Some of their other services seem overpriced to me. For example, the Family Lifetime plan is $595 for 2TiB, which is essentially the same $400 plan with a few more users. On average, adding Bob and the kids isn’t going to add that much demand for bandwidth.
They also have a Family Lifetime plan at $1499 for 10TiB.
They also have an encryption addon for $150 that adds client-side encryption. Seems to be a large profit margin on that.
And, their password manager $29/yr, $149/life.
If I were in need, I might give their monthly or annual plan a try. Their selective synchronization works the way you’d think all cloud services would work. Right-click a folder, select Sync, tell it where in your cloud to sync it to. Done. No ~/Library/CloudStorage annoyances.
Yes. The synology photos app is dead simple to set up and the Apple TV app is pretty darn good.
Fair warning I self host WebDAV server for devonthink, Zotero, self host audiobookshelf, Calibre-web, kavita, and paperless-ngx via docker (which takes a bit to learn), And while I can easily host something like photoprism, the synology app is so easy to set up, more than adequate, and most importantly hits that I wife acceptance factor that I run with it. Apple TV app was the cherry on top.
Yeah, as you mentioned the encryption seems ridiculously priced. They still advertise the vanilla service as AES encrypted, but it’s encrypted with keys that they control. So your data is effectively available to their company employees, and anybody else that manages to get the key.
No, but he kids might have 70 some years to go until “lifetime” runs out.
All kidding aside, I’m guessing that “family” plans mainly mean that the user is more likely to actually use their entire data cap, because there are more people.
If I’m understanding correctly, that’s actually a pretty slick feature. If I’m understanding correctly, it sounds like they might actually be implementing Apple’s document/desktop cloud sync the way Apple should be.
I didn’t think pCloud was a reseller. They’re a low cost operation: about 40 employees with hardware in two data centers (EU and US.) Similar to Backblaze but about a fifth of the headcount.
Paying for four years of cloud storage up front is a pessimistic bet by the user that prices won’t continue to be driven down. pCloud is an optimistic company.
just installed the Apple TV app. It is surprisingly good. Now I am more incline to send more photos (such as those from DSLR and mirrorless cameras) to my NAS and let Synology Photos deal with them. I intend to remove my Photoprism docker container now as I do not think it would be the same on Apple TV
I’m working on the same transition. I have Synology, Nextcloud photo;s and Photoprism set up and working just to see how they compare.
Would be very interested to hear your thoughts (maybe open a different topic?)
I thought the would make it obvious that my statement was an attempt at humor.
I trust Google mainly because I’ve been using their services for around 18 years and AFAIK never lost a file or an email. I can upload a file from my iPad and it will appear on my Mac and iPhone in a couple of seconds. And I can delete a file from the synced folders on my Mac and watch it disappear from my iPhone just as fast.
Knowing that their customers include Airbus, Verizon, and the City of Los Angels doesn’t hurt but the fact that they are HIPAA compliant tells me all I need to know.
I continue to recommend Google because I took the time to research it as well as Microsoft several years ago when my company was looking to replace our on premise email server.
I’m still using iCloud and don’t plan to change for now. My Mac, for example, has very few files stored natively, and everything just goes to iCloud, including my desktop.
Edit: Strikethrough added as this is incorrect - follow up comment below.
Mostly for me it’s just ease. I’m already in their ecosystem, and I don’t want to pay yet another third party for a service.
I actually do have one folder that always gets stuck syncing and pretty much permanently has the little “needing to be synced” icon, but oddly the files in it seem fine and accessible. Not sure what’s going on there and I don’t care enough to investigate
And that’s probably why so many people use iCloud Drive
I wrote that comment before I went to shower and get on with my day, and I realised in the shower it is fundamentally wrong and misleading. Which just goes to show that most people use iCloud Drive because they have no idea what they’re doing, including me
It’s true that I have very few folders stored locally on my Mac. However, it is not true that this means the bulk of my files are on iCloud Drive, because I’m an idiot and one of the folders stored locally is DevonThink, where at least 70% of my files go, and likely far more.
It is therefore only fair to say that for me everything that never goes into DevonThink goes on to iCloud Drive, but in reality that’s a probably less than a third of the files I keep.
And to be honest, DevonThink is set up like that because they vehemently discourage storing your database on a cloud service. Had they not made this admonishment very visible and emphatic in all of their materials, I would’ve stuck DevonThink in iCloud too since that’s where I put everything before I became a DT user and I wouldn’t have known any better.
So in reality whilst I do use iCloud Drive and will continue to do so, I’m not a “power user” and most my work is stored on my own hard-drive because people far more knowledgeable than me told me to do that.
there may be use case that DT database needs to be in the cloud. In my case, my primary DT databases are in a Mac Mini which obviously is stationary. I want to sync all the databases to my 14"MBP so that when I am away from home, I have the most up-to-date information. Not sure using DT Cloudkit sync is the only way to do this. I would like to hear other suggestions
Syncing is different, the files should still be stored on a hard drive, they’re just syncing to other devices.
I use CloudKit to sync (also be aware CloudKit is different to iCloud Drive, they’re separate services though I think run on the same infrastructure. You cannot “see” stuff that’s syncing via CloudKit. It’s not like opening iCloud and there all your files are - you can’t see what happens with CloudKit). Anyway CloudKit is rubbish and has been unreliable for weeks now, so I certainly don’t recommend it and the DT developers don’t either. (I also suspect CloudKit is how Apple Notes syncs and as we know that’s also been rubbish for weeks now…)
DT recommend Bonjour for syncing devices on the same network, which I will probably switch to soon, and there are other options. There’s a section in the manual that explains different options and how to set them up. But, the files themselves will still reside on your Mac.
In addition to the iCloud Drive method, various posts have described at least four different methods used by Apple behind the scenes to synchronize apps between devices, all called CloudKit. Syncing behavior with CloudKit-enabled apps varies depending upon the goals, designs, and skills of the developer behind each app. Also, at times, Apple’s infrastructure, or parts thereof, suffer outages and partial outages. All these factors affect the performance that we observe.
I think that CloudKit, with all these factors taken into consideration, works well for me.
I just checked my Dropbox account that I hardly ever log in to. Well, except to share a video or two, once in a blue moon.
I have 12.63GB of free space and my documents folder in iCloud is just over 3GB, so I could make the switch for free. I also only need it installed on 3 devices, so again, free works. Given all the scary stories on here and another on this week’s ATP podcast, and I’m thinking of moving over.
I’d be amazed if David, Stephen or the admins would expel anyone for telling the truth. They’re aware that Apple has it’s own challenges and deficiencies.
I would think, that they would more likely make a bet, on how many storage the customer really use out of their 2TB available.
And I would expect, that the vast majority isn’t even close to the limit, so they spare a lot on the unused storage space.
Under the above consumption, it is way more likely, that more space out of the 2TB are in use, with more people using this plan.
would make it obvious that my statement was an attempt at humor.
