Disaster hits when online storage sites close

Online storage sites, which emerged as a hot service just a few years ago, are shutting down in droves. The big question is: Can your data be saved before it is lost? In the last year, a number of major online storage services, including AOL, Hewlett-Packard and Yahoo shut down.

The bloom is off online storage, Kurt Scherf, vice president and principal analyst with market research firm Park Associates tells CIO. "It comes down to economics," Scherf said. He notes that too many online storage firms are chasing after too few dollars. "There isn't a lot of money to be made by parking someone else's data on your servers," he said. "Companies without a business model are going to fail."

The failure of this service raises questions about cloud computing, another up-and-coming service, and whether cloud services will be able to remain viable and keep the data stored in a way that keeps it safe and easily retrievable.

For more on the fate of online storage services:
- check out this CIO.com article

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