is iCloud useful as a storage extension?

[ian87w]

No, please read documentation for iCloud drive, OneDrive and Google Drive. They are not similar.

Have you used iCloud Drive?

 

[apple fan23]

That said you can never have enough backups so whilst you have everything in the cloud it might be prudent to have local copies of important things on a local hard drive stored securely.

Agree. I make sure important stuff is somewhere on a drive as well as in the cloud. Old stuff gets archived onto an external drive and taken off the cloud. Even got a huge slow drive somewhere as a backup for all the external drives. But I forget to use it tbh. Used to use Time Machine on my iMac but the hourly backups (fans!) drove me mad. I do think using the cloud like this - for all current storage - is super handy but I am too chicken to therefore buy a low storage computer . Probably end up buying 1tb mbp (to be on the safe and future side) soon and will have the 1tb sitting empty! Duh.

 

[Young Turk]

Fully equipped with a lot of storage on my 16" MBP however, I wanted to know if iCloud Drive has any advantages over buying additional storage through external hard drives.

Assuming a fast connection, can I use iCloud Drive as an additional storage folder and have it work seamlessly with my MacBook, or is it clunky and complicated? Furthermore, does it hold all data on 'the cloud' or is some of it also saved locally on device?

I haven't got an iCloud plan as of yet so looking to purchase assuming it's fit for purpose.

Thanks guys

I have iCloud but also use DropBox extensively in my work as a trial lawyer. If I'm running low of space on my SSD, how can iCloud alleviate the problem while still using Dropbox?

 

[Winterfibre]

I use the 2 tb iCloud, as well as Time Machine backup through NAS. I also use Mega Cloud to backup everything like photos and movies , documents , etc.