Where do you store your files?

[tayy]

Hi all

Im looking for inspiration and want to know how you guys store all your files.

Right now I have lots of stuff on my MBP SSD, some stuff in my Free dropbox and lots of stuff on a external harddrive (mostly fotos and other old stuff I dont want to delete)

Once in a while I backup both my Mac and my 2TB drive using Time Machine and a 5TB external drive.

Im looking for a more simple solution and im thinking about uploading all my files to iCloud Drive. I already use it to backup my iPhone. Also I feel like its at little more safe than having all my stuff on a external drive that can fail any time.

How is your setup?

 

[Mr_Brightside_@]

iCloud Drive isn't really meant as a backup for the Mac, but as a synchronizing tool. Many here, maybe everyone, will agree it shouldn't be used as a backup method (ie delete a file off iCloud, it's deleted everywhere).

I recommend Backblaze for cheap, efficient cloud backup, to complement your existing local backup scheme.

 

[BigMcGuire]

I have about 18GB of data, data that I call my main chunk of data, on iCloud. It sits on my MacBook Pro in iCloud. I have a small piece of 2-3 GB of personal data sitting outside of iCloud on my MacBook Pro's hard drive.

My 2TB WD External USB C drive has about 150GB of photos, 30-40GB of storage (ISOs, old files I want to save, etc...), and my Carbon Copy Cloner backup that I do daily of my Mac's drive. I don't use TimeMachine anymore.

I have Backblaze backing up my data all the time ($50/year?) and Arq backing it up again to B2 (yes, very redundant, I know, but for $.60/mo...).


I have only 17 GB of photos in iCloud. I have this optimized synced to my MacBook. Google Photos currently houses all my photos but I have a copy on my 2TB drive (the 150GB).

My iPhone is currently utilizing 50GB of its 256GB.

I have OneDrive with a Work folder of about 4GB also backed up to B2 via Arq on an hourly basis (and to an external 8TB drive (provided by work)) for my Windows work machine.
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iCloud Drive isn't really meant as a backup for the Mac, but as a synchronizing tool. Many here, maybe everyone, will agree it shouldn't be used as a backup method (ie delete a file off iCloud, it's deleted everywhere).

I recommend Backblaze for cheap, efficient cloud backup, to complement your existing local backup scheme.

Agreed. I can't recommend Backblaze enough. I use it all the time. I've restored data from it successfully several times as well. Highly recommend.

 

[smirk]

The generally-accepted backup strategy is to have three copies of your data at all times:

• On your computer
• Backed up to a local drive
• Backed up to the cloud (or off-site drive)

In your case, it sounds like you have more data than will fit on your MacBook's SSD, so it spilled over to an external hard drive. Then, you back up both your MacBook and that external drive to a second external drive. That's great, but that's only one backup. So if there's a fire or a robbery, you could lose everything. You probably want to make a second backup to the cloud, as you said. I second the Backblaze recommendation; it's relatively inexpensive and easy to use.

Here's my setup, which is overly complicated. I have an iMac, a MacBook Pro, a PC, and a Windows "server" (a lowish-power PC running Windows 10). The server is used for extra storage, but also to store backups from the other computers. The iMac backs up to the server via Time Machine, and periodically the MBP backs up to the server via Carbon Copy Cloner. Once in a while the PC backs up to it as well using Windows' backup mechanism. Backblaze runs on the server to back everything up to the cloud, and I also copy the most important things on the server to a NAS. So basically, everything backs up to the server, then the server gets backed up to both the cloud and local storage.

 

[Gregg2]

iCloud Drive isn't really meant as a backup for the Mac, but as a synchronizing tool. Many here, maybe everyone, will agree it shouldn't be used as a backup method.

Well, usually "every" "all" "always" "never", etc. fail the truth test.
I use iCloud only for backing up my files, along with 3 other backup methods. I never open the files on another device. I don't use the Cloud for anything else.

 

[hobowankenobi]

Synology NAS for shared files as well as a destination for TM backups from several Macs and a Win10 box.

Occasional Backup of NAS in case of alien/zombie attack.

Important data also synced to several cloud providers.

 

[brandsteve]

my longterm storage is Dropbox.

i can easily survive losing my SSD and my Time Machine backup. All Time Machine will have that I care about are my configuration settings and my Apps.

 

[Mikael H]

I run a Time Machine compatible service on my file server at home, and have a TM target in the form of a USB drive connected to my screen at work, except for naturally also having copies (not backups, as someone else already pointed out) of some data on iCloud.