MS OneDrive vs. iCloud+

Software
1

Hey all, I’ve been using MS OneDrive for quite a while, by whatever name it was going by at the time. I got on board with Office 365 a few years ago when I still needed to use the software suite, and home family plan was just too good of a value: it’s now 6 Office Suite users with the most updated software versions on just about any device plus 6TB of online storage, all for $100/yr. And that’s if you buy from MS. I’ve only ever purchased licenses on Ebay and have never paid that much, often quite a bit less.

Anyway, when I got my M1 MBP, I started dabbling with Apple’s office suite and although I’m nowhere near the power user I was with Excel, for example, I honestly don’t remember the last time I used any MS software for anything. It’s just sitting there on my SSD, taking up space.

The OneDrive is a different story though. We’re not using a full 6TB, and it is almost entirely for static media storage - photos and home video - but that collection obviously grows continually. (BTW, I’m a two belts and two suspenders guy when it comes to photo/video storage redundancy: I use Time Machine, CCC, Backblaze, and simple “off site storage” with OneDrive. Plus of course the copies on our devices.)

Since I don’t actually use MS office software anymore, I’ve been wondering if I could/should cancel my account and simplify my online life. Has anyone else made this switch, and is the additional cost worth it? In a 1:1 storage quantity comparison, the price contest easily goes to MS. Their cost of $100 annually for 6TB storage drastically undercuts Apple’s $360 (or for that matter, the $120 for 2TB), and additional features aside (each option has their own unique extras), the only advantage I see to iCloud+ is having a simpler access via any of our devices. And to be honest, I don’t know how often, if ever, I’ve needed remote access to my entire library of photos and videos.

My apologies for the verbosity. I’m thankful in advance for any personal anecdotes!

P.S. The price discounts with Apple One are for naught in our case, as Apple TV / Arcade / Fitness / News hold no interest for us. We do subscribe to Music, but there’s no a la carte package discount.

2

I’ve contemplated the same thing because we could get what we need for cheaper and we don’t always need the Office Suite, but there are two things holding me back:

  1. (the most important) my wife likes having the office suite for one-off projects
  2. iCloud won’t give me a way that I know of to permanently download a file locally, whereas OneDrive allows me to keep things local (nice when traveling)
3

I use both, but I am also multi-platform and a heavy Excel user. If my family were all 100% Apple, I would use iCloud, even if it is more expensive. iCloud is great on a Mac or iPhone but much more of a PITA to use once you step out of the Apple ecosystem.

I am also starting to hate OneDrive because on Windows 11 Microsoft is trying to tie it more and more into the OS.

That said, I recently got back in the NAS thing and am moving away from both of them in favor of my own storage. Synology Drive is an excellent app that easily replaces both services on Mac or Windows.

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4

I’ve decided that there’s still no ideal cloud storage solution for Apple users.

iCloud is the only one that works seamlessly with iOS and iPadOS devices, but it’s temperamental and buggy and lacks versioning.

I really like Sync.com, which is well-priced and—unlike OneDrive, Dropbox, and Google Drive—E2EE (it even meets US HIPAA privacy requirements). But like the others, it can’t fully replace iCloud on iDevices.

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5

I think it depends on the other 5 users. I moved from MS to iCloud but still keep a single license for my wife.

6

I suggest you use iCloud for a few week before committing to it because

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7

If you turn on Advanced Data Protection, your iCloud Drive becomes end-to-end encrypted (even Apple can’t read your stuff). OneDrive does not have that. Sync.com and ProtonDrive have the encryption too.

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