Best cloud drive for new Macbook?

[shiseido]

Greetings,

With the new Macbook, all of the reviews keep saying this is the future of laptops, a wireless future. Some reviews were saying not quite here. I ordered a new Macbook as I myself am completely sold on working wirelessly and going as lightweight as possible without resorting to a tablet.

I'm wondering. What is currently the best solution for cloud storage / drive for the new Macbook?

One thing I find not good are many of the current choices like dropbox or google drive are merely sync services, meaning you keep the files locally. I'd want something that's in the Cloud entirely, since hard drive space is limited on a new Macbook (as are wired connections).

 

[mdsll]

OneDrive gives the most free space and you can choose to store file "Online Only" taking no diskspace locally.

 

[hErr.cHilloR]

i orded a WD MyCloud 3TB for 129€
hope i can test it tomorrow if it fits my needs
Otherwise i will test a Synology NAS (DS115 orDS215j)

 

[shenan1982]

Greetings,

With the new Macbook, all of the reviews keep saying this is the future of laptops, a wireless future. Some reviews were saying not quite here. I ordered a new Macbook as I myself am completely sold on working wirelessly and going as lightweight as possible without resorting to a tablet.

I'm wondering. What is currently the best solution for cloud storage / drive for the new Macbook?

One thing I find not good are many of the current choices like dropbox or google drive are merely sync services, meaning you keep the files locally. I'd want something that's in the Cloud entirely, since hard drive space is limited on a new Macbook (as are wired connections).

Well, as they say, you get what you pay for. There's a ton of solutions (google a review of online storage and you'll get some good honest reviews)... but the general rule of thumb is you don't get the best for free. For me, I use OneDrive for Business, and it's okay... their software for mac is AWFUL though. But at the end of the day it does its job. I have had an Education Association account for years, so I get unlimited storage... but with anything "free" I don't completely trust it, so keep a backup on my time machine too.

 

[MacManTexas56]

Greetings,

With the new Macbook, all of the reviews keep saying this is the future of laptops, a wireless future. Some reviews were saying not quite here. I ordered a new Macbook as I myself am completely sold on working wirelessly and going as lightweight as possible without resorting to a tablet.

I'm wondering. What is currently the best solution for cloud storage / drive for the new Macbook?

One thing I find not good are many of the current choices like dropbox or google drive are merely sync services, meaning you keep the files locally. I'd want something that's in the Cloud entirely, since hard drive space is limited on a new Macbook (as are wired connections).

everyone will have a different opinion on the matter...but i like DropBox.

Seems to be the only service that allows you to connect it to an external hard drive or time capsule. No files are stored locally for me on the computer...all are in dropbox and synced on the time capsule in a dropbox folder. works nice

 

[elithrar]

With a 256GB SSD baseline, storing every file in Dropbox shouldn't be an immediate problem.

Otherwise, OneDrive (as previously mentioned) allows "online only" folders.

 

[mattopotamus]

I use iCloud drive.

 

[jonbravo77]

i orded a WD MyCloud 3TB for 129€
hope i can test it tomorrow if it fits my needs
Otherwise i will test a Synology NAS (DS115 orDS215j)

I have one and I love it. I use it for all 3 of the Macs that are in my house for TimeMachine.

 

[ct1211]

Greetings,

With the new Macbook, all of the reviews keep saying this is the future of laptops, a wireless future. Some reviews were saying not quite here. I ordered a new Macbook as I myself am completely sold on working wirelessly and going as lightweight as possible without resorting to a tablet.

I'm wondering. What is currently the best solution for cloud storage / drive for the new Macbook?

One thing I find not good are many of the current choices like dropbox or google drive are merely sync services, meaning you keep the files locally. I'd want something that's in the Cloud entirely, since hard drive space is limited on a new Macbook (as are wired connections).

Bytes costs money, how many you want to store? The end game of a "wireless World" for anyone offering such services is recurring revenue. I personally prefer to keep my information in my backups. Anything I want to store outside of a back up i keep on a separate hard drive. I travel the nation and sometimes internationally. My game is to make sure I have the info i need loaded before I go. For me, this occurrence is rare. If you have a huge catalog of movies, or your a pro photographer that needs a gaggle of high res images available at a moments notice, paying for cloud services might be for you. One drive is an option, as is Dropbox, Box others. iCloud of course although I dont even know what Apple charges for extra storage. A Samsung tablet I bought in 2012 to try out (I didn't keep as I could never find a use for a tablet) came with 50GB of Dropbox for two years. Needless to say when it expired I freaked out as it appeared my info was being held hostage, but it wasn't as it synced to my laptop which kind of defeats the purpose of freeing up disc space - as you pointed out!

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I have one and I love it. I use it for all 3 of the Macs that are in my house for TimeMachine.

Is there an added monthly charge for the cloud storage?

 

[bmclaurin]

ID like to jump on iCloud Drive exclusively, but it's not a good solution for those of us that have cross platform needs at work. Until then, it's Dropbox for me.

 

[ct1211]

I have one and I love it. I use it for all 3 of the Macs that are in my house for TimeMachine.

