Nowadays, every major IT company develops its own cloud. You probably know them at least by name : OneDrive, iCloud, Dropbox, GoogleDrive, etc...
What is a cloud?
The principle of the cloud is to provide the customer with an online storage space (ie on the Internet). It is like a wardrobe: you take a file on your computer and you put it in a cloud in the same way you would put a pair of pants in a wardrobe.
To get into a cloud, your file may have followed several paths :
You may have copied a file from your computer and pasted it into the cloud. You will then have an original on your computer (locally, i.e. not on the Internet at all) and a copy in your cloud.
You can have a cloud programmed to automatically synchronize with the content of your computer. You will also have an original on the computer and a copy in the cloud, however this will not have required any action on your part.
You have saved the file directly to the cloud. At this point, you have the original in the cloud and no copy on your computer.
A cloud has two purposes :
Having an online backup of your files. So if you lose the data stored on the computer, you can recover the copies in the cloud.
Send files to another computer belonging to you or to another person.
A fundamental limit to always keep in mind
In essence, a cloud is meant to do storage, not to manage the opening, let alone the modification of the file in the cloud.
It's simply not meant to do that.
It can work depending on the clouds, depending on the file format, depending on the software used to edit the file, depending on the parameters indicated in your antivirus, depending on the firewall integrated in your internet box, depending on the quality of your internet connection...
Interferences are infinite and each of them can lead to a blocking of the file and a loss of data.
About your Heredis files
When you create a genealogy on the Heredis software, the file on which you enter the data must remain local, i.e. on the computer.
It is highly recommended to have a copy in a cloud for backup purposes. But the file that you will open in the software and in which you enter the data must always be on the computer and not in a cloud.
As mentioned before, there are countless interferences that can occur if you edit a file stored directly in a cloud. Do not risk losing your genealogical data by using your cloud in a way that is not intended in its design.
It is also strongly discouraged to have your genealogy file automatically sync to the cloud during times when you are likely to be working on your genealogy.
If the genealogy file is open in Heredis and the cloud tries to sync that file while it is open, it can severely damage the file.
Most clouds allow you to set which files to sync as well as set specific times for syncing.
Here are the links to contact the support services of the most popular clouds :
- Dropbox : Click here
- OneDrive : Click here
- GoogleDrive : Click here
- iCloud : Click here
They will help you set up their product to disable automatic synchronization of your Heredis files.