Hey, nothing in life is 100% useful 100% of the time. Look at car ownership for instance. Most of the time they just sit there static, costing us a fortune.
This is what we do.
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Other I need a 2TB iPhone 16 Pro Max
- Thread starter ibookemo
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This is what we do.
If iCloud messes up, it might sync back whatever is broken to your phone, and vice versa, so that it ends up broken/deleted on both. To be safe, you really need a separate backup solution. Better invest your time and money in that.
I was gonna ask that… I’ve always thought about that and in theory it could technically wipe all your photos off.. Same for light room as well isn’t it
Yes. To be reasonably safe, you need unidirectional backups (not a bidirectional sync) to multiple places and/or with versioning.
For what it’s worth, my Photos app has 1.6TB of pictures and videos. In addition to iCloud, I have a 2TB iPad Pro that I use to backup to OneDrive and Amazon Photos. Both of those services fully support Live Photos by not separating the video from the photo. My MacBook Pro has the 4TB SSD. I backup using Time Machine to several LaCie D2 drives plus another that just has copies of the Photos file. I’m not suggesting anyone should do what I do. Just sharing ideas.
If we switch off iCloud do you know if we still get all the same features of the photos app doing photos of the day and videos of the day
Lower quality version is good enough to view on your display or TV. Full resolution is great if you plan to Zoom-in, edit or print the photo.
i would not rely on a cheap external drive. invest in a good, reputable ssd.
we’re talking a few tbs of backup for personal use
just review some failure rate tables off backblaze and choose something good
expensive doesn’t guarantee good
External drive is not suitable for photos library purposes. I tried, and my library ended up being corrupted more often than not. I do backups of my mac data.
What I want to advocate is for everyone to have a copy of THEIR data away from the cloud.
I don't keep a single photo or video on my iPhone. Everything is neatly organized in Dropbox. I'm not trying to pick on you OP, but I really don't understand this need to have so much media stored locally on a smartphone.
With cloud storage you have to deal with high subscription fees for large data, dependence on online servers, dependence on cellular reception, privacy concerns, data caps, buffering/loading, etc.
An iCloud backup does not backup anything on iCloud that can be downloaded, including photos. That is why the size of iCloud backups is tiny compared to the storage used on the iPhone.
Second this. My iCPL lost all its 600 albums and folders many years ago. All photos were still there but with no organisation. Restored from a local full back up of iCPL.
100% I’m not sure how it happened but my sister got locked out of her iCloud account due to forgetting password and she lost 4 years worth of photos
If one is using a Mac for mass storage backup there is no reason not to simply use multiple copies of inexpensive external storage; it is a safer solution as well as less expensive than needlessly buying pricey internal mass storage.However, it is probably better to have a copy of your original pictures and video on a Mac, which can be backed up easily externally, over iPhone which is more susceptible to loss And theft. Sadly Apple charges a kidney for MacBook storage upgrade.
The point is that external drives are relatively cheap, and two cheap drives are better backup than one heavy duty one.
But the original has to be downloaded somehow in the first place, which for iCloud photo only works with “Download original”, and ALL originals, which adds up fast. Of course external library for photos app is also a solution but I ditched it after the external drive struggle to keep its connection up. This leaves buying super expensive internal mass storage as the only reliable option.
I don’t think Time Machine backup would download the original automatically During backup.
I've never kept photos on my phone. I finally pay for 2tb iCloud as of this year but now but I still drag the stuff I want to keep into organized folders on my Mac whenever I have chance
Time Machine backup whatever your drive has stored. If the original was downloaded, that's what it will back up. Time Machine does not check or fetch data online as far as I know.