Digital storage solution for photos and general files - most secure/cost effective solution?

FlyingSquirrel2

I currently have just under 2GB stored in my iCloud, for which I pay £2.49 a month / £29.88 a year. Once I hit 2GB I will have to start paying more, and the next point up is 2TB for £8.99 a month.

I also have amazon prime which just renewed this week. but in recent years I've done everything I can to reduce my usage of amazon as a retailer, so I primarily use this for storage of photos (and amazon TV, but we rarely watch this) and I realise I shouldn't be paying for this. Cancelling this will save me £95 a year.
I also idn't realise but my hotmail account was storing photos for years and recently told me it was 50% over the agreed capacity of 5GB and wouldn't allow me to receive any new emails until I deleted half the photos/videos - the fear of losing any baby or family photos that might not be stored elsewhere was huge!

What I'm looking for is the best solution for storing my data, whether that's online or on a physical device - currently I use an iPhone and a Macbook but I've also got at least one old PC in my parents loft and would ideally like to get all music/photos/docs in one place.

What would be my most cost effective/secure solution to consolidate all of this? I know I will need to have a big clearcut as I'm sure there's lots I don't need to keep but having the time to do this as a full-time working parent of 2 young children is the challenge, and in the meantime I want to stop wasting £125 every year!

DullGreyGuy

FlyingSquirrel2 said:

I currently have just under 2GB stored in my iCloud, for which I pay £2.49 a month / £29.88 a year. Once I hit 2GB I will have to start paying more, and the next point up is 2TB for £8.99 a month.

Sounds like you are overpaying on your iCloud subscription given free iCloud is now 5GB and iCloud+ 50GB of storage is 99p a month or 200GB for £2.99 as per https://www.apple.com/uk/icloud/ 

Given you are an apple user for both devices I'd probably just upgrade for a cheaper price to the higher storage option with them. Alternatively iDrive is $2.95 a year for 100GB, Google Drive £1.59 a month for 100GB and Dropbox at £9.99/month for 2TB

facade

Get a pair of 2TB portable harddrives for around £60 each.

Copy all your data onto both of them.

Keep one in your firesafe and the other by the computer.

Either use the fiddly backup software or create a folder on your PC called "Stuff to backup". Put all new files/photos in it and then copy to the drive by the pc.

Once a week get the other out of the firesafe and copy the whole "stuff to backup" folder to it, then move the contents to where you normally keep files on the PC.

As secure as your home, and no subscriptions.

The reason for cloud accounts is so that everybody and his dog can share photos & files between phones/computers/tablets, if you don't want this there is little point paying a cloud subscription.

FlyingSquirrel2

oh interesting @DullGreyGuy, on my iCloud page it shows these prices, so I assume these are standard prices? Realistically if I stick with iCloud I will need the 2TB option very soon which seems a lot to pay (for the rest of my life?!)
WIll look a the other options but again I definitely need more that I have now (200GB) so it's finding a good step up from this without paying a fortune for it   

debitcardmayhem

First of all DO NOT put all of them in one place that is a big no-no-no. 

By all means use cloud storage I prefer to use cloud storage for transitory stuff, and Microsoft 365 for up to 1TB for more permanent storage, plus the office apps, although being an apple user you may prefer icloud. I still can’t believe apple give you a measly 5gb when you have a 128 iPad air , still they’re cheap aren’t they 🤓 . Buy an external drive (or two) and use them as permanent storage , and put in place a strict regime to keep them updated but not permanently connected at the same time.
As for amazon then that is your choice if you aren’t using for the prime stuff then save money that way, won’t work for me though.
 You could use the old pc (depending on config) to run something like Truenas as a nas but that is another story, I use an old pc with 2x2GB drives for that but using linux and not using a nas operating system, since I also use it for streaming and a firewall.

DullGreyGuy

FlyingSquirrel2 said:

oh interesting @DullGreyGuy, on my iCloud page it shows these prices, so I assume these are standard prices? Realistically if I stick with iCloud I will need the 2TB option very soon which seems a lot to pay (for the rest of my life?!)
WIll look a the other options but again I definitely need more that I have now (200GB) so it's finding a good step up from this without paying a fortune for it   

They are now, the prices went up this week.

How are you going to need the 2,000GB options "very soon"? You've said you currently have 2GB on Apple, 7.5GB on Hotmail storage some of which is photos etc and an unspecified amount with Amazon but saying you are reducing reliance on them so I assume not too much. 

The above alternatives all offer larger storage options but it didnt seem it was necessary at this point.

The advantage of Amazon is that the photos don't count towards your storage usage 

iDrive is going to be your cheapest option at $79 per year for 5TB or $99 per year for 10TB... I know of them, I dont know the greatest amount about them and personally would rather keep my photos etc with a company I trust and believe will be around in 5 years time.

We have an old mac with an external drive which automatically syncs to iCloud with all full photos being stored meaning we have full library both at home and in the cloud plus the thumbnails etc for day to day use on iPhones/iPads/Laptops etc.