How much do you pay for cloud storage or is the free 5 GB enough?

[QuarterMillionMan]

I kept getting a message saying that I've reached the maximum 5 GB of storage and was unable to add more pictures or videos so I'm paying Apple $1 a month which is fairly cheap. For Google I'm paying $2 a month mainly for my gmail account which I was also getting a message.

[ua_guy]

$0

I don't pay for cloud storage, nor do I keep most of my stuff in "the cloud". IMO it's a waste of money.

[disneysteve]

$0

I don't pay for cloud storage, nor do I keep most of my stuff in "the cloud". IMO it's a waste of money.

I don't think cloud storage is a waste, but it depends on your usage patterns. I find it super convenient to be able to access my documents, spreadsheets, and photos from anywhere I happen to be.

That said, I don't currently pay anything for cloud storage as I haven't filled up the free storage yet. I am at 91% with Google so I need to go through and clean out photos that don't need to be there. I used to be able to delete them from Google Photo without deleting them from my phone, but they changed something recently that interfered with that so I need to figure that out. There are a lot of photos I want on my phone but don't need in my Google Photos account.

If you do need to store more than the free storage allows, the fee for added space is very cheap and certainly worth it if you have a use for it.

[kork13]

I think I pay $20/yr for 100GB of could storage with Google, shared across my family's accounts. We value the flexibility of having access to everything anywhere. Mostly, it allows auto-backup for our photos/videos, which become indexed & accessible from any device.

[srblanco7]

We have a family Office 365 account that comes w/ 1 TB of storage for $99/year. The cloud storage is just a "bonus" on top of the Office subscription.

[myrdale]

$0.

On some occasion I download all my photos to my computer. I back my own files up.

One project I've been considering for a year now is buying a NAS. I want to do this for streaming the movies I own. One bonus is I can self host my own cloud service.

NAS $500
Hard drives $200 x 4

I'm not suggesting it is a cheaper alternative, just an alternative.

[disneysteve]

One project I've been considering for a year now is buying a NAS. I want to do this for streaming the movies I own. One bonus is I can self host my own cloud service.

NAS $500
Hard drives $200 x 4

I had never heard of this before you posted but just looked it up. So if you do this, is there any ongoing fee for hosting your own cloud service? If not, that would be pretty cool.

[kork13]

I had never heard of this before you posted but just looked it up. So if you do this, is there any ongoing fee for hosting your own cloud service? If not, that would be pretty cool.

No, you're basically just setting up a server (effectively a beefy hard drive) on your home network with a routable IP address... Then to connect to it (whether from you laptop across the room or your cell phone in Abu Dhabi), you just dial up the server's IP address & voila you're connected to your server. It's really the same fundamental idea of the internet as a whole, just on a micro scale. The only ongoing cost is your home's internet service. It's not overly complex, it just takes some hardware, a bit of networking skills, and the patience to troubleshoot it when (not if) there's a problem. Before cloud storage became more popular, my BIL had one of these setup exactly as myrdale describes -- it hosted his entire collection of movies, music, photos, and so on. He loved it.

ETA: Technically you don't need to make it routable from anywhere, and the NAS can live inside of your home network's firewall to only provide storage for devices directly connected to your home network .... In fact, many home routers today make doing so very easy, in a simplistic manner -- plug in any hard drive to the router & boom, you've got a networked drive. But I think you lose out on alot of potential value by restricting the storage to your home network.

[disneysteve]

Thanks kork. Very cool. And I agree that restricting it to the home wouldn’t be nearly as useful. The whole
benefit of cloud storage is being able to access everything from anywhere.

[myrdale]

kork's description is pretty spot on.

For opening it up to the internet, there are security features you have to implement. So long as you do those things you're safe from attacks.

[LivingAlmostLarge]

We have one as well. And cloud storage for photos. More private stuff DH has the NAS and he used to be better about a monthly backup.