Online data storage refers to the practice of storing electronic data with a third party service accessed via the Internet. It is an alternative to traditional local storage (such as disk or tape drives) and portable storage (such as optical media or flash drives). It can also be called "hosted storage," "Internet storage" or "cloud storage."
In recent years, the number of vendors offering online data storage for both consumers and businesses has increased dramatically. Some services store only a particular kind of data, such as photos, music or backup data, while others will allow users to store any type of file. Most of these vendors offer a small amount of storage for free with additional storage capacity available for a fee, usually paid on a monthly or annual basis.