of what its deleting. All temp files. We have fileshares, cloud and on premises, so people dont have anything local on their machines. They can be reimaged or stolen or surged. And they need to be cleaned, manually, when their disks fill up with cache files that the OS should be dealing with!
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OK, I'm missing somethign (really). You have 40gb, duplicated by 20 people - or 800GB of data . Isn't that about $20 in disk space, $40 if you have backups?
I can see how the bandwidth could be an issue to update everyone, but as long as they are using onedrive for general files, no cache or large databases, (which shold be handled differently), is there really that much bandwidth? If there is, then maybe one drive is the wrong tool for that team.
I find it very convienent to keep all my work and home co
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I never understood this about sharing between computers. If the file isn't on my work computer then I don't work on it unless I have my work computer. When I go home, I am home and not at work, I will not do my job on my home computer. When I'm at work, I don't do my home stuff on my work computer either. When I am commuting I am not working either. If I travel for work I take my work computer with me. And my phone and tablet have nothing whatsoever to do with work anyway beyond basic phone calls and si
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I'm working on readout systems for radio telescopes, so I may be developing on my work desktop, but I may have to make some changes from my laptop on site (which could be in an internet-free location). I often work from home and on travel because I rather enjoy my work and because its pretty much expected in this community.
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Ah ok. It seems like the last decade or so most companies have been giving out laptops instead of desktops, so that the one computer is both the main and the mobile computer.
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Sometimes that works, but I generally want a laptop that is small enough to use in a coach airline seat, and that generally means a pretty low performance computer.
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Macbook Pro is pretty light, and Macbook Air is only slightly less powerful and you're not going to find much smaller than that.
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Plug in the phone, copy the images to the computer, unplug the phone.
(rolls eyes) (Score:5, Insightful)
Windows 10 already eats WAY too much of my internet connection on its stupid updates. (No I don't need an update of Internet Edge, because I never use it.... where's the stupid "turn updates off" option?) It slows everything down, such that I can't even load Youtube and watch a video until the update is finished.
Now they want to offload tempt files across my line too? Come on! I truly hate this company (and that hatred goes back to 1990).
Microsoft: Please stop sucking. Please treat your users & their computers with RESPECT instead of your personal servants.
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.... where's the stupid "turn updates off" option? [alltechbuzz.net]
1. Disable Windows Update Service or
2. Setup A Metered Connection
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About the OneDrive, I did root canal on that sumbitch.
I went into the registry and set OneDrive to disappear in Explorer (File Manager).
Seems to me (haven't tried it) that we could block Office from hitting on the Update servers.
I use Microsoft Network Monitor 3.4 to look for that stuff.
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If you're not using Windows then why do you care?
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Now they want to offload tempt files across my line too?
No. Now they provide you the option to do so. But don't let that get in the way of your fake rage.
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Windows 10 already eats WAY too much of my internet connection on its stupid updates. (No I don't need an update of Internet Edge, because I never use it.... where's the stupid "turn updates off" option?) It slows everything down, such that I can't even load Youtube and watch a video until the update is finished.
Now they want to offload tempt files across my line too? Come on! I truly hate this company (and that hatred goes back to 1990).
Microsoft: Please stop sucking. Please treat your users & their computers with RESPECT instead of your personal servants.
win + r, gpedit.msc
Poke around and change some settings, it's pretty well documented what each flag/option does. Then again, if you can't be bothered to google for an answer to your questions, then I doubt this comment would be much help either.
Havenâ(TM)t Microsoft deleted accounts due to (Score:2)
Could have sworn I heard a story about a guy who had home made porn backed up on his one drive, account terminated for violations?
Because no one is ever disconnected (Score:2)
No one flies on airliners, or does work in locations with minimal or no internet connectivity. I'm sure there is a way to turn it off, but now I'm going to have to spend time making absolutely sure that it really is off and that I'm not going to lose access to files when I'm at a remote site. (by which time its too late to do anything about it).
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People trying to work while on an airplane need to learn how to relax and let it go. It's one really great excuse for not working and finally getting some extra sleep and people want to waste that? I was on one flight and once the plane took off the pair in front of me said "ok, let's get started on our presentation". What the hell, finish the presentation before you get on the plane so that it doesn't look like a crappy presentation you cobbled together on a plane.