Listen to these guys! Just looked up WD my drive. On my way to BB to get one. I have never used more than one computer but my recent purchase of a 1.3 rMB has me making the foolish move of keeping it and my 13" rMBP. Apple new once we tried these things even a relatively modern 13' 3MBP would feel like a 50 lb slab of iron! Damnit...

 

[shiseido]

i orded a WD MyCloud 3TB for 129€
hope i can test it tomorrow if it fits my needs
Otherwise i will test a Synology NAS (DS115 orDS215j)

From reviews I read online for personal NAS I read WD my cloud has setup problems. So curious your experience. Synology supposed to be good.

But in my current living space likely a personal NAS is out of the question.

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everyone will have a different opinion on the matter...but i like DropBox.

Seems to be the only service that allows you to connect it to an external hard drive or time capsule. No files are stored locally for me on the computer...all are in dropbox and synced on the time capsule in a dropbox folder. works nice

So if I understand correctly you are saying buy an extern drive and the. Basically use Dropbox to copy and sync it? If I go this route. Say I make a new file in a coffee cafe. I then upload the file to Dropbox webpage and when I get home plug into my external drive to sync?

 

[shenan1982]

everyone will have a different opinion on the matter...but i like DropBox.

Seems to be the only service that allows you to connect it to an external hard drive or time capsule. No files are stored locally for me on the computer...all are in dropbox and synced on the time capsule in a dropbox folder. works nice

I do second Dropbox if you're willing to pay for enough space. In addition to what you've said, I'll add that of all the cloud sync drive options, it's the most seamless to integrate into the OS, and plays the nicest with Mac out of all options available.

Additionally, the apps for iPad\iPhone are really well designed, so you can view\edit\manipulate files\directories on the go.

 

[ardchoille50]

i orded a WD MyCloud 3TB for 129€
hope i can test it tomorrow if it fits my needs
Otherwise i will test a Synology NAS (DS115 orDS215j)

I had the WD MyCloud 2TB device and it worked great. I have since moved everything to iCloud Drive, it just seems to integrate better with my needs and devices.

 

[shenan1982]

I had the WD MyCloud 2TB device and it worked great. I have since moved everything to iCloud Drive, it just seems to integrate better with my needs and devices.

Yeah, the cloud sync just seems to work better. Plus when you're on the road and you open a file and edit it, it's just more seamless. I guess the hard drive makers have to protect their hand in the game, but eventually as internet speeds get faster, external hard drives as a backup\data storage will be a thing of the past.

Currently my internet is 120mbps down, 20 mbps up... which is fast, but still not fast enough to use a cloud drive as an everyday drive to just open and watch a movie or plow through photos, so I still use an external drive... but once that internet gets to about 250mbps down and 50 up, bye bye drives.

I am considering getting a couple of the 1TB Samsung T1 portable SSD drive... they'd scream and are ultra-reliable. Backing up to my Seagate external drive which seems to fail every other year scares the crud out of me.

 

[TommyBoy5]

Hmmmmm....I may be learning something here....

So everything on my iCloud account must also be stored on my local machine?

When I bought this new rMB I tried to put everything from my old MBP onto my iCloud account and I noticed that my MBP filled it's 200G hard drive. I'd take USB thumb drives full of pictures and upload them to the cloud but I swore it was making copies and putting them on my MBP as well.

I find iCloud frustrating. You can't just grab a folder and upload it. It always times out on at least one file and when I log in and try to access files about 30% of the time I get "Cannot access folder. Try again later."

 

[MacManTexas56]

From reviews I read online for personal NAS I read WD my cloud has setup problems. So curious your experience. Synology supposed to be good.

But in my current living space likely a personal NAS is out of the question.

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So if I understand correctly you are saying buy an extern drive and the. Basically use Dropbox to copy and sync it? If I go this route. Say I make a new file in a coffee cafe. I then upload the file to Dropbox webpage and when I get home plug into my external drive to sync?

sorry if it's confusing.....

If you sync it on the dropbox webpage..it gets loaded into dropbox and then will show up on your iphone/ipad etc. It's always there located in dropbox...but if you want a copy of that file outside of the dropbox website...you have to sync to a computer or external hard drive to get that.

an example:
if you use Microsoft OneDrive. You can either sync all files to a folder on your computer locally only OR don't sync them to a computer at all. I'm weird about my data etc so I want multiple copies of files in several locations in case something happens. So with OneDrive...my only option is to sync to my computer..if i want the backup copy of the file outside of my OneDrive storage. If your computer only has 128gb...that's not gonna go far. Since they won't let you change the location to a time capsule or external hard drive...my only real option would be not to sync it to a computer at all. My worry would be, what if onedrive lost all my stuff...i wouldn't have a backup anywhere bc the files won't fit on my laptop and they don't allow syncing to an external hard drive or time capsule.

