In small businesses, I see reoccurring issues:
- The file server is out of space.
- We don't have a file server, so we email documents to each other.
- We have a file server, but our remote workers can't access the files.
- The one hard drive that contains all of our data went caput for no apparent reason.
- My computer's share to the file server disconnected again, and I can't reconnect it, again.
- The computer that runs the file server died, and we have to find a solution; do we need another computer?
So, I found a solution to all of these issues, and it works great.
I found software, that costs $40 for a one-time purchase per computer ($80 for a Windows Server), that connects you to a cloud-based file system that has an uptime of 99.9999%, is cost-effective, solves the common network connectivity issues with Windows networking, can be encrypted, works with remote users across the internet, is easy to use, and is painless to install.
The most time-consuming part of the setup process, for you, is creating the cloud account, with a service provider such as Amazon Web Service (AWS), Microsoft Azure, Google Cloud, OpenStack, Wasabi, and others), entering the payment info, and validating the email. Each computer requires a copy of the cloud-drive software, which takes about 9 minutes to download and install. 5 more minutes to configure the software, enter the license key, and test the connection.
When all of the computers are running the software, each user will be able to share documents within the Windows Desktop Environment.
If you have a macOS, Linux, Android, or iOS, there are comparable apps and applications for those platforms as well.
This is private, secure data storage that is a service that you pay for, at least with the cloud providers, that means you are not a product of some other service that they sell.
The data up in the cloud can be encrypted at the user level, so that AWS, Microsoft, and Google will see nothing but an incomprehensible blob of data. The security keys that encrypt your own data will be private to you so that if a hacker is able to break into the cloud provider, the hacker will see nothing but the incomprehensible blob of data.
The connection from your device is secure because the cloud-drive software is encrypting the data as it is sent across the internet. This means that anyone who might intercept the connection will see nothing but incomprehensible packets of data.