How important are local backups today?

[davidg4781]

I've kept a local HDD plugged in to my mini for several years now and Time Machine keeps everything backed up throughout the day.

But I also have a pretty large iCloud Drive. I have all my documents, photos, and my important folders/files synced to it. With that, do I still need to do a backup locally?

If I remember correctly, when I swapped out my internal HDD for an SSD, I loaded macOS and downloaded everything from the cloud. So other than wanting to find a file I accidentally deleted through Time Machine, what else am I missing?

 

[ScreenSavers]

It depends on how you use the computer. I personally have hundreds of gigabytes if not thousands of local files stored on my computers and local backups are very important. Some of the files I use I would not consider keeping in iCloud drive.

 

[wellander1]

Very. And backup the backup and backup that too. You can never have too many backups.

 

[Fishrrman]

Local backups are as important "today" as they've EVER been.

What happens if the cloud goes down?