iCloud and limited Macbook Air SSD

[macrat]

Do you think the upcoming iCloud would help me with me with "supplementary" storage in addition to the Air's 128gb ssd? I have an iMac 27 for my main desktop and I intend to use the Air mainly for travel photography. Is this a valid question?

Somehow I couldn't convince myself to go for the 256gb ssd option

 

[Kyllle]

No. iCloud isn't designed to store your data, it just syncs it across your Apple devices.

So if you take pictures on your iPhone, iCloud will detect them and send them to your Mac and iPad, etc. iCloud does store your most recent 1000 pictures though, but I think you still have to keep them on your Mac.

 

[macrat]

No. iCloud isn't designed to store your data, it just syncs it across your Apple devices.

So if you take pictures on your iPhone, iCloud will detect them and send them to your Mac and iPad, etc. iCloud does store your most recent 1000 pictures though, but I think you still have to keep them on your Mac.

So if it's on my iMac at home, I can maybe access selected pictures, video, music, etc. from my Air or iPad while traveling anywhere there is Wifi?

 

[JaHull]

You can remotely access a your iMac at home with Back to My Mac which is part of iCloud, it allows for Screen and File sharing over the internet.

Only one problem with it is that it needs a to go through a router which supports UPnP or NAT-PMP on both your home end and the network you connect with your macbook air. I would expect most if not all modern routers to support these protocols though.

 

[macrat]

You can remotely access a your iMac at home with Back to My Mac which is part of iCloud, it allows for Screen and File sharing over the internet.

Thanks for the tip but is this possible even if the iMac is turned off?

 

[DarwinOSX]

iCloud WILL store your data for an additional fee.

 

[flynz4]

So if it's on my iMac at home, I can maybe access selected pictures, video, music, etc. from my Air or iPad while traveling anywhere there is Wifi?

This reply confuses me a bit. You said you will use your MBA primarily for travel photography. That usually implies capturing pictures for inclusion in your library.

Then you said you want to access your pictures already stored on you iMac. That is a very different usage in most cases.

My suggestion is that you think of these as two different and isolated usages.

First... for capturing new photos, you need enough space to hold your pictures over the duration of your trip. If your trips are moderate in duration (a few weeks)... then an empty MBA is likely sufficient even if you shoot RAW. That still doesn't solve your problem of needing to keep more than one copy around in case of damage, device failure, or theft. You can simply buy enough flash cards and never overwrite them until you return home and upload to your iMac. Then the MBA is your second copy. What I typically do is write the flash cards to both my MBA and to my iPad every night... and then I keep my iPad with me and keep my MBA in the hotel. That minimizes losing both in case of theft. If your data is huge... then you probably need to carry an extra HDD with you. The other thing that I do is enable a cloud based backup system (Crashplan+)... so that my MBA is automatically backed up to the cloud. Sometimes a hotel's internet bandwidth is insufficient... but usually it is OK. Once my photos are safely in the cloud... then my worries about losing pictures diminishes almost completely.

While on the road... I import my pics into Aperture 3 (A3) projects. When I return home, I transfer those projects into A3 on my iMac. A3 is especially good at doing this.

Regarding the second usage... access to all of your pics while traveling, You have a few options. You could certainly publish your pics to various photo websites. That probably doesn't work great if you need 100% of your pics (I'm not sure why you ever would).

What I do is I use A3 to organize and rate my pictures... and then I create smart albums that contain my best photos on particular themes. Then I just share those smart albums. I am currently using Mobile Me... but I am not sure how that will change once we move to iCloud. I am not very excited about iCloud only keeping a cache of the latest 1000 photos. I am hoping that there is a good way to easily post A3 albums.

/Jim

 

[flynz4]

Thanks for the tip but is this possible even if the iMac is turned off?

No it will not. I never turn of my iMac. I keep all of the data I need with me in my Dropbox. That way as I make edits or create documents while traveling, it automatically syncs back to my iMac where everything is double backed up (local and cloud). This also might change once I start using iCloud... but I am not too sure yet.

