I think that most people today use a drive in the cloud, but both Pens and external disks are still used a lot because the internet speed are not that fast in what concerns uploads and downloads. What's your case, do you use both as most of us do or do you use mainly the cloud?
I tend to use a usb drive for the most part. The cloud can be very convenient, but if you need to do a presentation or need your information in a moment's notice and the internet connection is failing you're going to have a bad time. I don't have that problem with usb drives unless I forget it at home, which doesn't happen often.
That's how I feel too, I mean, if I don't have an urgency in the documents of files I put them in the cloud, but if it's something I need to access all the time I have it in a pen drive because that is way easier to access. The only thing I don't enjoy is to carry the pen, I am always afraid I lose it.
I still use both pen drives and external hard drives but I don't use them as much anymore. The large external hard drive I have is only for storing media such as games and movies, which I keep there just for something I can go to whenever I am offline for one reason or another. Pen drives are still useful to me for small tasks like easy transferring between laptops when I don't want to use wifi, or when I want to use media for the TV, but for most things I usually just transfer through wifi and I do store things in cloud storage now, though they are still relatively slow with uploads so I still don't use them as much as I'd want to.
I have quite a few pen drives at work (I work in the IT area), but at the same time I hate to carry them in my pockets because I am not using them all the time. So, I just have them in my drawer, but as I work in a common room sometimes they "disappear" and it's a really annoying situation.
I work at home and save most of my files both on my HDD and external media storage for back up. I use cloud storage primarily as a backup of my backups. If you can, it's much better to avoid all the downloading and uploading which makes cloud storage a hassle for some people. Even if I had one of those super-fast internet connections, I'd still not rely on cloud storage entirely. Sites get hacked from time to time. What if all your stuff is deleted?
I use both, but in different circumstances and situations. For example when I don't really have time to store a big file on the cloud, or I know that when I will need to access that file, my internet speed will be slow, then I store the data on the pen drive, but when it's all about small files, up to 1Gb, then I use cloud.
I am a user of Mega (I think I've made a thread about it) and it's a little unstable in what speed is concerned. Somedays I can upload/download 1GB for example in a matter of minutes and other days it takes me over 30 minutes, so it's still handy to carry the pen sometimes.
I don't use the cloud that often because I'm not really connected to the internet 24/7 and I deal with large file sizes every time so it's going to be a nightmare if I use the cloud for large storage. I pretty use the Pen drive since they're much more portable and you don't' have to worry about damage is your accidentally drop it. Also pen drives today have enormous capacity now and they're becoming really cheap.
I've never even used the cloud. I still have pen disks as they are a lot more convenient. You just plug it in and have access at a moment's notice. Also as we have seen recently, there are security issues with the cloud.
I don't use the cloud that often but only for the smaller and less important documents that I want backed up. Since I don't usually hang around and I don't have a fast internet connection on the go, I tend to stick with the physical drives for storage and transfer. I personally use a hard drive and always bring it with me but for the most part I tend to stick with my pen drives since they're more reliable and portable and you don't need to bring a bag along with you. And most pen drives now offer a lot of more space than usual and they're pretty much cheaper now (I got a 32GB pen drive for just $10) It's fairly the best choice when it comes to carrying your files on the go. The only downside is that if you misplace it or if it accidentally fell off your hands it's going to be hard to find and track because of it's size.
I prefer pen drives since they're much smaller and you don't have to worry about internet connection or wires. I have a 64GB pen drive and for the most part its all I need when I need to pass projects or attend meetings and I have to make a presentation. But when it comes to heavy work and I have to do a lot of large files I stick my hard drive. I never use the cloud for anything, it seems rather unsafe and unreliable if you're not online.
Now, 64GB it's a great size for a pen drive and if it's 2 or 3 USB it has to be really fast, so better than cloud. The issue with that 64GB pen drive is that it's a considerable investment, while if we use the cloud that is most of the times free.
I use external hard drives because I do photography and have a lot of files. I do have a Dropbox that is very convenient to share files between computers but for the most part I need much more space than a cloud would give. And I wouldn't trust my data completely to a third party. A hard drive is safer. Usb drives I have them but don't use them much since Dropbox can be used for the same.
My issue with Dropbox and Google Drive is that they are really slow. I prefer to use Mega, but lately I've been puzzled with it as well because some files work super fast while others can take up to one hour, I really don't get why this happens.
