What is cloud storage?
Cloud storage is a mechanism by which cloud providers offer users a way to store data on the Internet through an abstracted service. The cloud service provider is responsible for managing and operating the data storage. The storage is delivered on demand in a pay-as-you-go model. Amazon S3 and Google Cloud Storage are well known examples of a cloud storage.
Cloud storage means there is no hardware to buy, which can be a cost-savings to customers. Capacity can be elastic – adding or removing capacity as needed – and customers typically pay only for the storage used.
The three types of cloud storage are object storage, file storage and block storage. Each offers advantages that range from the ability to build applications that can scale quickly to a way to access and share a large file system.