iMac external backup fire protection

If you have a fast internet connection you can get iCloud Drive at storage options of 2TB, 6TB, or 12TB. You can then enable iCloud Drive with the Doucments and Desktop folder option and all of your files will be stored in iCloud Drive.

The files are also stored on your local boot drive so you can work with them when you don't have an internet connection.

These Apple documents explain how iCloud Drive works:

Set up iCloud Drive on all your devices - Apple Support

Additional information:

1. Free Storage: You get 5GB of free iCloud storage for backups, Mail, iCloud Photos, iCloud Drive, and more. 
2. iCloud+ Plans: To get more storage and additional features, you can upgrade to iCloud+. 
3. iCloud+ Storage Options: iCloud+ offers plans with 50GB, 200GB, 2TB, 6TB, or 12TB of storage. 
4. File Size Limit: While you can store files up to 50GB in size, you need to ensure that your total storage usage doesn't exceed your iCloud storage limit. 
5. What to do if you run out of space: If you run out of iCloud storage, your device won't back up to iCloud, new photos and videos won't upload to iCloud Photos, and iCloud Drive and other iCloud apps won't stay up to date across your device

Just some food for thought.

Timothy Perdian wrote:

Apple lost my books just like that. Years worth of collected books. What if they do the same to my music collection? I mistakenly donated a box of my CDs and DVDs to a charity, now I only have the versions I put on the computer. Every CD since the Beatles could vanish over night. I don't trust Apple's safeguards.

That's why you need more than one backup. I use several bare SSDs with an adaptor like this;

to separately backup my Photos library, Music library and other important documents. I also have a bare 4 TB SSD as my Time Machine backup.

A lot of people use a combination of Time Machine and a clone (Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper!) on separate External Hard Disks. They keep one offsite for safekeeping. If you are thinking of something else let us know and please attempt to be more descriptive.

The best place is multiple places. "Fireproof" safes are rated for time and temperature, either one of which can be exceeded. Maintaining multiple backups in geographically separate locations is a robust backup strategy.

I don't know what an IOsafe is.

You're welcome. I have more personal items lost in our basement that I will never find again. I also somehow lost the dongle to a Logitech keyboard I bought years ago, somewhere here in my office. I'm more likely to lose things than to have them destroyed. 🤔

The best backup fire protection is an offsite backup. I keep my offsite backups in my Safe Deposit Box at my bank.

John Galt wrote:

I don't know what an IOsafe is.

https://iosafe.com/home

Thanks. Couldn't find any details regarding UL or other fire ratings so I lost interest pretty quickly.