Backing up 2Tb icloud to NAS
Discussion
I'm a bit stuck and apple support haven't been able to solve this....
I have a 2Tb icloud account which is completely full. Most of the data is Photos and Videos. About a quarter of the storage is used for photos on my wife's ID with family sharing.
I want to backup the entire 2Tb to a NAS or external drive. I have a Mac and a PC. I've tried a lot of things but in all cases it seems that in order to copy to the external device the cloud data must be downloaded to the local hard drive - I have a 512Gb drive so it fails every time. Even if I grab sets of photos I keep running out of local disk space.
Does anyone know if there is a simple way of just backing up the entire icloud data DIRECTLY to an external device?
I have a 2Tb icloud account which is completely full. Most of the data is Photos and Videos. About a quarter of the storage is used for photos on my wife's ID with family sharing.
I want to backup the entire 2Tb to a NAS or external drive. I have a Mac and a PC. I've tried a lot of things but in all cases it seems that in order to copy to the external device the cloud data must be downloaded to the local hard drive - I have a 512Gb drive so it fails every time. Even if I grab sets of photos I keep running out of local disk space.
Does anyone know if there is a simple way of just backing up the entire icloud data DIRECTLY to an external device?
Are you using a NAS, or just an external USB drive? Most commercial NAS offerings will have built-in iCloud integration so you can sync directly from the device.
Directly connected USB drives are more difficult, as you say typically it will download things locally first and then copy the files across.
Directly connected USB drives are more difficult, as you say typically it will download things locally first and then copy the files across.
MrCheese said:
I'm a bit stuck and apple support haven't been able to solve this....
I have a 2Tb icloud account which is completely full. Most of the data is Photos and Videos. About a quarter of the storage is used for photos on my wife's ID with family sharing.
I want to backup the entire 2Tb to a NAS or external drive. I have a Mac and a PC. I've tried a lot of things but in all cases it seems that in order to copy to the external device the cloud data must be downloaded to the local hard drive - I have a 512Gb drive so it fails every time. Even if I grab sets of photos I keep running out of local disk space.
Does anyone know if there is a simple way of just backing up the entire icloud data DIRECTLY to an external device?
https://github.com/skarppi/icloud_photo_stationI have a 2Tb icloud account which is completely full. Most of the data is Photos and Videos. About a quarter of the storage is used for photos on my wife's ID with family sharing.
I want to backup the entire 2Tb to a NAS or external drive. I have a Mac and a PC. I've tried a lot of things but in all cases it seems that in order to copy to the external device the cloud data must be downloaded to the local hard drive - I have a 512Gb drive so it fails every time. Even if I grab sets of photos I keep running out of local disk space.
Does anyone know if there is a simple way of just backing up the entire icloud data DIRECTLY to an external device?
Its a bit technical, but if you download for DSM 7 (check your NAS OS) and install using Package Center/Manual Install you should get something that will do what you need.
I've not done this myself so I can't vouch for it, but the only other option is to upgrade your PC/Mac with a larger drive to allow iCloud to download to your PC and then backup to the NAS
An update on this....
After countless attempts to backup and numerous calls to Apple we decided that the only reliable way of backing up was to buy a 2Tb SSD for my PC so that the entire iCloud account would automatically sync and then be able to be copied to an external NAS.
Quite simply...it doesn't work. iCloud persistently counts down the number of photos syncing to the PC but always freezes before it fully syncs. Navigating to the iPhotos drive shows that numerous photos aren't stored locally and right clicking to force them to download doesn't work.
I've reached the point where I've had to manually select a few hundred items at a time in the web interface and manually download them, so what should be an automated process is literally taking months and requires manual labelling and unpacking of files. Something is badly wrong with Apple infrastructure when the number of photos/videos is large. All my hardware and software is brand new this year.
After countless attempts to backup and numerous calls to Apple we decided that the only reliable way of backing up was to buy a 2Tb SSD for my PC so that the entire iCloud account would automatically sync and then be able to be copied to an external NAS.
Quite simply...it doesn't work. iCloud persistently counts down the number of photos syncing to the PC but always freezes before it fully syncs. Navigating to the iPhotos drive shows that numerous photos aren't stored locally and right clicking to force them to download doesn't work.
I've reached the point where I've had to manually select a few hundred items at a time in the web interface and manually download them, so what should be an automated process is literally taking months and requires manual labelling and unpacking of files. Something is badly wrong with Apple infrastructure when the number of photos/videos is large. All my hardware and software is brand new this year.
MrCheese said:
An update on this....
After countless attempts to backup and numerous calls to Apple we decided that the only reliable way of backing up was to buy a 2Tb SSD for my PC so that the entire iCloud account would automatically sync and then be able to be copied to an external NAS.
Quite simply...it doesn't work. iCloud persistently counts down the number of photos syncing to the PC but always freezes before it fully syncs. Navigating to the iPhotos drive shows that numerous photos aren't stored locally and right clicking to force them to download doesn't work.
I've reached the point where I've had to manually select a few hundred items at a time in the web interface and manually download them, so what should be an automated process is literally taking months and requires manual labelling and unpacking of files. Something is badly wrong with Apple infrastructure when the number of photos/videos is large. All my hardware and software is brand new this year.
I knew that it would end like this. Basically icloud is for small amounts for data. Letting you have 2TB doesnt mean its a good idea just that they can charge you for it.After countless attempts to backup and numerous calls to Apple we decided that the only reliable way of backing up was to buy a 2Tb SSD for my PC so that the entire iCloud account would automatically sync and then be able to be copied to an external NAS.
Quite simply...it doesn't work. iCloud persistently counts down the number of photos syncing to the PC but always freezes before it fully syncs. Navigating to the iPhotos drive shows that numerous photos aren't stored locally and right clicking to force them to download doesn't work.
I've reached the point where I've had to manually select a few hundred items at a time in the web interface and manually download them, so what should be an automated process is literally taking months and requires manual labelling and unpacking of files. Something is badly wrong with Apple infrastructure when the number of photos/videos is large. All my hardware and software is brand new this year.
My icloud account is set at 5GB and to be honest I store nothing on it. Instead I have a couple of good quality NAS chassis (running raid). One is the primary and one acts as its backup. iphone backups and pictures all go on to it.
OP, can I recommend Backblaze's Personal Backup - I gave their free trial a go and it was a doddle to use. It's $70/yr for unlimited backup from PC or Mac (including any attached drives - not NAS devices). The interface is great and it includes 30-day versioning which is handy although this can be extended for a fee up to 1 year. Top tip though - when you sign up, make sure you select the EU region in the drop-down under the sign-up box rather than the US as you'll want your data under EU law rather than US.
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