With dropbox-
I have it setup on my laptop, but the location is not on the local computer hard drive...it's on my time capsule. I think dropbox is the only company that lets you do this or put it to an external drive. It will only sync those copies to the external hard drive when the hard drive is connected etc. So if i went to a coffee shop and created a document and loaded it via dropbox.com...the file is in dropbox and i can view it on ipad and iphone etc. Once I get home and connect my laptop to the external harddrive and start dropbox...it will start to sync to the dropbox folder on the external hard drive...basically as a backup copy.

The only problem with this option....when ur away from the external hard drive...or in my case the time capsule, it will give me an error and quit dropbox. I don't find it annoying at all...i just hit quit until i get home and start the program again.

Hopefully that makes it a little bit better to understand

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Hmmmmm....I may be learning something here....

So everything on my iCloud account must also be stored on my local machine?

When I bought this new rMB I tried to put everything from my old MBP onto my iCloud account and I noticed that my MBP filled it's 200G hard drive. I'd take USB thumb drives full of pictures and upload them to the cloud but I swore it was making copies and putting them on my MBP as well.

I find iCloud frustrating. You can't just grab a folder and upload it. It always times out on at least one file and when I log in and try to access files about 30% of the time I get "Cannot access folder. Try again later."

yeah that's the thing i don't like about iCloud. You can "optimize" storage, but it still takes up space for all the documents and pictures you have. The thing I really dislike is how apple won't let you share an icloud account with a family member. If the wife and I go on a trip and take pics...that means i'd have to load them on 2 icloud accounts for her to have the same pictures.

Instead, we use dropbox. Load them once and we can view them on all our devices with no issue.

 

[hErr.cHilloR]

ok, here are my first impressions

Setup was pretty easy.
-Connect the WD-MyCloud to the wall & my Router (Speedport W724V)
-Setup the Cloud via browser
- all in all 5 min
-Connecting iPhone and iPad is easy as hell (just download the WD-APP)

Put some Videos, Music, Pics on it -> easy (The Cloud just feels like an external Harddrive - due to WLAN it talks a little bit longer to copy the files - ordered already an Ethernet Adapter)

Tested the Streaming (Music & Pics)
Cant feel any lag streaming music, but tested only a few sample files.
Will test the music with my iTunes playlists and give another feedback.

Streaming Videos is as easy as streaming music, streamed a test video to my iPhone and my iPad -> don't feel any difference to a local video on the iPhone.
Same with Documents (PDFs/Word/Keynote/Excel-Files)

Haven't tried to do a TimeMachineBackup.
But:
Streaming photos feels a little bit laggy, i read it is because the WD-Mycloud needs to create all the Thumbnails & i already copied about 20GB of photos on it.
So lets give it a try in 2 days and see what happened, but right now it doesn't feel as smooth as switching local photos on the Phone/iPad.


The first impressions are really good. I think the Photos will stream as easy as music and videos when all the thumbnails are created.
So the Cloud fits all my needs!
Maybe a Sinology NAS will give you more options, but the WD-MyCloud costs 129€ - a Synology NAS DS215j with 1x3TB WD-RED ist about 290€.
If the Photos stream smooth as Videos/Music/Documents/ i'll save the money


i'll update in a few days again and give another feedback.
PS: sorry for the english

 

[marc55]

Can you use the My Cloud for file storage/access, and Time Machine?

I thought if you used it for Time Machine, you couldn't use it as a regular storage device?

Thank you
m

 

[shiseido]

ok, here are my first impressions

Setup was pretty easy.
-Connect the WD-MyCloud to the wall & my Router (Speedport W724V)
-Setup the Cloud via browser
- all in all 5 min
-Connecting iPhone and iPad is easy as hell (just download the WD-APP)

Put some Videos, Music, Pics on it -> easy (The Cloud just feels like an external Harddrive - due to WLAN it talks a little bit longer to copy the files - ordered already an Ethernet Adapter)

Tested the Streaming (Music & Pics)
Cant feel any lag streaming music, but tested only a few sample files.
Will test the music with my iTunes playlists and give another feedback.

Streaming Videos is as easy as streaming music, streamed a test video to my iPhone and my iPad -> don't feel any difference to a local video on the iPhone.
Same with Documents (PDFs/Word/Keynote/Excel-Files)

Haven't tried to do a TimeMachineBackup.
But:
Streaming photos feels a little bit laggy, i read it is because the WD-Mycloud needs to create all the Thumbnails & i already copied about 20GB of photos on it.
So lets give it a try in 2 days and see what happened, but right now it doesn't feel as smooth as switching local photos on the Phone/iPad.


The first impressions are really good. I think the Photos will stream as easy as music and videos when all the thumbnails are created.
So the Cloud fits all my needs!
Maybe a Sinology NAS will give you more options, but the WD-MyCloud costs 129€ - a Synology NAS DS215j with 1x3TB WD-RED ist about 290€.
If the Photos stream smooth as Videos/Music/Documents/ i'll save the money


i'll update in a few days again and give another feedback.
PS: sorry for the english

Thanks for the long explanation. This is with the Macbook 12 right? Streaming speed might also be related to the Macbook's CPU. Sure of course for the cost, if WD works fine, then it's a much better deal.