APPLE: We Need Higher iCloud Storage Options!

[JamesMay82]

It's not an either/or if you're careful. I have enough local storage on my iMac to hold everything that's in my iCloud Drive, including my Photos library. It's all set to keep everything downloaded (not "optimized storage") -- and then it's all backed up to two separate drives.

At the same time, I can still access everything from my MacBook Air or my iPhone, which have much less storage and are set to only download things on demand. Because the iMac maintains a full copy of everything, the other devices can be a lot more light weight.

It's a little annoying to have to keep all this storage, but if I got locked out of iCloud tomorrow, I'd be able to recover all my photos and other files.

yeah I did a post after my comment saying that is the best solution. I was being dramatic but I know lots of people who just solely rely on iCloud and really risk losing all their data.

 

[ndouglas]

Being able to have an encrypted SSD available to my iPad Pro was the key for me. Also, dumping everything into iCloud was essential so I wasn’t chasing my photos around trying to remember if I had already moved them to iCloud.

Hope this helps 🖖

Very helpful, thank you! I like the pick a single year idea, and try to finish one at a time. I have about 10 years of icloud photos, so if I work on that little by little, it shouldn’t take too** long…

 

[sleven]

No I don't use iCloud, except for photo stream which is temporary.
You seem like the perfect customer for Apple. 👍

What are you using?

 

[rjw1678]

I have a Synology Disk Station DS423+ with four 18TB drives configured Synology Hybrid RAID. I like local storage, but for those who mainly use iCloud - I voted for the most flexible option to allow them to expand as needed.

 

[macfacts]

Just buy an external usb c drive.

 

[orionquest]

What are you using?

Crack?

Oh you possible mean computer hardware, similar to @rjw1678 I have a Synology DS. I backup all my photos on my devices there. Since I have an old iphone I also go back and delete a couple of years worth of photos to free space up on the device once they are backed up. Hopefully I will get a new iPhone soon so this part will be less necessary.

 

[ignatius345]

yeah I did a post after my comment saying that is the best solution. I was being dramatic but I know lots of people who just solely rely on iCloud and really risk losing all their data.

Yeah, it's a pretty precarious situation to be in. I remember a few years ago when this journalist wrote this whole piece about how he'd basically lost control of his Apple ID. I forgot how they'd gotten in, but he was totally locked out of his Apple ID and everything that was saved to iCloud. Incredibly disruptive, especially at this point where we all have so many digital assets.

The best thing to ask yourself is: what would happen to me if iCloud (or Dropbox or Google or whatever) locked me out tomorrow? Would I have access to photos of my kids, my business files, personal stuff, etc? If you don't have things physically downloaded (and preferably also backed up) to a device you own, you're really not in control of your data. I think there are a lot of people out there dutifully running their Time Machine backups, but backing up a bunch of little placeholder files and low-res Photos thumbnails and not realizing that they would be truly and completely screwed if iCloud went away for them.

 

[eyoungren]

Yeah, it's a pretty precarious situation to be in. I remember a few years ago when this journalist wrote this whole piece about how he'd basically lost control of his Apple ID. I forgot how they'd gotten in, but he was totally locked out of his Apple ID and everything that was saved to iCloud. Incredibly disruptive, especially at this point where we all have so many digital assets.

The best thing to ask yourself is: what would happen to me if iCloud (or Dropbox or Google or whatever) locked me out tomorrow? Would I have access to photos of my kids, my business files, personal stuff, etc? If you don't have things physically downloaded (and preferably also backed up) to a device you own, you're really not in control of your data. I think there are a lot of people out there dutifully running their Time Machine backups, but backing up a bunch of little placeholder files and low-res Photos thumbnails.

All it took for me was almost losing my data about 10+ years ago, Thankfully I was able to leverage the warranty my boss had with Alsoft (DiskWarrior) at the time and they rescued all my data.

So, this is something I've thought of. My data is in multiple places, on site and off site. But to mitigate loss from theft (of a device), nothing important is stored there. If someone stole all my computers, my data is off site. The only things I don't have backing up is stuff I don't care about.

 

[mcled53]

Charging by fixed tiers is so 20th century. The charging should be by the MB-day.

 

[phill85]

I actually just submitted this thread to Apple on their product feedback page. Let’s hope they are paying attention!🤞

 

[CalmCruiser]

I. Need . More. Room.

 

[TechnoMonk]

I started with Dropbox around 2011, back before I had an iPhone. Once Dropbox launched the ability to backup my camera roll I turned it on.

