As the saying goes, cloud computing is just someone else's computer. Always backup your cloud backups... in your backup. Google's spokesperson used the percentage statistic to avoid how much data was lost. Other cloud providers have also lost customer data due to various problems. While a well-run cloud service provider is more reliable than keeping data under your mattress (just like a well-run bank is better than keeping cash under your mattress), its not magic. Nature is still more powerful than even Google. http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-33989384 Google says data has been wiped from discs at one of its data centres in Belgium - after it was struck by lightning four times. Some people have permanently lost access to their files as a result.