What Is the Cloud Of course these days there is another way to store your photos and your files that does away with disks and hard drives, and the need to update your hardware every couple of years. It's called cloud computing and involves storing your data in remote servers. HOST (VOICEOVER): But is the cloud the answer to all our problems? And more to the point, where is it? Turns out it's in an industrial estate in Slough. Security is tight here. We're not even allowed to film the outside of the building in case it can be identified. FABIO TORLINI: It's highly likely that you're using the cloud already. I mean, most of people actually upload pictures to things like Flickr and YouTube, where there's about 48 hours of video they upload in every single minute. Or your email. I mean, your email is a cloud service where the information is stored in data centers like this, so you're probably using the cloud a lot today already. And can we even hazard a guess as to how much memory the entire cloud is storing. FABIO TORLINI: The cloud is a breakthrough new technology only really invented a few years ago, and the amount of data which we're storing in our cloud is doubling every six months right now. So very, very difficult to actually add it up. I mean, if you look at the technology, it's gone from gigabytes to terabytes to petabytes to exabytes. In this data center, we have three rooms like this. Globally we've got nine data centers bigger than this one as well. We house about 8 billion files-- pictures, videos, or documents-- so a lot of info. But essentially all these rows are made up of hard drives too. So how can you ensure that these hard drives don't break down in the same way as my home one might? FABIO TORLINI: They can break. But the beauty of this technology is already this data is replicated in three different areas, so none of your information will be lost. You know, this is a very important facility. We support people like CFL, Transport for London, and the Oyster Card where all that information gets stored here as well. OK. So Fabio, is the cloud the future? I mean, can I put my data in here and continue to do so until the day I die, and not have to worry about keeping up with the technology or the fact that it might break down? Hard drives become obsolete. Memory sticks become obsolete. You need to keep changing them. That is no longer a problem with the cloud. It just continues to grow. HOST (VOICEOVER): But handing over your digital property to someone else for safekeeping raises important questions. Who owns the files, for a start? And will you be able to pass them on to members of your family? These are issues the data storage world has only just begun to address.