People just don't know how to relax. W
Um, no it won't (Score:3)
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Put a backup thumb drive on the cat's collar.
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I don't have a single file in the cloud. Why? Because I know that storing stuff in the cloud means "storing it on someone else's computer".
For most people, someone else's computer is more secure and better backed up than their own.
I have enough disk space, and I'm not a selfie-holic, that local storage isn't an issue. I burn stuff I care about to a thumb drive every month or so, and store important stuff to a NAS.
That's not a reason not to use a cloud service. If anything that's a reason to setup OwnCloud or Seafile on your NAS box and turn up your nose at plebs seeking commercial services. Until now, the existence of Cloud services has had nothing to do with disk space at all.
A fire at home could wipe out all my data
Well I was wrong. Looks like someone else's computer does it better than you too.
Look inside first, Microsoft (Score:5, Insightful)
How about instead of randomly deleting my personal files off of my personal device, you start moving your own "rarely used" files? C:\Windows\WinSXS is a perennial problem. You can't tell me that you need all that SXS data available at a moment's notice. What about the SoftwareDistribution directory? What about all of your uninstallers and other crap that fills up my Windows directory? How about let's look at moving that stuff to the cloud first, eh?
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How about instead of randomly deleting
It's not random.
you start moving your own "rarely used" files? C:\Windows\WinSXS is a perennial problem.
The principle idea is to not move anything to the cloud that would require the system to keep functioning. Why not delete that folder and see how far you get?
What about the SoftwareDistribution directory? What about all of your uninstallers and other crap that fills up my Windows directory? How about let's look at moving that stuff to the cloud first, eh?
No need. Cloud backup is the last of the steps for cleaning disk space. It is done *after* the cleanup of the very files you are talking about. You won't see you files clouded and deleted due to disk space while there are still uninstallers or past windows versions present as long as they are past their brief retention period. But hey I
Move Windows not User files (Score:3)
The biggest pain is having to rely upon third party tools to try and shrink the size of a Windows install. Why not move so many of the bullshit folders into the cloud instead? That way User information can be kept protected and not uploaded, and since every Windows install has the same bullshit folders taking up extra space, why not leave them in the cloud til needed?
Crazy to need external storage to perform a Windows update when it should do everything to shrink itself first before requiring users to move files. I had to work to find spare space on a Surface device when it was trying to update, which had practically nothing on it.
(Which is why it's my only Windows device in the house - well besides VM's of course...)
Another excellent reason not to get Win 10 (Score:2)
So you can mark which files you want to keep locally.
Wonderful.
Is there anybody so naive they doubt for one second that the moment you turn your back, Win10 will revert to a default setting where Microsoft will decide which files should be on your computer, and which files should be on theirs?
When the time comes that Win 7 becomes utterly untenable, I will grit my teeth and move to Linux. I will not have this operating system in my home or my business, patiently waiting to become a gatekeeper standing be
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But how can it move files to the cloud when I don't have any cloud account? I also thought you had to manually place files into OneDrive folder before it showed up in OneDrive.
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You might be right. I intend to install it on one of my machines and start getting familiar with it...not sure what flavour yet.
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Thanks for that. Maybe I'll give it a try.
It sill won't remove ... (Score:4, Informative)
... all the temporary folders created by programs in the %LOCALAPPDATA% folder hierarchy.
e.g.: Whenever you open a file attachment in Outlook it gets saved into [C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\INetCache\Content.Outlook\H83V4PYQ], which is not your temp folder [C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\Local\Temp] and, despite the [INetCache] in there, this folder does not get touched by cache clean up in Internet Options.
None of this gets cleaned up by the Disk Cleanup Wizard and I doubt this new tool will help with that either.
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One good reason to never use Outlook at home.
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If only it were just Outlook. All Microsoft applications do the same thing (just different folders), instead of using the %TEMP% folder like they tell all of us to use.
It's gotten worse since the "Program Data" folder became a thing as third party developers decided that was a great place to stash all of their temp files instead of the %TEMP% folder.
The great thing about Standards is everyone has their own.
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I think they write up the coding guidelines for third party developers after they've already finished their own software. I am amazed at how all of their sample code is complete shit and breaks most of their own guidelines.
