Possible to switch completely from Macbook to iPad Pro?

[Abazigal]

I realised recently that all I use my 2015 MacBook Air for is syncing my Google Drive files so that I can back them up via Time Machine. I can accomplish absolutely everything else on my iPad Air.

It just seems a bit silly having a MBA just for syncing files once every week or so.

It got me thinking that I could replace the MBA with an iPad Pro.

The one thing holding me back is how I would go about backing up my Google Drive files? It's no good just having the files on Google Drive without having a backup of them as well.

One option I thought of was to have a cheap/old laptop that I could fire up occasionally in order to sync with Google Drive for subsequent backup to an external hard drive.

Has anyone else gone down this route?

You can download the Documents app and use it to sync your dropbox and google drive files. What it does is basically download those files and store them locally in the documents app (which basically serves as a file manager of sorts).

Not really "backing up" per se, but this means you get offline copies that you can access as and when you wish.

 

[BornAgainMac]

I haven't made any 'errors'. And you didn't answer the question: What is your suggestion?

I tested out that feature. It works for me. I can't believe I didn't know about that feature.

 

[M87]

I have gone down that road. It's not always easy. Though, overall I would say I prefer the iPad Pro to a MacBook. And the app ecosystem is very active and interesting in the realm of audio production, which is what I do.

 

[kvyoung]

If you have a Google Apps account, check in to Spanning Back-up for Google Apps. For $40 per year all your email, calendars, contacts and drive files are backed up nightly through the web to Spanning's servers and you can restore them at anytime through the web interface. Best back up solution for the cloud that I'm aware of. There is an Office 365 version also available.

 

[Mr_Killjoy]

As someone with a 15" MBP and a 12.9" iPP, I can say that the iPP handles about 95% of my needs. Xcode, photoshop, and Rapidweaver are essentially all I need the MBP for, and if I were determined I could likely replace Photoshop as well.

 

[Southern Dad]

Not long after getting the iPad Pro, the car arrived to take me to the airport. I grabbed my bags and left. That night in New York, I realized that I grabbed the wrong MacBook Pro. I had a seven-year-old's computer, no Word, no Excel, no Outlook. But hey, I had Disney movies. I got out my iPad Pro and quickly found that I could still get to all my files using Cisco AnyConnect VPN. The iPad Pro has Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook. I had brought the keyboard and pencil. I was in good shape. I went without it for the whole trip. Now, I leave it behind on some trips. The iPad Pro can work as your laptop if you need it to.