I don’t get it. Is it the same? If is it possible to back up iPhone storage and being able to restore an iPhone later? How is it different from a simple external hard drive? Why people choose physical ones over virtual?
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Physical storage is just that. You can hold it. If you are not physically attached (internal device, usb cable, etc) you cannot access it. You can access it offline.
Cloud does not live on the device. It’s stored on the server of the host. Must be online. You can access it from any internet connected device with the right credentials.
Physical storage : You have it in your possession, you know where you are sending your data and you know what is happening with them.
Virtual storage : You are sending your data somewhere else, you don’t really know where you are sending it and you have no real idea of what is happening with them.
Both have advantages and disadvantages depending of your preferences. The big one are that physical storage are generally more secure and virtual one are easier and more practical to use.
You should also know that “Cloud” storage by default is used to mentioned a “virtual” storage. If someone is using their own cloud, it would mean they are sending data from somewhere else on a storage they have in their own possession.
Everything is stored on a physical device. Cloud storage is just storage on someone’s else hard drive or perhaps SSD.
The advantage of cloud storage is you do not need to manage the hardware. It will not just be a single drive with the data, it will at least be RAID and likly stored on multiple servers to keep it available if one fails. It can also be a tape backup. If some hardware fails someone else will replace it it. You do not need the skill or spend the time to do that.
Another advantage is that it is Off-site backup, If you have redundant data storage at home home a house fire will destroy all of it. There is an advantage of storing data in multiple physical locations. Large companies will have storage in multiple physical locations.
If letting someone else manage the storage or you do it yourself will depend on the situation. In the case of an iPhone the huge advantage is you only need to create the account, everytime else is managed automatically or by someone else. That is a huge advantage for most people, they will not have the skills to do it as well themselves.
Realistically you should have both. iCloud makes it easy for people who forget to, or don’t want to take the time backing up their phones physically. If you also back it up to an external drive that information is always yours.
“The Cloud” isn’t really a *technology* as much as it is an *idea*, an organizational abstraction, so “physical cloud storage” doesn’t make much sense.
Imagine you are in the upper management of a company and you need to do something about your accounting data. Right now it is on the aging workstation of an accountant who is 75 years old named Ethyl and if either one of them croaks your business is in for a bad time. The company is starting to grow and you need a better solution. So what do you do?
An internal solution is for you to do everything yourself. You buy a server rack, power supplies, some rack-mounted servers, you purchase database management software, you hire a few IT people to manage the server and software, you build out a dedicated server room, arrange for off-site backups, etc. It is a whole thing and you need to chart the network architecture on a whiteboard in your meeting room.
Or… you could just pay someone else to do it. Instead of the whole server chart on your whiteboard you just draw a fluffy cloud and point your accounting department to it. Another company manages the server, the database, the backups, etc. and all you need to do is ensure you have internet access so accounting can work. That is what “the cloud” is, it is just an organizational abstraction.
When an iPhone is backed up to “the cloud” it is just backing up to whatever solution Apple has in place to handle the storage and retrieval of that data. Chances are it is way safer than a hard drive on your desk, if perhaps less desirable in other ways. But the hard drive on your desk is not “the cloud” because you are handling all the technical aspects of the process, it isn’t an abstraction.
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