Trying to understand clouds - iCloud vs. other clouds?

I'm sick to death of having multiple external HDs and want to start using a cloud system. I know very little about them and spent a few hours doing some research today, including reading/watching some tutorials about what iCloud is.

From my research, I believe that iCloud is more of a file sync app than a storage app. Is this correct? I own a Macbook Pro and will soon be replacing my PC with an iMac. I want my files to be synced between them (i.e. when I create a file on my laptop, I want it to show up on my iMac, and vice versa). Am I correct that iCloud will do this for me? (Note that I don't own any other Apple devices like an iPhone or iPad, so the two computers are, right now, my primary concern).

For actual long-term storage (both continual backup and hopefully some permanent "untouched" backup that won't be written over), am I right that iCloud is not meant for that? That I will need a different "HD in the sky" account with a company like JustCloud or Carbonite? If iCloud syncs between my computers, I suppose there would be a way to turn syncing off with these clouds and just use it for storage?

Thanks for helping out a newbie with this. I thought it would be fairly easy to understand but it's starting to make my head spin.

iCloud is great at syncing multiple devices but for specific things..you would not use it as an arbitrary means of creating a random file on the MPB and expect it to magically show up on the iMac..

For that sort of things there's Dropbox which provides ample storage for free and you can upgrade based on your needs. Here, you would get a regular folder in Finder where you would create files and have those files automatically show up on every other computer connecting to the same Dropbox account in the Dropbox folder on those machines..

If you want full-system backup to the cloud, you'd want to look at services like Carbonite that do that..

Cloud basically means to use servers out in the Internet for various things as opposed to one particular machine sitting somewhere. Usually the cloud services are powered by server farms that share the data redundantly in the background..

So long story short, you will most likely end up using multiple cloud services to do all the things you want to get done..

I won't comment on the long term/backup solutions since I don't do that but for file sync, little is better than trusty ol' Dropbox. You get 2GB of free storage (you can pay for more). You can also try Box.net which gives you 5GB of free space.

Various cloud-storage options are generally pretty poor IMO for mass file storage. First you have to upload the stuff, then you have to pay a monthly fee to keep it there (unless it's a small amount, under 5GB).

For keeping things synced across multiple machine, accessing files across devices, making it easy for colleagues to get "large" files that are too big to e-mail and (in iCloud's case) preserving Lion and all your iTunes music and app purchases, the cloud is great. Once bandwidth and storage technologies improve, I think cloud services really will be the center of our lives.

Thanks guys

Cloud services is not so much a technical thing, ..... today it is mainly food for lawyers trying to define the correct legal framework for cloud services.
Ask any Cloud provider on his data privacy policy / the country in which the data will be stored / the applicable law / and their contractual service level on availability and then you can think about your approach.

Cloud is a good thing, once the legal framework ( across all countries ) is agreed.
Until then, cloud is food for lawyers.

My 2 cents.

Cheers ... McBie

FYI for people who are interested in " The Cloud " in reality .....

There is a proposal by the ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC27 secretariat to develop an ISO
standard called Code of practice for data protection controls for public
cloud computing services and is under the purview of ISO Working Group on
Identity Management and Privacy Technology.

A draft version is expected towards the end of this year.

I think this is a step forward to create more clarity.

Cheers ... McBie

I use Dropbox which automatically keeps my MacBook Pro and my Linux machines in sync with each other. It's excellent and is so easy to use.