Apple Music Current music library best practice (migrate disk to cloud)?

[Super T]

Wasn't sure how to word the thread title, also wasn't sure what to search for previous threads on the topic so maybe it exists and someone could just point me to it. I'm finally retiring my last PC (well I guess already retired, since it's been unplugged for 6 mos.). I'm trying to figure out what to do w/ music though. Like so many 90's/00's folks I have amassed a pretty substantial library of mp3 albums on an external hard drive. Very little of it is stuff that's not commercially available (some friends' bands, some live stuff, odds and ends). For all of the "regular" stuff, what is consensus on best practice for modernizing? I'd like to have "full access" to the tracks, but I'm fine doing that through Apple Music. Ideally I'd like to not need the external to be active and just stuff it in a drawer or something. I don't necessarily want to hog up iCloud storage w/ the raw files if I can help it. I know there's a Match feature, or at least there was - are there any drawbacks? I currently don't have the hard drive plugged in so the files aren't in my library - my library only shows tracks that were bought through iTunes back in the day. I did have them all loaded into my iTunes library on the old PC, but that seems to have been local. Any other options/workflows you'd recommend? Many thanks in advance!

 

[dk001]

Whatever you decide, I emphatically recommend you keep an off line backup copy of all your music.
I went the iTunes route, I went the Apple Music route, I went Google Music route, and now currently use YTMusic.
In almost all cases, and especially Apple, I have had my music library, once migrated get royally borked, Apple Music being the latest to do that.

So please, for peace of mind, keep a separate physical backup of your tunes.

 

[Super T]

The files will be coming off of the external, I guess I could continue keeping it in a drawer for backup. Still not clear on the best way to make my tracks fully available via Music - meaning I could download to device, use in iMovie, etc.

 

[dk001]

The only way I have been able to it is load to iCloud and activate in Apple Music. I do the same for Youtube music.
Or download to your device for off line playing. I do that for select pieces / albums.

 

[Super T]

The only way I have been able to it is load to iCloud and activate in Apple Music. I do the same for Youtube music.
Or download to your device for off line playing. I do that for select pieces / albums.

So are you saying you put mp3's/digital files in a folder on your iCloud, then added to your library from there?