Apple abandoned the PowerPC era for syncing devices in 2012 with the iPhone 5, my first iPhone. So Dropbox backing up my camera roll became invaluable. Since all my photos then go straight to any Mac/PC/device that has Dropbox installed it's a simple matter of periodically moving photos out of Dropbox to a backup location that itself gets backed up. In the mean time, my photos end up in my daily backups because the Dropbox folder is part of the computer backup. Dropbox is also currently still compatible with Mojave, the OS I am using on my 2009 MacPro.

I pay Dropbox for the max storage not (primarily) because of photos on my phone though. I have multiple computers that run weekly backups to my MacPro's Dropbox folder - which then go up to Dropbox. The backup of my camera roll is just convenience.

So, I'm only paying for iCloud storage as a backup to the backup. It really isn't relevant, nor is it even convenient compared to Dropbox. But if I need to restore my device from an iCloud backup it does then becomes convenient. I had to replace my iPhone last year and that is why I got the storage. I didn't want to have to dig out all my photos from backup and put them back on my device.

That happened anyway because for some reason iCloud didn't actually backup all my photos. But it did make it easier to get them back on my iPhone.

Thankfully Dropbox covered me.

Yeah. I understand you had legacy reasons and already using Dropbox. I just dumped all my collections from iPhotos in MBP to iCloud. It took couple days but it was worth it, and I still hate the restrictions of iCloud backing up only Documents/Photos/Desktop on Max. I have to adjust the way Documents is mapped for backing in to iCloud.

 

[ignatius345]

All it took for me was almost losing my data about 10+ years ago, Thankfully I was able to leverage the warranty my boss had with Alsoft (DiskWarrior) at the time and they rescued all my data.

So, this is something I've thought of. My data is in multiple places, on site and off site. But to mitigate loss from theft (of a device), nothing important is stored there. If someone stole all my computers, my data is off site. The only things I don't have backing up is stuff I don't care about.

I lost my Mac and its only backup in a burglary years go. It made me really cautious!

 

[curnalpanic]

Charging by fixed tiers is so 20th century. The charging should be by the MB-day.

Sounds like AWS.

"Hey, here's your iCloud bill for this month: $12,553.39"

 

[TechnoMonk]

Charging by fixed tiers is so 20th century. The charging should be by the MB-day.

Sounds like AWS.

"Hey, here's your iCloud bill for this month: $12,553.39"

Yep. I hate cloud billing. Ripoff.

 

[I WAS the one]

I got rid of that iCloud scam and I have a fast Mac now.

 

[ericwn]

I got rid of that iCloud scam and I have a fast Mac now.

Do you find yourself always commenting on products you don’t use?

 

[Expos of 1969]

Do you find yourself always commenting on products you don’t use?

As a former user of the product being discussed, his opinion is as valid as other posters.

 

[oneMadRssn]

I know it will never happen, but I wish Apple would allow iCloud backups and photo streams over standard protocols. WebDAV or whatever. I don't care about the details, but I have this nice huge NAS sitting here and wish it was easier to integrate it with iOS.

 

[ericwn]

As a former user of the product being discussed, his opinion is as valid as other posters.

Sure, a discussion on topic is welcome. Jumping in and throwing "scam" around certainly is far from that, a discussion on storage tiers.

 

[nutmac]

iCloud launched 12 years ago. On its 6 year anniversary, Apple doubled the highest-end tier from 1 TB to 2 TB. So perhaps Apple will double 2 TB to 4 TB this fall?

In the absence of such gesture, I would like to see Apple One Premier match Google's Google One 2TB + Unlimited Photos plan, a $14.99/month plan Google offers to customers of certain US wireless customers.

 

[I WAS the one]

Do you find yourself always commenting on products you don’t use?

Explain your comment and I will happily explain to you why my comment was very valid here.

 

[I WAS the one]

Sure, a discussion on topic is welcome. Jumping in and throwing "scam" around certainly is far from that, a discussion on storage tiers.

Oh, now is about the 'scam' word. OK, fair enough. I apologize for the word. Anything else?

 

[macfacts]

This is why Apple won't give a good file manager, so we're dependent on them for services like iCloud.

 

[joshuaiz]

Apple could and should offer free cloud Time Machine backups and storage up to 10TB (or more). That alone would be a huge selling point.

I would trust Apple with my backups way more than Google or Dropbox or iDrive and I think they are the only company that could pull off automatic cloud backups that "just work".

I don't even want to think about it - just have it work just like Time Machine.