I appreciate the pushback, particularly from someone as knowledgeable as you are. A few points of clarification.
You are right that I own a Mac, a 14-inch M4 MacBook Pro, and I also own two iPads, both M4s, the 13-inch and the 11-inch. But the necessity of a Mac is what I’m evaluating. The question I am trying to answer is whether the iPad can do all of my work, and if the answer is yes, the Mac goes. I have my reasons for wanting to be iPad only, which as I stated earlier I will share when the time is right. Now is not that time.
On the cloud backup point, I do not think the problem is quite as you state it. Obviously, a backup uploaded to the cloud resides on a computer. But I want another safe haven for my work in the event of a catastrophe at the location where I keep my Mac and SSD. What I want is three layers: iCloud, which I know is not a true backup but is something, an external SSD, and a cloud backup service.
The trouble is that two of those three layers are not working from the iPad. I am dealing with roughly 45 gigabytes, and iPadOS will not let me copy the parent folder to the SSD in one copy/paste operation. I have to select folders a few at a time. The cloud uploads have given me the same kind of difficulty. I have tried File Browser Professional and Parachute, both of which are supposed to handle this, and both failed multiple tests. Backup is the one real obstacle so far, and if I cannot solve it, the experiment fails and I keep the Mac and iPad. We shall see!
Thanks for the detailed information. unfortunately the backups are not working from parachute to Google Drive. I’m not sure what the problem is, but I do have it configured correctly.
Turns out I’ve found some problems too, Parachute is duplicating some files that I added to the backup manually. So I’ve installed Tahoe on my Mac so I work on iCloud from both directions.
I never liked giving up on a problem, and now that I’m retired I can’t say I don’t have the time to work on it.
I just watched this video on the updated file transfer to SSD in iPadOS 27. This may solve my SSD problem, but will likely have no affect on uploads to GD.
Same. I’m elbows deep in Finder all day, every day. I am simply not built to cope with a device that doesn’t present me with a directory tree. About the only thing I can really get done on an iPad is read and watch videos.
I’m running the public beta and decided to set up a back-up using FileBrowser Pro. It’s currently backing up a folder containing about 13 GB of files from from the iPad to an SSD.
I think you’d mentioned trying to use FileBrowser Pro as a part of your solution? It’s almost done and has taken about 5 minutes for the first back-up. If you’ve not done so yet you can set-up automated back-ups with various options using FBP to an SSD. Assuming it can handle your 45 GB of files that might do the trick for you!
I sent you the details earlier today, but the short version is Parachute Backup is once again working for me.
I downloaded all my File folders from iCloud to my Mac’s desktop. Deleted and reinstalled PB on my iPad, then moved the file folders back to iCloud one at a time letting PB run a backup each time before I uploaded the next folder. Why did this fix my problem? I have no idea.
After watching Tech Dad’s video I uploaded an iCloud folder containing pdfs, photos, and 44 movie files ranging from 35mb to 3.5 gb to Google Drive, using Chrome on my MacBook Air. The upload took 37 minutes. Then I deleted the folder on GD, and uploaded it again using the Apple Files app on my iPad Air. And this upload took 22 minutes. Go figure.
