I am 95% a iPad Pro 12.9 only user for(personal) daily use. I currently have a 2020 iMac and an old 2009 Mac Mini(not in use). The iMac is really just an expensive 2nd screen for Office365 apps for my work. So, I am thinking about selling this iMac.
My main concern is managing and archiving our photos. The photo library is on an external drive and I also do some backups to an old Synology(over 40k photos). We are also using family sharing for iCloud Photos.
So, what are the thoughts on iPad only and dealing with photos.
Dedicated photo management apps almost don’t exist. There’re not a lot of options if you don’t go all in iCloud Photos. RAW Power is a possible option to manage photos in Files app. It has star ratings and etc. Another one is Cascade, which is designed as a camera remote primarily. Or you’ll just use a generic file manager with sync options, say GoodReader which has a good photo viewer.
We are all in on iCloud with Family. We have the 2TB storage.
I guess now that I think about it as long as the older photos are on multiple HDs, and a cloud back up I don’t really need a computer(Mac or PC) to manage them. I could plug in any of the drives to an iOS device to view or manage the files. Or, any cloud service I suppose as well. Any edits that are needed can be done in any one of many great editing apps.
I am looking to get rid of a lot of tech debt. To many drives, computers, monitors, and the like just hanging around. I want to simplify everything.
I tried to go IOS only when my old Mac mini died. The inability to backup my data was the reason I eventually purchased another mini. Syncing my photos to iCloud or another service like Google Photos wasn’t a backup. And constantly dragging files from my iPad to external storage wasn’t practical. IMO, backups need to be automatic and frequent, and at least one copy needs to be offsite.
My mini is a home server that backups up everything I do on my iPad to local drives and to Backblaze B2. As long as I can get online it does its job regardless of where I may travel.
I would agree with that. But, I do have the Synology running. It’s an older one, but the DSPhoto iOS app will auto upload any new photos taken on my iPhone. The Synology is also being backup up to BackBlazeB2 so that is offsite.
I had forgotten about the Synology auto upload. I could keep the old 2009 Mini running if I really wanted to. I also have some old documents stored in iCloud and on the Synology.