ONLINE DATA STORAGE

ONLINE DATA STORAGE

1. Online data storage is more commonly known as Cloud Storage

   • Many businesses and individuals store their data files, such as word documents, spreadsheets & images online

2. File compression is a process of "packing" a file ( or files ) to use less disk space

   • When sharing files over the internet, such as by uploading them to a cloud storage service, or emailing them to someone, we often use file compression

3. File compression is used because it provides us with a number of benefits, including;

   • Faster- Transferring compressed files, such as uploading or downloading them, is quicker, as the files are smaller
   • Multiple files- Multiple files can be put into a single compressed folder, so its easier to see several files at once
   • Reduced Storage Space- Less storage space is used, so you don't need as much hard disk or cloud storage space to store the files

4. DOCUMENT COMPRESSION

   • Text based documents are searched through to find patterns so that repeated words, spaces and redundant data can be removed
   • This is an example of lossless compression as the original data is not lost and can be completely recovered by decompressing it

5. IMAGE COMPRESSION

   • Different shades of the same colour are rewritten to the same shade to reduce the number of colours being used, and so reducing the file
   • This normally uses lossy compression, so the image cannot be decompressed and so it will always be of a lower quality