I was wondering if anyone has a good workflow for cloud storage.
Cloud Services I have
Google Drive
Dropbox
OneDrive (out of force not need)
Box
iCloud
Dropbox
I do not pay for it. Regular account with about 10 GB of free space due to invitations over the years.
OneDrive
Pay the fee because members on the team still prefer using Microsoft, I get 1 TB from it, but the interface is clunky that I prefer not to go near it at all.
Box
I do not pay for it. I have an old account with about 60 GB of free space due to invites over they years. Not many people I know use it for some reason.
iCloud
I don’t fully utilize it, I have the 200 GB option, if I have apps that rely on it, I use that. Also used as a 2nd backup in case something happens to my iPhone or iPad.
Google Drive
I have 20+ accounts for different areas that I am involved in. Mainly share a parent folder across all accounts so that whatever I need is accessible.
Frustration
I can’t really have all these installed on my computer anymore. I have tried using Cloud Mounter, oDrive, but I feel like something is always missing. I have thought about going all-in on just 1 provider, but then this might not work for all team projects I am involved in.
I’ve also thought about removing the apps from my mac, and routing all of them to my Synology instead. Then just mount the NAS. But then the Finder doesn’t play well and things lag.
How does everyone battle the typical concept, “out of sight, out of mind” ?? But if I can’t see it on my mac, then I am going to forget it exists and sometimes end up creating double work.
Personally I don’t have any cloud application on my computer directly and I have never had an issue doing double work, but that would depend on what you are doing and how you are tracking it.
I suspect the answer to an optimal solution would be a simplification of the services, (maybe lose box and standardise on the others) in conjunction with adjusting how you use desktop clients, if you even do.
Personally along time ago I decided not to be the guy who works with everyone else’s tools but to instead be the jerk who insists on doing it with my tool, and that can have some success, depending on where in the decision making structure.
I agree with Ben’s suggestion to pare down the services. I think each one exponentially adds to the problem. I have Box, OneDrive, and Google Drive accounts, but rarely use them. I only use iCloud and Dropbox on my Macs.
Since I’m only using Dropbox and iCloud, I do use the client apps. My use for projects is minimal, such as if doing a joint presentation, since my firm has a document management system. As a result, I haven’t run into storage issues (if that is why you were asking).
I had about 6 or 7 cloud services I used for all kinds of small sync options. Last year I’ve scaled down to 2.
Dropbox for app sync for those apps that don’t allow icloud sync & temporary file sharing with non-apple users
iCloud for everything else. I have the 2TB plan, and that’s more than I would ever want to use in the public cloud. (have everything else on my synology)
As a Windows/Linux user my paradigm was just a network drive or share point I could mount.
With small amount of disk space on the iPhone and Mac’s I just wanted to store my data on the network drive and get it off of my computer.
I started w Dropbox and quickly realized that it was just a file sync service that could chew up disk space on multiple systems. I understand that it allows for fast access but at the cost of taking up 100Gb on all 4 systems.
iCloud is slightly better but the control of what stays local and what is simply a link is not really easy to manage if you have a lot of files.
Using my Qnap Nas is klugy on the Mac because spotlight does not index network drives so you have to search it via a web browser plug in called Sirch. Windows also requires a hack to index network drives.
There is a Qnap app that sync’s to iCloud, haven’t tried it yet.
Then there is the issues that the Files app is a real POS. It doesn’t let you name a file when create it. It puts a placeholder SAFARIxxxx that you have to go and rename. It’s better than nothing but not by much. It would be great to have the Mac app PATHfinder functionality on the iPad and iPhone so that you could really manage you file in the cloud.
Is the reason that the cloud apps keep a local copy because even w 150mb internet connection the access is so slow?
I would really like to find an end to end encrypted file share that didn’t replicate everything everywhere. If it did have to replicate for performance give me granular control over what I want local vs ok to just leave in the cloud.
Anyone have a good white paper on cloud services so that I can understand why they do what they do so that I could effectively implement a workflow.
I use OneDrive almost exclusively. My current gig uses Office 365, SharePoint, Teams, etc. I also have an O365 Business Essentials plan for my personal domain - which comes with the above, except Office - which gives me 1TB, plus the 1TB I get for the O365 Home sub for Office itself and I’m more than covered for storage.
The big advantage is that all my files are available on any device: iOS, macOS, Windows, web.
I also have a NAS at home for big data storage needs.
Hi Stewart - It sounds like you’re not having many of the problems a lot of users including myself are having regarding OD slowing down my 2019 iMac with 40gb of ram. If your Mac is humming along with the OD client installed have you customized any settings to achieve this performance?
It’s been a while since I’ve looked at MPU forum. In answer to your query, I have not changed any settings from the defaults, except maybe turning off sync for a few folders that I don’t need syncing to my MBP, e.g. Dcouments/Desktop/Pictures from my Windows machine, Arq Backup folder from my MBP, that sort of thing.