iCloud advice please...

[kidsleepy]

i'm sure there are tons of threads about this subject, but i wanted some personalized responses please.

is iCloud worth buying more space from? i just upgraded my old macbook air (2008, 64gb sad) to the new macbook pro 13.3" retina. i've been using i the free storage from iCloud for about four years now and my synchronization in my life of my iPhone 5s to my macbook pro is nearly perfect. i love that when i edit a note on my computer it gets updated on my phone nearly instantaneously.

having backups of things is exceedingly important in my life, mostly in order to just have quick answers to things suddenly breaking (although i keep my electronics in SCARY good condition, my phone is four months old, no case, no screen protector and the thing is still in mint condition and best buy paid me $150 for my iPhone 4 32gb when i upgraded to my 5s in early april). i recently updated my photo backups (since webshots went out of business years ago i had no way of accessing my photo collection from other computers) and got a shutter fly account but am not pleased with the low quality uploads (but am pleased its free storage).

my music (~18gb) and my photos (~5gb) also have dvd-rw backups but i don't make new backups nearly enough and i don't have time machine set up yet (as i have two apple airport expresses and the usb doesn't support external hard-drives, not like my external even works anymore, i recently trashed it).

anyway, advice on whether or not i should upgrade my iCloud account? is it worth it? is the bandwidth downloading speed fast? does it support high resolution photographs? or would you recommend purchasing a time capsule? or would you recommend purchasing an airport extreme and an external drive? i really want to upgrade to 802.11ac wireless because I'm very excited about my wifi card in my laptop and want to test it (i recently switched my air to 5ghz N only wireless and tested the speed and was surprised it was noticeably faster) plus I'm trading in my iPhone 5s and buying the 6 once it gets released and i know that will have 802.11ac wireless too.

upgrade iCloud account?
time capsule?
airport extreme + external hard drive?

all advice is appreciated, thanks guys!

 

[impaler]

Your mileage may vary, but I'll just explain my scenario and see if you can glean any usefulness from it.

I have a MacBook Air, iPhone 5s, iPad 3, and two iMacs in the household. I have 21,000 tracks in my iTunes library and tons of movies I've ripped (aside from the many I've purchased via iTunes over the years). I don't buy TV shows, as I rarely watch them more than once. I keep my media on an external drive, connected to my iMac, as the "always on" server for music. Most of it is also in iTunes Match, freeing up room on my MacBook and using streaming when away from the house. Since not 100% of songs are matched, I tend to pull the music locally from the iMac (connected library) when in the house.

I use Time Machine on the iMac, to backup not only the iMac, but the separate eternal media drive (about 1TB), to another external 3TB hard drive. I also recently purchased a 3TB Time Capsule to backup not only my MacBook Air, but my wife's. I also have enabled iCloud backups for my iPhone and iPad, and do weekly encrypted local backups of my iOS devices to iTunes on the iMac, which is a more complete backup than the iCloud nightly builds.

Occasionally, I update another external drive that I keep off site, at my workplace, which contains my media (most important!), and Time Machine backup copies of the iMacs, and MacBooks. Just in case. In my area, I'm severely limited on household bandwidth monthly (300GB), so BackBlaze or something like that is completely out of the question, or that would be my solution, vice physically copying a drive every so often.

I'm at the point where 99% of my media is purchased through iTunes, so it's already protected...same with movies. It's the "legacy" ripped CDs, and ripped rare vinyl I'd never find on iTunes, that is most at risk. For that, I'm counting on multiple local drives not failing at the same time (unlikely, albeit possible), and my offsite backup, to ensure I'm okay in the long run.

All that to say, I use the $40/year 25GB for iCloud, as it fills up with iCloud backups, 1GB of mail, and pictures. I'll likely purchase a healthy amount of storage when the new prices are in place. Small price to pay for peace of mind.

 

[imasterus]

If I were you, I would upgrade iCloud storage without any doubt, especially when iCloud Drive is announced. Anyone who got himself locked in Apple ecosystem, must invest in iCloud storage upgrade.