How to handle the closure of a cloud storage provider

The internet is constantly evolving, with an endless churn of brands and services.

Sometimes, even a relatively recent addition to a company’s product range may be dropped or cancelled, especially if it hasn’t proven to be profitable or brand-enhancing.

Until 2022, anyone signing up to BT Broadband was offered BT Cloud storage as part of their internet package – the sort of value-added service ISPs have long specialised in.

Yet from the end of October, this well-established platform will close, with any information retained on BT’s cloud servers being automatically deleted.

If the UK’s biggest ISP can summarily abolish its cloud storage tool, the prospect of other cloud storage providers closing down their own services begins to look more plausible.

In fairness, Microsoft is unlikely to follow suit since its OneDrive service is an ideal counterpart to its core Windows and 365 offerings.

However, the economic costs generated by companies hosting huge volumes of customer data (for minimal, if any, income) mean other companies in this field could follow BT’s lead.

After all, there are few benefits in storing other people’s data. Consumers don’t appreciate cloud storage’s complexity, often resent any costs and complain loudly if it’s withdrawn.

Which brings us back to the recent announcement about BT Cloud’s imminent abolition…

What should I do?

If you’re already with BT, you’ll find yourself unable to upload any new content from Monday the 9th of September.

From the 31st of October, BT Cloud will close, and customers will be reminded (probably more than once) to port their data elsewhere.

Failure to comply could result in all personal cloud-hosted data held by BT on your behalf being summarily erased.

If that happens, you won’t be able to claim you weren’t warned.

We’d expect similar levels of notice to be offered by any other cloud storage provider closing its platform down, giving people months to migrate their data elsewhere.

Indeed, that last point is a crucial one. Where can all that data go?

Some people might decide the cloud isn’t as dependable as they thought, and transfer data offline, while others may look to switch to another cloud-hosted provider.

These are the main options in each category:

1. Offline storage

Cloud storage can hold many gigabytes of data, which you may not be able to accommodate on a laptop or smartphone.

One workaround is to plug an SD memory card or data key into a laptop or desktop computer and transfer it straight from the cloud onto this removable device.

You can buy a 128GB flash drive for a tenner, with prices roughly doubling as the storage capacity itself doubles.

You’ll ideally want transfer speeds over 100Mb/s, or else you’ll be waiting a long time for the download to complete – quite apart from your own internet connection speeds.

On an ADSL or FTTC connection, we’d recommend starting the transfer at bedtime, so it won’t interrupt other online activities.

If you have terabytes of data stored in the cloud, microSD cards and plug-in USB sticks might not be sufficient.

A £100 budget should buy a decent external hard disc drive with a few TB of storage.

Always choose solid state devices, which are more robust than traditional disc-powered HDDs.

2. Another cloud storage service

One cloud storage provider closing represents a business opportunity for its competitors, so explore the market for alternatives.

The aforementioned OneDrive may be a good option for Windows users, while Dropbox Professional offers 3TB of storage and supports individual file uploads of 100GB.

Google Drive’s Business Plus and Enterprise Standard services match OneDrive’s 5TB-per-person storage limits, though you’ll have to pay a significant monthly fee to access this volume of space.

If your data is measured in terabytes rather than gigabytes, you’ll probably need a contract aimed at businesses rather than individuals, though it’ll operate in exactly the same way.

Check whether your provider or package places limits on how much data is uploaded to their platform in each 24 hour period. If so, it might take several days to port everything across.