Replacing iCloud - what do you do for your files? 9 August 2022 at 9:58AM in Techie Stuff 18 replies 441 views

moneysaver1978

As iCloud subscription isn't exactly money-saving (I currently pay 79p per month for 50GB and am not keen on upgrading to 200GB incurring a £2.49 monthly cost!), I am curious about what you do and how you manage your media and files.

I am thinking of getting a 2-bay Synology NAS with RAID and using that for syncing and backing up files from 2 iPhones, 2 MacBooks, and 1 iPad.

movilogo

I use NAS and an external hard disk as further back up. I don't use RAID as I have copies of files elsewhere.

Olinda99

£2.49 a month

How much is the NASS and associated electricity costs?

I have no idea but say £120?

That is getting on for 4 years before even approaching break-even point. iCloud will be so much simpler.

edit: that doesn't even include the costs and hassle of backing up your NASS in case of failure..

B0bbyEwing

Olinda99 said:

£2.49 a month

How much is the NASS and associated electricity costs?

I have no idea but say £120?

That is getting on for 4 years before even approaching break-even point. iCloud will be so much simpler.

edit: that doesn't even include the costs and hassle of backing up your NASS in case of failure..

Wow. £120 a month in electricity to run a NAS?

I pay about £150 a month for gas & electric as it is. A NAS is going to use up almost as much as everything else in my house?

tempus_fugit

B0bbyEwing said:

Olinda99 said:

£2.49 a month

How much is the NASS and associated electricity costs?

I have no idea but say £120?

That is getting on for 4 years before even approaching break-even point. iCloud will be so much simpler.

edit: that doesn't even include the costs and hassle of backing up your NASS in case of failure..

Wow. £120 a month in electricity to run a NAS?

I pay about £150 a month for gas & electric as it is. A NAS is going to use up almost as much as everything else in my house?

TBF, I don't think they meant it would cost £120 a month, rather that would be the overall cost for the device itself plus extra electricity, which would cover about 4 years' worth of the subscription. Whilst a NAS is an option for some, for others the cloud subscription is simpler and not really that expensive.

Myself I use Google One on their lowest subscription, £16 a year for 100GB of storage. This year it will be paid from my Google Play balance, which I have built up doing Google Rewards surveys, so effectively costing me nothing.

Cash-Cows

moneysaver1978 said:

As iCloud subscription isn't exactly money-saving (I currently pay 79p per month for 50GB and am not keen on upgrading to 200GB incurring a £2.49 monthly cost!), 

May not be relevant but the iCloud can be shared with family. 

moneysaver1978

Olinda99 said:

£2.49 a month

How much is the NASS and associated electricity costs?

I have no idea but say £120?

That is getting on for 4 years before even approaching break-even point. iCloud will be so much simpler.

edit: that doesn't even include the costs and hassle of backing up your NASS in case of failure..

Too many variables outside of my control like what if Apple increases the £2.49 fee (due to inflation, labour costs, etc?), and also I will probably run out of 200Gb space at some point which then would mean the need to go up to next tier.

I'm also thinking long-term - is it really feasible to pay X/month for the next 20-30 years?

If I share iCloud+, 200Gb doesn't seem much between 2-4 people, right?

Olinda99

Yes, in the end of course the decision is yours.

Just factor in the cost of buying NAS, running costs, possibility of NASS failure and need to replace components, buying drive(s) to backup up the NASS regularly, etc etc

Then make your decision

iSaving

Don't forget to factor in maintenance and connectivity issues if trying to connect to the NAS remotely. What would you do if trying to access a file remotely and your network has gone down - also how are you going to back up the hard storage?
There are other solutions, depending on what types of files you're saving. For most people it's media (photos & video) which takes up the most space.

You're thinking about costs for the next 20-30 years for cloud storage, but it's unlikely a personal hardware solution will last this long and will also need replacing.

For me, the most important things are reliability and accessibility rather than the potential of long-term savings. If you're on the cusp of having to upgrade to the next tier - can you have a review of all your backed up files and see if they're all strictly needed?

I always ask people what would they do if they irrecoverably lost all of the files - what impact would it have on you? This should inform the sort of value you may want to place on keeping them safe.

J_B

moneysaver1978 said:

As iCloud subscription isn't exactly money-saving (I currently pay 79p per month for 50GB and am not keen on upgrading to 200GB incurring a £2.49 monthly cost!), I am curious about what you do and how you manage your media and files.

My google account has unlimited photo storage - is it possible to transfer photos to a google a/c (MSE and all that)

k_man

J_B said:

moneysaver1978 said:

As iCloud subscription isn't exactly money-saving (I currently pay 79p per month for 50GB and am not keen on upgrading to 200GB incurring a £2.49 monthly cost!), I am curious about what you do and how you manage your media and files.

My google account has unlimited photo storage - is it possible to transfer photos to a google a/c (MSE and all that)

Are you sure it is still unlimited? 
I think they changed that last year, although you may be grandfathered in.

Amazon Prime (currently) offers unlimited photo storage.
However after a recent migration from another service, to Google, and then to Amazon (after the Google deal expired), doing it all again, if it only cost £0.79/month (or even £2.49), I would stay where I was!

That said, good practice at what is involved to get your photos back.