/Jim

 

[Bottomsup]

One other option that's a bit geeky is to get a nas for your house. I picked up a synology 211j unit for $200 and it can host 2 drives of up to 3GB each. I have them in raid 1 for redundancy.

This device has a ton of features. It will act as a ftp server, web server, has remote admin, streams audio, hosts to remote itunes via bonjour, print server, , hosts pics via a web gallery, etc etc....

Bottom line is that you can upload/download your data to it and use it in a variety of ways. Oh it also supports afp which allows remote time machine backups.

The only thing to consider is your up/down bandwidth at home because it will be constrained by that.

You can schedule it to sleep, turn off, wake up and wake on lan too.

Its cool.

 

[macrat]

This reply confuses me a bit. You said you will use your MBA primarily for travel photography. That usually implies capturing pictures for inclusion in your library.

Then you said you want to access your pictures already stored on you iMac. That is a very different usage in most cases.

/Jim

Thanks Jim. Sorry for the confusion but yes it was a two-sided question and I appreciate you answer on both, specially coming from another photographer.

My backup routine is pretty much in place i.e. a portable external 1TB drive (first backup) for all Raw images, a number of SD cards from the camera (second backup) which I do not erase until I get back to my iMac and the only ones I leave on my Macbook would be those that I would PP for my Website, Facebook, Flickr and for show-and-tell. I was hoping that I might be able to use the iCloud like the Crashplan+ so I can reuse the SD cards and in case I lose my backpack which would be the end of the world for me

I also don't turn off my iMac except when we go on a trip but I also noticed that when there is power interruption, the iMac remains off.

 

[macrat]

One other option that's a bit geeky is to get a nas for your house. I picked up a synology 211j unit for $200 and it can host 2 drives of up to 3GB each. I have them in raid 1 for redundancy.

T

Thanks I will check it out but this might be too pricey and "above my pay grade"?

 

[h00ligan]

Look in power preference. There's an option of what to do in case of a failure iirc.

 

[flynz4]

Look in power preference. There's an option of what to do in case of a failure iirc.

Does that just restart the computer, or does that also log you into your user account? Also, I use FileVault2... so I do not think it could possibly log you in otherwise it would be a huge security hole.

Since I use dropbox for most of my "documents"... I do not think any changes would be reflected back on my iMac unless my user account was logged in.

/Jim

 

[flynz4]

My backup routine is pretty much in place i.e. a portable external 1TB drive (first backup) for all Raw images, a number of SD cards from the camera (second backup) which I do not erase until I get back to my iMac and the only ones I leave on my Macbook would be those that I would PP for my Website, Facebook, Flickr and for show-and-tell. I was hoping that I might be able to use the iCloud like the Crashplan+ so I can reuse the SD cards and in case I lose my backpack which would be the end of the world for me

Probably the safest and easies solution is not to re-use the SD cards. Since they are so small... you can easily keep them located someplace else besides your backpack. You can even mail the SC cards back to your house if you want (I've never done this). I like to keep my 2 copies physically seperated to prevent loss in case of theft. BTW: I just switched to a Nikon D7000 (from a Nikon D100) which gives the option of using dual SD cards. I will be using that in one of two modes: 1) Duplicate RAW files... or 2) RAW+JPEG. Both options give me protection against a CF card failure (I have had this happen to me once before... and lost all but 11 images on the card).

I also don't turn off my iMac except when we go on a trip but I also noticed that when there is power interruption, the iMac remains off.

I love a charmed life with underground utilities. In my 17 years in this house, we have lost power just twice. Once when a substation exploded a few miles away... and a 2nd time when they replaced our electric meter with a networked connected meter. On the later... we had notice from the power company. Still, I do use a UPS for some of our equipment just in case.

I think the interesting thing will be to see what options we get with iCloud. The basic "free" service will be limited. I suspect that Apple will offer some paid services as well. Of course, there always the paid "dropbox" options... but those also rely on a copy being on each device.

Finally... I did spring for the 256 GB SSD option on my new 11.6" MBA. I still had about 50GB left on my previous 11.6" Rev D MBA... but I never kept any significant amount of media on the MBA. I figured with iCloud coming... I may want to have more media with me.

/Jim