As we have told you (on more than one occasion) Microsoft is moving towards a cloud based operating system. This is not like Chrome where everything is web based and all of your data is in the cloud. Instead Microsoft envisions owning your data and by offering tools to make it easier to work with your data on more than one device. This is the lure of the cloud and in many ways it can be very attractive. For example online content distribution services like Steam are very attractive to gamers because they might want to play their games on multiple systems (not at the same time) and do not the restrictions on installations that some games have.

However, while Steam allows you to install a local copy of your games on the systems you chose Microsoft is looking to put all of your data on their servers. As we have already seen this type of behavior is not going over well with businesses. Sure many like the reduced cost that cloud services seem to offer, but what they are coming to find out is that the companies that run these services (Microsoft, Google, Apple, DropBox etc.) are all using very ambiguous terms in their usage policies to claim ownership of the data. This has prompted companies like IBM to ban many of these services and to set up their own internal cloud.

Because companies like Microsoft are now losing some enterprise customers they are aiming at the consumer. Here the market is easy pickings since most people either do not know or do not care that their data or personal information is no longer their own. In talking with many people I have found a serious level of apathy when presented with this information. I was shocked at how many claim that privacy is a losing war and that it is the price of having the ease of use that those services bring.

The question is, are these services really that much easier to use? In reality they are not. Let’s take a look at some of the private cloud options that are available in comparison to ones offered by Google, Microsoft and Apple.

For our example we will take a simple Network Attached Storage Device from Synology (DS212) and compare it to some cloud based services. For starters let’s look at capacity Vs Price. The DS212 will run you $300 before you drop in drives. It can use up to 3TB drives so let’s max it out. You can get a Seagate 3TB drive for around $170 this puts the price at $340 for the pair and ups our base price for home storage to $640 before shipping and any applicable taxes.

With Google Drive you get 5GB of space for free and Microsoft’s Sky Drive offers 7GB for free (the rest also offer 5GB for free with the exception of DropBox which is only 2GB). So right now they have a local NAS beat in terms of price. But what happens when you want to add more storage? Or you consider security and privacy?

To get an extra 20GB you are now pushing an extra $10 per Month for Sky Drive, $40 for iCloud, and $2.50 for Google Drive.

At this stage to get 25GB of space you are going to buy that maxed out NAS in 64 months. Still sounds like a bargain right? Consider this then, with the NAS you OWN your data, no one can gain access to it without your permission and/or a warrant. Under current terms and conditions most companies that have cloud based storage will cooperate with any request to view data and there are currently proposals in motion to require cloud based systems to be accessible to law enforcement with nothing more than a request (no warrant needed). It might also be a good time to remember that if the FBI or DHS seizes a server in the course of an investigation and your data is on it, you lose everything. They are under no obligation to give you your data back just because it is not what they are looking for.

If you want an example of this, just look at the MegaUpload case, the seizure of a proxy service in New York and many, many other examples of this.

So the question you have to ask is, how much is that data worth to you? You might also be interested to know that to get even .04% of the capacity of the Synology DS212 with 2 3TB drives (100GB Vs 3000GB) that we proposed here you would be paying as much as $200 for some services. At that point you have bought your own storage unit in 2 months. Plus you can do so much more with a home storage unit, complete backups of your systems (laptops, desktops etc) centralized iTunes and Zune storage for multiple user access, Storage of media files for easy retrieval. There are also applications for many mobile devices to allow access to NAS devices while on the go. (in some NAS devices you can even setup an email server...)

Many are already paying for high-speed internet services and even faster technology is coming very soon. This evolution will actually make a home based private cloud even more attractive and something that small businesses might soon adopt (we have already seen this trend happening).

So when you hear that a loss of privacy is inevitable just remember that there is something you can do to stop it. If you absolutely require all of your documents and data on the go there are products that will allow you to do that, they are not cheap, but they honestly offer more functionality that services like Google Drive, Sky Drive and others that are less secure (they are one big target) and leave you exposed to other risks and further invasions of your privacy. You might also want to consider the fact that cloud services are a cash cow for most companies who will continue to keep their costs as low as possible without regard to the safety and security of your data.

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