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Anyone have a good iCloud backup option? I finally "gave in" and stopped manually pulling photos off my iOS devices and subscribed to iCloud. However I'm worr

Anyone have a good iCloud backup option? I finally "gave in" and stopped manually pulling photos off my iOS devices and subscribed to iCloud. However I'm worried I'll get screwed or mistakenly delete something.

johnnyballgame 4y ago
Install iCloud app locally and sync them. Then backup your local folder to another device or cloud. Backblaze B2 is a great cloud option for raw storage.
- presto8 4y ago
  Exactly what I do. I use an old Mac Mini with an attached 5 TB USB drive. This provides a mirror of the iCloud data. For versioning, add a separate drive and use Time Machine. This provides versioning. For offsite backup, B2 or other backup provider.
- asdff 4y ago
  Does icloud drive contain the photos? My issue with icloud was that as far as I was aware, I could only sync photos via the Photos mac app, or web page downloading a zip archive a few gb at a time. Both options ended up failing for me unfortunately. The Photos app would quit instantly when I set it to sync the library because I guess it was too large perhaps. The web page downloads would time out a few hundred mb in. I tried using third party command line tools for icloud downloads, and they too would time out.
sgjohnson 4y ago
iCloud doesn’t really back up photos. It’s more of a sync. If you’ll manually delete a photo from your phone, it’ll be deleted from iCloud too.
- ghaff 4y ago
  The conflation of sync and backup can actually be really dangerous. You don't want a primary backup to have the opportunity to delete files because they (apparently) have been deleted on the primary.
  - lostlogin 4y ago
    If rsync is used before the backup is uploaded/archived you can set the flags to do the things you want.
  - sgjohnson 4y ago
    Yes. RAID is a good analogy. iCloud Photos will protect your photos in case if you lose your device or it fails or whatever. It won't protect your photos if you delete them (either accidentally or intentionally). It is not a backup, and even "full" device backups WON'T include the photos, because of the (mostly correct) assumption that they are all in the iCloud Photo Stream. They will be backed up in "full" backups ONLY if you don't use iCloud Photos.
rashkov 4y ago
I’ve been happily using PhotoSync, which has been very reliabe
asdff 4y ago
Currently searching but don't get in this boat with me. I'm dealing with a library of 50k+ photos I can't get off icloud currently. All options on the table have failed after multiple attempts (Photos app sync, web page download, third party command line downloaders).

johnnyballgame 4y ago

Install iCloud app locally and sync them. Then backup your local folder to another device or cloud. Backblaze B2 is a great cloud option for raw storage.

presto8 4y ago
Exactly what I do. I use an old Mac Mini with an attached 5 TB USB drive. This provides a mirror of the iCloud data. For versioning, add a separate drive and use Time Machine. This provides versioning. For offsite backup, B2 or other backup provider.
asdff 4y ago
Does icloud drive contain the photos? My issue with icloud was that as far as I was aware, I could only sync photos via the Photos mac app, or web page downloading a zip archive a few gb at a time. Both options ended up failing for me unfortunately. The Photos app would quit instantly when I set it to sync the library because I guess it was too large perhaps. The web page downloads would time out a few hundred mb in. I tried using third party command line tools for icloud downloads, and they too would time out.

sgjohnson 4y ago

iCloud doesn’t really back up photos. It’s more of a sync. If you’ll manually delete a photo from your phone, it’ll be deleted from iCloud too.

ghaff 4y ago
The conflation of sync and backup can actually be really dangerous. You don't want a primary backup to have the opportunity to delete files because they (apparently) have been deleted on the primary.
- lostlogin 4y ago
  If rsync is used before the backup is uploaded/archived you can set the flags to do the things you want.
- sgjohnson 4y ago
  Yes. RAID is a good analogy. iCloud Photos will protect your photos in case if you lose your device or it fails or whatever. It won't protect your photos if you delete them (either accidentally or intentionally). It is not a backup, and even "full" device backups WON'T include the photos, because of the (mostly correct) assumption that they are all in the iCloud Photo Stream. They will be backed up in "full" backups ONLY if you don't use iCloud Photos.

rashkov 4y ago

I’ve been happily using PhotoSync, which has been very reliabe

asdff 4y ago

Currently searching but don't get in this boat with me. I'm dealing with a library of 50k+ photos I can't get off icloud currently. All options on the table have failed after multiple attempts (Photos app sync, web page download, third party command line downloaders).