I’m in a state of analysis paralysis with the question. I’d like to trust DT with digital document storage and retrieval, but there is the ever-present “what if something goes wrong?” I trust iCloud more since I have backups of each file that I can restore to any of my Mac’s if any of them get corrupted.
On the downside, if I want the same documents and directory structures in both, then I need to maintain both. That isn’t a big deal for things Hazel Filer can handle, but for documents I need to manually name and file, it adds overhead to the process.
Putting everything into DT and only having to maintain one “document vault” would be easier for me, and I’m always looking for way to save time.
For those of you who struggled with this choice, what did you choose to do and why?
Note: Either way I’m buying DevonThink, which pushes me towards maximizing the ROI I get from it by putting everything I can into it.
I trust icloud less. If your devonthink dbs are not stored on icloud and you don’t sync them using icloud and you back them up regularly, you should be good to go. Plus links to items work equally well on desktop and mobile with devonthink.
What is your concern (risk statement, e.g. because of [?], [?] might happen, leading to [?])?
Yes, Apple iCloud and CloudKit service is known to be unreliable and slow, even for other apps, as reported on numerous other forums. If one has issues with these services, best to use something else.
Thanks. Agree. Just wanted clarification that is what was behind your statement.
Apple iCloud does seem to work for some. And others, even though it does not work well for them, avoid moving to something else. All anecdotal, of course, but there are indications. Dunno why.
As per recent Evernote discussion I moved over to using finder with iCloud with Notebooks sitting over the top. It’s working really well as a kind of DT-lite and I am finding that I actually do use it as a source of truth, which I wanted DT to be but it never got traction.
Also, I back up the iCloud folders to my local Open Media Vault server and to Backblaze.
I use DevonThink databases, and I do not Index anything. It’s really solid and reliable. I still use iCloud for personal files, but everything work-related is in DT.
I had a lot of issues when using iCloud sync with DevonThink, but after switching to Dropbox, I’ve not had any problems at all (touch wood!)
I also have a strict backup to three sources (not including the cloud.)
Glad to hear it but do remember to be judicious in what you put into your databases. DEVONthink isn’t a Finder or Spotlight replacement, so it’s not meant for dumping entire hard drives or home directories into it. See this blog post…
Everything goes into DT for me too. To be honest I just don’t trust iCloud as much as I do DT and I’m not going to have enough space there to support the number of files that I have within my databases.
The PDFs are categorised into groups, I can then link to the file from various other apps if I need to, or just rely on DTs search capabilities (and OCR) to find what I need
I store all of my administrative documents in DT databases on my mac’s internal hard drive. (I have more than one since I find it advantageous to segregate the documents by purpose, e.g., there’s a DT database for some family estates and trusts I help administer, another for personal taxes and finance, etc.) With very rare exceptions I only access these documents from my mac in DT itself so I don’t mind the rather opaque file structure in the package file where DT stores a database’s documents. On a regular schedule I back the databases up on a portable, easily accessible SSD that I can grab and take with me if need be. The hard drive itself is backed up to Backblaze. Really important documents—e.g. scans of my birth certificate and the like—are backed up on a thumb drive in my emergency go bag as well.
I store all of my research and project documents in Finder folders that I index in DT. Since I often need to access these files outside of DT, I prefer to store them in a logical file structure that I control and can parse from Finder itself.
I’m on the 200gb iCloud plan, so I don’t use it for much. (I’m not interested in upgrading to 2TB, and there’s nothing between 200gb and 2TB, but that’s a rant for another thread.)
I store digital documents (acquired from external sources, e.g. select committee reports from the UK Parliament) in specific folders because I will be using those documents for some specific purpose. For example, those select committee reports will be imported in a corpus linguistics program for further analsys; hiding them away in DevonThink or some other program will inhibit that import.
Documents I have penned myself (whether with Scrivener or LyX) are stored in either a subdirectory in Dropbox for Scrivener — because I want to access them from either of my Macs, iPad, and iPhone as the occasion necessitates — including network outage — or the conventional iCloud/Documents folder for LyX but I am moving away from that as Scrivener now has a LaTeX-aware feature.
In summary I have organised my user accounts to have a (almost) logical structure of subdirectories into which any document will be moved and therefore easily found. When this fails there is always Spotlight.
I keep all my important documents in a folder (named File Cabinet) on my iMac. That folder, along with my Documents folder and photos are synced to iCloud. I have a MacBook Air for travel and it stays synced to iCloud continuously.
I looked at Devon Think some years ago and decided it was way overkill and too complex for my needs. That complexity also makes it harder for others to access the files in the event of my demise or incapacitation. If you have the need, DT can be an excellent tool, I just didn’t have that need.