So Many Options!
There is a mountain of information out there about cloud storage verses cloud backups verses physical drives. In order to be able to selct the right solution you need to have a basic understanding of what the differences are between the options. There is iCloud, Google drive, wireless drives like the Lacie Fuel, Seagate Personal Cloud, tradition plug in USB drives. What makes learning about and weighing options even harder is that each option available, depending on what you’re reading, makes it sound as though that particular backup option is superior to all other solutions out there.
To try and make it a little easier on yourself, here’s a general outline of the pros and cons of the different solutions out there. It is very important that as you read through information and consider different options that you think about what best suites your needs. Some of us at Small Dog swear by wireless back up solutions and others of us stick to good old physical drives and Time Machine.
iCloud is free for all users, but it’s only free for the first 5GB, so if you are looking to utilize iCloud for backing up an iPad, iPhone or documents from your computer you may want to purchase additional storage. It’s just $0.99/month for 50GB of storage (you can get up to 1TB) so I strongly encourage upgrading to a higher storage option even if it’s just for secondary backup of your photos. When using iCloud it’s important to log into your iCloud account from time to time to make sure that the information you want backed up is being backed up, especially the photos. I have talked with several customers over the years who thought they were backing up photos to the cloud and because they never logged into their online account, never knew the backup was not happening correctly. It’s also important to know that iCloud is not backing up programs, it’s just the files. Thankfully with Apple purchased apps you can easily download anything you might have purchased through your iTunes account in the app store, but this will not help you for third party programs. Finally, it’s also important to know that you will need to continue to pay for the service, if you stop paying for it, you will lose files.
There are tons of other online backup and cloud storage options, it’s crucial note that some “cloud storage” options are not actual backups. They’re just a place to store things, so restoring a machine from a cloud backup service is often not possible unless you are paying for that kind of service. Think of many cloud storage solutions as nothing different than just dropping and dragging files to a physical drive. You will have to piece back together your information if you have a complete loss of your data on your computer. For many folks this is absolutely OK.
Physical hard drives and using Time Machine often provide a greater sense of security simply because it’s a physical piece of equipment and you can see your information on the drive. If you’re using software like Time Machine, you will have a complete copy of your data along with programs and can, in most cases, quickly restore data to your computer. A downside is that external drives can and do fail. This would be an example of where a cloud-based option offers some increased security. It’s unlikely data would and could be compromised using cloud services provided you continue to pay for the service. Physical drives have the advantage of a one time fee. When you buy the drive and it’s unlikely that a user would need to pay for anything additional after the initial set up.
Lastly are the personal cloud drive and wireless drives. Personal cloud drives like the Seagate Personal Cloud allow you to create your own cloud storage solution and support it completely on your own. This cloud solution works very similarly to other services and allows you to access information from anywhere and anytime just like traditional cloud services. The draw back to personal cloud type setups is they are often for advanced users because they can be more complicated to set up and to maintain. Wireless hard drives like the Lacie Fuel often require that you are within range of that drive and will not work with Time Machine. The benefit to these drives is they allow multiple users to access information and are perfect for sharing media, but like personal cloud type drives they could require a slightly higher level of understanding when it comes to drives and data sharing.
Ultimately I am not sure there is one perfect solution and combining wireless with wired options is often a good compromise. I have used iCloud for years for my calendars, my contacts, and I love iCloud keychain. I even have my favorites synced in Safari via the cloud. However, I still utilize a physical hard drive and Time Machine backup on all of my machines.