As to stashing it ALL in the cloud...
1. Cost. Some of us would rather not spend $10/month for iCloud storage. That gets you 2TB, but the smaller tier is 200 GB for $3/month and that wouldn't be enough space. Rather spend the money on a larger internal drive to begin with.
support.apple.com
2. We've had Internet service go down for a day or two or be inconsistent for several. Then, you're out of luck without access to key docs, apps, photos, etc.
3. You have to trust 3rd parties, even Apple, with confidential personal, medical, and financial documents. You may, we don't.
4. Speed. Local SSD is faster, sometimes much faster.
5. All the other reasons mentioned...
Certainly, a combination of storage media is best — rapid access internally for things used regularly, local external drive for WHOLE drive backup and quick restoration of EVERYTHING (using, e.g., Carbon Copy Cloner), cloud storage for certain items—e.g., critical docs being worked on for commission, work, or publishing, and off-site physical WHOLE drive backups in case of fire.
Our photos take up most of the room. It's tedious, but it helps every year or two to go through them all and delete the blurred, poor exposure, poor framing, etc. ones. I've saved hundreds of gigabytes that way.
This thread has been useful in that it got me to check the iCloud pricing (seems lower than it was in the past) and to consider getting 1TB rather than 512GB so I can avoid the tedium of photo cullingnor do it less often!
1. Cost. Some of us would rather not spend $10/month for iCloud storage. That gets you 2TB, but the smaller tier is 200 GB for $3/month and that wouldn't be enough space. Rather spend the money on a larger internal drive to begin with.
iCloud+ plans and pricing - Apple Support
When you sign up for iCloud, you automatically get 5GB of free storage. If you need more space in iCloud, you can upgrade to iCloud+.
2. We've had Internet service go down for a day or two or be inconsistent for several. Then, you're out of luck without access to key docs, apps, photos, etc.
3. You have to trust 3rd parties, even Apple, with confidential personal, medical, and financial documents. You may, we don't.
4. Speed. Local SSD is faster, sometimes much faster.
5. All the other reasons mentioned...
Certainly, a combination of storage media is best — rapid access internally for things used regularly, local external drive for WHOLE drive backup and quick restoration of EVERYTHING (using, e.g., Carbon Copy Cloner), cloud storage for certain items—e.g., critical docs being worked on for commission, work, or publishing, and off-site physical WHOLE drive backups in case of fire.
Our photos take up most of the room. It's tedious, but it helps every year or two to go through them all and delete the blurred, poor exposure, poor framing, etc. ones. I've saved hundreds of gigabytes that way.
This thread has been useful in that it got me to check the iCloud pricing (seems lower than it was in the past) and to consider getting 1TB rather than 512GB so I can avoid the tedium of photo cullingnor do it less often!
