I need personal cloud storage

August 3, 2023 6:43 PM

Running a MacBook. I have very few photos, no videos, and a lot of word files. So I need a way to transparently store my files in a reasonably priced, dependable, service with good customer service and any thing else you can think of and I can't.
posted by partner to Computers & Internet (6 answers total)

Best answer: Can you expand upon your anticipated needs of customer service, and what 'good' would look like?

Have you had specific poor experiences in the past, and what were those like?

These questions popped up when I found myself about to recommend iCloud. It's cheap, it's tightly integrated into my Mac, it allows easy synching between my Mac and my iPhone, I can get to it from a Windows PC when I need to, and... it just works. But I've never had a reason to seek out their customer service so I can't speak to it either way.

Then again, if you're using Word alot, have you looked into the storage that comes with an Office365 account?
posted by armoir from antproof case at 6:51 PM on August 3, 2023 [2 favorites]

By Office365 I should have said "Microsoft 365 Personal". It provides a OneDrive account with 1TB of storage, accessible to any of your Microsoft/Office applications.

On the other hand, iCloud makes cloud storage available to pretty much anything you'd normally store on your computer, including but not limited to the Microsoft document files.
posted by armoir from antproof case at 7:04 PM on August 3, 2023

What *other* devices will you want to access your files from? That might affect the answers. (For example, iCloud works best on Apple devices.)

Or, do you only have the one device and you’re looking for more of a backup type service?
posted by mekily at 7:15 PM on August 3, 2023 [2 favorites]

iCloud is the easiest way to back up a Macintosh. I don't believe I have ever needed customer service for it.
posted by zippy at 8:49 PM on August 3, 2023 [1 favorite]

I use iCloud for my daily stuff but for my extended family we use Dropbox so we don’t get tied to a particular platform.

But yeah, if it’s just you then iCloud is as close to an ideal choice as there can possibly be.
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 9:47 PM on August 3, 2023

I can't think of a single reason you shouldn't be using iCloud. It's cheap, reliable and automatic on Apple hardware, and accessible via the web from Windows and Linux.

If you're using Microsoft Office, it also comes with Microsoft OneDrive storage, which also works well with Macs. Dropbox works as well, but the Dropbox client is very resource-hungry on Macintosh.
posted by lhauser at 7:06 PM on August 4, 2023