EnEs63 Loc: Asia

Hello all,

I am currently considering another online backup service as my current online storage provider does not support RAW.

There are many to choose from and I have looked at the likes of Carbonite, Backblaze and IDrive to name a few... but what about Apple's iCloud drive? (Not to be confused with Apple's iCloud).

All my Apple devices support the newer iCloud Drive and it seems ideal as it does support RAW.
Once the image files are in the drive they can be viewed across all devices. It is SSL secure and at $9.99 per month for 1TB it looks like reasonable value too...

Has anyone tried it?

If so, is it right that by using the drive the contents uploaded are mirrored to your local HD as is the case with Apple's iCloud?
This is something I cant get a decent confirmation of from the internet.
If it is the case then it hardly acts as an online storage facility, more like just a sharing platform?

Dngallagher Loc: Wilmington De.

$10.00 per month for 1 TB? Wow, that is pretty expensive if you ask me....

I recently bought into CrashPlan for my Mac. Backups of anything, unlimited storage space, automatic backup of all your drives, versions of files (when a file changes, you get both the older versions and the new version in your storage.)

For $60.00 a year for unlimited storage space and block level backups, not a bad price.

After the initial backup,, which could take more than a week, the incremental backups are very fast.

One caveat - cloud based backups should NOT be your only backup - invest a few bucks in a large external, and make it your primary backup at home plus a cloud backup - that way you are covered.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

:thumbup:

NoSocks Loc: quonochontaug, rhode island

Maybe I've had my head in the sand, but I never heard of iCloud Drive. And I'm a Mac guy. I know iCloud and use it but don't know of a different "drive" iCloud.

EnEs63 Loc: Asia

Hi Dngallagher,

Thanks for your views...
Compared to what I am paying now the $10 p/m seemed cheap but now I have spent more time researching various options I apprevaite you can get cheaper.
I have read up on Crashplan, iDrive, Backblaze and Carbonite... The latter being so good in the reviews but alas, doesnt cater for Mac very well. It's two highest tiers dont even support Mac! Shame...
I need to make a decision. Each one has its pro's & con's. I guess I just need to decide what is a more important/useful feature over another.
I do currently have an external hd backing up my internal photos drive and two external drives running Time Machine backing up the whole lot.
I like local baculs for their higher speed for upload and download but as we all appreciate - there is no better safety net than a backup off site...

Hi NoSocks,
Yes iCloud Drive is an extension of the familiar iCloud. It was released in Lion I think... Just before Yosemite?
It acts as a online storage drive but I think it mirrors itself locally to allow cross-device sharing which is counter-productive when using it as large volume storage.
If you want to have a read up, take a look here - http://www.apple.com/uk/icloud/icloud-drive/

Once again, thank you guys...
I guess it is on with the research and then to make a decision!

greymule Loc: Colorado

One word- Terrible.

EnEs63 Loc: Asia

Hi greymule,

Which bit is terrible???

Dave R. Loc: PNW

I for one do NOT like it. First the price is out of line as pointed out already. The second thing is I tried the free trial and have decided against using it. Now I can't get rid of the constant nagging banners from Apple saying my storage is full and I need to upgrade. I've yet to find how I can delete the trial account. Your nickel but my suggestion is to run not walk.

Toment Loc: FL, IL

Would an SD card be ok, instead of a WD or other drive?
For the OP, I use iCloud for jpegs. Don't know about raws....

Dngallagher Loc: Wilmington De.

I would not consider SD cards a backup solution - they can easily be lost or broken, and the memory size is dwarfed by what can be on a spinning platter drive like a WD or other brand.

Of course, a large capacity SD card is way more expensive then a larger hard drive, so it is more cost effective to purchase one or more external drives :)

Toment Loc: FL, IL

Thanks for the good advice
Was wondering if card might just be able to sit in a closet and not take up a lot of room. 21000 jpegs is about 80G and there are reasonably priced cards at 256
But I guess I'd hate to lose one in the washing machine :roll:

Dngallagher Loc: Wilmington De.

Thats true, but when you compare SD cards to Hard drives it is GB vs TB usually.... you can pick up a 1 TB external drive for less than a 256 GB SD card I bet.... and then you have 4x the disk space for 1/4 the cost maybe.

FWIW - my setup includes a 6TB external as my main online storage system, a 2TB Time machine backup disk (It runs every hour), a 1TB music backup disk and a 1 TB off line photo backup disk which I store in a fireproof box and only connect once a month to backup my photo library. I also have my images and other important files stored off site in the cloud using Crashplan, it runs a backup every 15 minutes.


For me, a drive that holds GB's is not worth the effort ;)

Toment Loc: FL, IL

:thumbup:

EnEs63 Loc: Asia

Dngallagher, can I ask you a question?
Crashplan and iDrive are pretty much my two finalists in the search for good online backup.
The one hangup I have about Crashplan is the high use of memory, apparently?
In reviews, tests show that Crashplan, whilst quick to upload, utilises up to 50 times more memory than the likes of Backblaze.
(I assume thay are talking about RAM here?).
Can I ask; how do you find the drain on resources when Crashplan is running? Does it slow down your Mac or hog your upload bandwidth?

iDrive has just been edging forward in my research because this system backs up disk image too. A useful feature as I beleive, in the case of a serious system crash, a downed Mac could be re-booted and re-installed from the online backup???
It also has a nifty photo viewer for viewing images online via any device. Useful for showing people your images from an iPad for example.

Dngallagher Loc: Wilmington De.

I have not seen any slow downs while uploading. During the initial upload, which too almost a full week 24x7 I was able to use my Mac with no noticeable slowdowns (you can tweak the use settings in preferences - I had mine set to the defaults or even for more upload performance at the time).

I just checked and the amount of memory reserved in activity monitor is roughly 580 mb total for the service and the tool bar app.

The initial upload sent about a TB of data up the wire, but never interfered with other devices on my network, nor did it seem to interfere with my Mac, and I am a heavy user ;)

Once the initial upload was complete the incremental uploads are very fast, they occur every 15 minutes, and again I notice no slow downs or issues during any upload.

FWIW - I run an iMac, quad processor with 16 GB of ram and have an internet upload speed of about 12 mb/s.

I would not want people being able to access my backups to see images - I maintain a Flickr site for image sharing.

Not sure about using an online backup for booting a downed Mac....I actually do not backup my system files to Crashplan, only my images and important documents. I figure I can always reinstall the OS from Apple anyway using the recovery option, restore from my Time Machine backup, and then bring back what I am missing from Crashplan in a pinch.

Again, for me, Crashplan is a 3rd backup - first is Time Machine.