About time! (Score:2)
32gb laptops (Score:2)
Oh no you don't (Score:2)
The Cloud (Score:2)
The trouble with the Cloud is that eventually you run out of other people's computers
Logs (Score:2)
Awesome. There's nothing as useful as having system logs in the cloud when you're trying to troubleshoot connectivity issues.
It is a cache, dummies (Score:2)
The idea behind OneDrive is to store your files on Microsoft servers, so that you can access them from anywhere you have access to Microsoft servers, with your account. Don't like it, you are free to use local storage, your own NAS, or another "cloud" provider.
To avoid requiring permanent access to Microsoft servers, decrease latency, stay compatible with "offline" apps, etc... the files are copied to local storage. But from a purely user perspective it doesn't matter, you are working "in the cloud". The lo
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Let's don't forget that MIcrosoft has been known to (inadvertently one assumes) reset flags to their default values during updates. You might be able to set up a safe, useful configuration. Is it going to stay safe/useful?
Re:Legal? (Score:5, Interesting)
Seems like GDPR compliance in the EU is likely to be a problem. I suspect that HIPAA compliance in the US might be a problem for medical data, but I don't know enough about HIPAA to be sure.
This really could be Microsoft's dumbest idea since the $@#%& Registry.
Encryption (Score:2)
Either you have encrypted your data from day 0, or you shouldn't put 3rd party personnal data into a OneDrive / GoogleDrive / DropBox / etc. shared folder to begin with.
Unless that service is rated for the kind of data you want to store on it (is OneDrive considered HIPAA compliant ?)
----
To go back to the grandma example :
- it could be plausible
- typically, she could have some internet-wizard grand nephew who tells her about the "wonders of the cloud" (now with 150% more "always backed up!(t
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...(is OneDrive considered HIPAA compliant ?)
OneDrive for Business is. Of the cloud enterprises, Microsoft seems to be the one that will deal with HIPAA agreements the easiest.
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Seems like GDPR compliance in the EU is likely to be a problem. I suspect that HIPAA compliance in the US might be a problem for medical data, but I don't know enough about HIPAA to be sure.
So far, Microsoft has been very agreeable to meeting HIPAA terms and signing the needed business and HIPAA agreements to deal with hospitals and PHI. Google and Amazon, not so much IME (which is a couple of years out of date).
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This is why I use Cryptomator. https://cryptomator.org/ [cryptomator.org]
I have selective, EncFS-style encryption that is portable and multi-platform. I moved the Cryptomator folders/containers from Dropbox to iCloud, because of the dubious political and surveillance concerns with Dropbox. Dropbox application behaves like a rootkit on Mac, and will stop working on any Linux but plaintext Ext4 FS in Nov 2018.
My Linux machines are replicated using Syncthing for the folders, and Cryptomator again, almost transparently allows en
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A USB hard drive stored at home/office doesn't help when you need to share the files with a device with no USB A port or view them while you are away from your hard drive, or if a disaster hits your home/office and renders your hard drive unreadable. What form of offsite backup compatible with both PCs and pocket-sized tablets is superior to things like OneDrive, Dropbox, and Google Drive?
Re:Learned nothing from Jennifer Lawrence (Score:4, Interesting)
On-premises or colocated? (Score:2)
Is this ownCloud instance on your premises, in a VPS at a datacenter, in a leased dedicated server at a datacenter, or in your own dedicated server that you colocate in a datacenter? If on your premises, then you may have to pay extra per month for a dedicated IP address that isn't behind carrier-grade network address translation (CGNAT), and it doesn't solve offsite backup. If in a datacenter, you still need to trust the datacenter operator and guard your infrastructure against getting snooped, hacked, etc
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But, as you said, once you no longer control the physical access, you can't avoid having to trust somebody other than yourself.
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the static IP being replaced by dynamic DNS
Even dynamic DNS won't help when your ISP doesn't provide a globally routable IP address for your home at all. An ISP using CGNAT routes the outgoing connections of dozens of subscribers through the same global IP address and blocks incoming TCP connections. And Bert64 reports [slashdot.org] that some countries have so few IPv4 addresses that all home ISPs use CGNAT.
Re: On-premises or colocated? (Score:2)
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