Only having 5GB free when other free storages are significantly more, I'm always hovering around 5GB limit and it's really frustrating
Those that paid, is it worth it?
Those that paid, is it worth it?
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Anyone actually pay iCloud storage?
- Thread starter Aluminum213
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That's only a question you can answer for yourself. It's worth it to me to have over 20 GB of backups to iCloud rather than deal with wifi backup to my Mac. If you don't need the storage and can find a workaround then by all means hold on to your money. I've gotten 25GB free for quite a while now as a former .mac and mobile me customer. When the time comes for me to cough up to keep the storage, I believe I will do it. For me the priority is backup to iCloud from my iPhone 5 and iPad mini.
I just started using iCloud a couple weeks ago and I only have one Mac and one iPhone. Have switched to iCloud for my primary e-mail address and I have my calendar and contacts setup. Not really using the other features and don't have any apps that store data in the cloud. So far I still have 4.8gb of free space.
Just curious when I see this kind of post. What kinds of things are you doing with iCloud that require so much storage space? The 5gb allotment seems like it should be all I need for the foreseeable future.
Just curious when I see this kind of post. What kinds of things are you doing with iCloud that require so much storage space? The 5gb allotment seems like it should be all I need for the foreseeable future.
iCloud backups mostly. Since it backs up the camera roll, it can easily fill the 5gb fast until your offload the pics and videos from the device.
OK, I see. I can't imagine why I would want to have that many photo's available all the time. I have a 32gb iPhone that is completely full, but it's all iTunes music and movies.
I'm backing my iOS devices via iTunes and am using less than a GB on iCloud.
Having said that, if I needed additional space, I wouldn't hesitate in paying for it as my choices would be to not use iCloud to the fullest or I would wind up having to add another cloud service (for free) and have to manage what goes where. To me, it's not worth the hassle to use 2 different cloud services.
Look at it this way: It's currently $20 in the US for 10 GB which is only $1.67 a month or 5.5 cents per day. That's not much at all.
I literally just finished researching this for my work yesterday. After a few days of reading, experimenting, etc I finally gave the answer that the only "easy" alternative is backing up to your Mac using wifi syncing (which still incorporates the backup in the first step). You can mix and match some data to free cloud services (Dropbox, Google Drive, etc) but in the end you're not getting the nice full backup that iCloud/iTunes offers. This is in no way an oversight on Apple's part, they realize that by controlling a fuss free full backup they are helping to keep iOS users in their ecosystem.
I gave my findings to the higher ups, adding that "I'll stick to iCloud w/ increased storage for my personal iOS devices", and they quickly agreed that paying for iCloud storage is the way to go.
I gave my findings to the higher ups, adding that "I'll stick to iCloud w/ increased storage for my personal iOS devices", and they quickly agreed that paying for iCloud storage is the way to go.
I pay for dropbox, but not for icloud, since I backup my files to dropbox and just use icloud to keep settings, emails, camera rolls (which I empty to dropbox every few weeks or so), saves and calendars.
IMO if you need online space, go with dropbox and coordinate with icloud, this works like a charm for me
IMO if you need online space, go with dropbox and coordinate with icloud, this works like a charm for me
I got tired of gmail and finally moved all email I had saved in gmail and put in iCloud. Was about 2.5gb worth. Was worth to me to pay the $20 fee to upgrade to 15gb total as I take a ton of photos with my iPhone. Lose a phone and lose all photos or pay the $20 and be covered? I don't like mixing and maxing between drop box and google etc so. But you may be different
Very interesting topic. Was thinking of this question as well a few weeks ago and even looked through a few Google search results with no good conversations anywhere on the web about it. I was hesitant to pay but after reading a few people basically saying "yep, worth it, go for it" I may actually do it for iOS7 when I plan to finally drop Gmail and move 100% to iCloud. I was worried about going over the 5Gb limit since e-mails count towards the 5GB but when I think about it, it's totally worth it for me to have a unified account with all my Notes, Reminder, Contacts, Calendar, e-mails, backups, photo stream and most of it available on iCloud.com is nice.
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When you put it that way (1.67/month) it really makes it easy to justify. I don't mind paying for having an organized, all in one online software package. Yes it could be better but for now it's probably the best thing going.
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When you put it that way (1.67/month) it really makes it easy to justify. I don't mind paying for having an organized, all in one online software package. Yes it could be better but for now it's probably the best thing going.
I pay for the 50 GB iCloud option and it's worth it. Far better and more reliable than the stupid dropbox. I can have all my music in the cloud, documents, and even my photos. It's fantastic.
I'm Moving Away
Having migrated from .Mac and MobileMe. I thought icloud was great until, some of my numbers documents mysteriously disappeared from the cloud (before anyone debates this, i have researched it enough). I alerted the kind people at apple, who have since failed to retrieve these documents. Applecare did quietly admit that some people were having issues with vanishing documents. So anyway, I have decided not to renew my existing storage and move away and trust more conventional methods. For all of you doubters out there ( i believed iCloud was more than trustworthy ) but in future I will keep my valuable documents saved somewhere i can see them. Finally, I believe Apple should have a better Cloud system than this, this we should all agree on. Apple ARE BETTER than this.
Having migrated from .Mac and MobileMe. I thought icloud was great until, some of my numbers documents mysteriously disappeared from the cloud (before anyone debates this, i have researched it enough). I alerted the kind people at apple, who have since failed to retrieve these documents. Applecare did quietly admit that some people were having issues with vanishing documents. So anyway, I have decided not to renew my existing storage and move away and trust more conventional methods. For all of you doubters out there ( i believed iCloud was more than trustworthy ) but in future I will keep my valuable documents saved somewhere i can see them. Finally, I believe Apple should have a better Cloud system than this, this we should all agree on. Apple ARE BETTER than this.
You do know what Photo Stream and Music match doesn't count into your iCloud storage usage right?
For what it's worth this seems to be a known issue within Apple and a resolution is being sought. Thanks to previous employment I know for a fact that backups of MobileMe/iCloud data are kept and can be rolled back (think versioning within Dropbox, just not accessible from the end user) if needed. I'm one of the affected users and I'm not terribly worried about the data being lost, instead I imagine it will return once the iCloud/iWork beta functionality returns for us affected users. The two are definitely tied to one another since both reports ("iWork apps in iCloud don't open any more" and "Can't find any of my iCloud documents from iWork on my Mac") popped up around the same time and so far seem to go hand in hand. As for me I'm waiting patiently, at the moment, for the functionality to return.
Just to update this, it looks like I was right at least with concern to my data. The iWork betas on iCloud.com are functioning again, all of my iCloud documents are intact and show up both at iCloud.com and when using the corresponding iOS apps. I haven't tested it with the Mac OS yet (logged into a work AppleID at work) because I'm lazy but I suspect the same will hold true when I check later tonight at home.
My point with this is that just because something cloud based disappears for a few days one shouldn't jump to conclusions that it's gone forever. When it's critical I can totally understand the scare but in reality this is why backups are so essential. I've been an Apple "cloud" user since the early .Mac days and have seen some spotty service here and there, but even with all of my years as a Genius and Mac technician I've rarely seen any serious failures or data loss. Typically if there has been data loss (almost always ones contacts) it's been a result of incorrect action by the end user, not from Apples end.
This instance certainly appears to have been a partial outage (though I never noticed on their system status page) within the documents portion of iCloud and from what I can tell was random. Nothing on our ends could have prevented it but thankfully it's back up and running, at least in my case.