iCloud Q: Local storage?

[Trhodezy]

Hi all,

After the disgusting treatment from Bitcasa of their customers (myself included) I'm looking for a new place to store my photos and files.

I was just wondering: if I add a file to iCloud Drive can I remove it locally and still have it in the cloud? Or is it more like a sync service such as Dropbox.

 

[reese2147]

Hi all,

After the disgusting treatment from Bitcasa of their customers (myself included) I'm looking for a new place to store my photos and files.

I was just wondering: if I add a file to iCloud Drive can I remove it locally and still have it in the cloud? Or is it more like a sync service such as Dropbox.

Short answer : No

I would recommend researching other alternatives to cloud storage. iCloud drive isn't all that great.

 

[ScottC7]

I am storing my iPhoto Library on an external hard drive and had planned to use iCloud Drive as an offsite backup, in case the external hard drive was damaged or corrupted. However, when I copy the iPhoto Library to iCloud Drive, I noticed that the available hard drive space on "Macintosh HD" (my MBP's internal SSD) increases by the size of the iPhoto Library.

The response to the OP's question is clear and informative, but that makes no sense from an iCloud development and usability standpoint. I'm paying for Cloud space...why is it taking up my hard drive's space? Why would they design it this way?

 

[Alrescha]

Why would they design it this way?

I think it is interesting that half of the complaints are that Apple did not implement iCloud Drive the way everyone else did, and the other half (like this one) is that they did it exactly the way (pretty much) everyone else does. It is certainly a no-win situation for Apple.

A.

 

[ScottC7]

I really must not understand the intent of iCloud. I just went to iCloud.com to try to see my iPhoto Library file. There are a bunch of files and subfolders in there, but none of them appear to house my actual iPhoto Library itself. No folder or file is over about 500 Mb in size, even though my iPhoto Library is over 175 Gb.

I understand I might not be able to actually open and use the iPhoto Library file, but I figured I'd be able to at least see the file and confirm its existence in the cloud. I'm paying for the space...shouldn't this file show up on iCloud.com?

OP: I do not want to hijack your thread; I apologize for these posts but I figured it's all very related to your question. I can move them to a new thread, if their presence in this thread is inappropriate.

 

[ScottC7]

I think it is interesting that half of the complaints are that Apple did not implement iCloud Drive the way everyone else did, and the other half (like this one) is that they did it exactly the way (pretty much) everyone else does. It is certainly a no-win situation for Apple.

A.

I hear you, and I understand you can't please everyone. And for the record, I'm not arguing that it was done the wrong way. I do not understand its intent well enough to be able to make that judgement. That's why I'm asking these questions - so I can understand the circumstances under which this is to be used. So far, it's unclear to me if one of its use cases matches my desire for an offsite iPhoto backup (as well as possibly other files).

 

[Toltepeceno]

I think it is interesting that half of the complaints are that Apple did not implement iCloud Drive the way everyone else did, and the other half (like this one) is that they did it exactly the way (pretty much) everyone else does. It is certainly a no-win situation for Apple.

A.

You should change that to thirds, because at least a third of the people get upset at any complaints of anything apple does. There could be turds in the box in place of an iphone and this third would say it's perfect because apple says it is.

I will say though that I missed all of these complaints saying icloud is like the other services, because it's not at all. Anyone that says that is very confused.

 

[Trhodezy]

Thanks for the replies guys; feel free to 'hijack' the thread. It's all relevant.

 

[Erphern]

If I copy 200GB to iCloud, I'll be using an additional 200GB locally, correct? If I have three computers running 10.10 on the same iCloud account, then I'll be using 600GB locally (spread across thee computers) for my 200GB in iCloud, right?

This doesn't scale, and actually seems to suck.

 

[andricop]

At least with Dropbox and other cloud storage providers you can choose which files you want to sync, not to use your local storage, this is not possible with iCloud drive.

 

[sviato]

Seems like it's iCloud mirroring rather than storage

 

[PhiLLoW]

If I copy 200GB to iCloud, I'll be using an additional 200GB locally, correct? If I have three computers running 10.10 on the same iCloud account, then I'll be using 600GB locally (spread across thee computers) for my 200GB in iCloud, right?

This doesn't scale, and actually seems to suck.

Yes. This really sucks and is an absolute no-brainer for me.

Also there is no local sync for ios devices. Which means:
You put your documents in the cloud. now you're on a train or a place with bad signal and can't continue to work with the uploaded material.

So you HAVE to sync your Macs locally ( taking a lot of storage / my Mac Pro has 99,9% of the time internet access ) and you CAN'T sync your iOs devices ( takes a lot of bandwidth and long waiting times when accessing the files )

 

[Erphern]

It really begs the question: why doesn't iCloud Drive work similarly to iTunes Match? You copy stuff to the "drive", and if you want to delete it, you're asked if you want to delete it from the cloud as well as locally, or just locally. Other computers should see a little cloud symbol next to the files / directories if they're not local, and you could choose to download the content either by double clicking on a file or right clicking on a directory and choosing to download the entire contents.

That's what I want.