Cloud Storage for Music (iTunes) and Photos?

[MakeColdplayHistory]

I need a new laptop and some of the ones I'm look have SSD drives which are (a) lovely and fast (b) smaller than I need. Obviously I don't have to have an SSD drive machine but one option is to store all the content in 'the cloud'.

The two biggest chunks are:
1) music - mostly CDs that I spent a whole winter ripping a few years ago which are now in an iTunes media folder
2) photos - older ones were all organised into folder on PC but have (I'mm 99% sure) been synced to Google Photos already if not at full res, newer ones were taken on Android devices anyway so are already in Google Photos
so maybe it's just the music I need to store elsewhere?

I don't know much about iCloud (which I assume would work well with iTunes) but I'd prefer to avoid it. I'm pretty much Windows/Android rather than Apple but just ended up managing my music on iTunes almost by accident (because years ago there wasn't much alternative).

Any recommendations on an alternative cloud store that will work well with iTunes? - cheap and simple are good.

And if I'm feeling brave - what are the options for taking my music library away from iTunes completely and using a different music player? I do use Google Play Music at the moment which reads from my iTunes library so I can play my stuff either through PC or phone.

[Phil Lee]

For music you can subscribe to any number of music services which will have most of your music on. There aren’t many that offer a digital locker for your own music. Amazon stopped offering this so Apple and Google are the only two that offer this service. Google Play Music has a music uploader that lets you upload up to 50,000 songs. This is a free service. Apple offer iTunes Match. This costs £21 per year and lets you upload/match 100,000 songs.

For photos Apple offer iCloud Photo Library and Google offer Google Photos. Both are paid services over a certain amount of data. I use iCloud Photo Library as I have an iPhone, iPad and MacBook Pro. I have used Google Photos in the past and was happy with it. I have heard reports that their automatic photo uploader for both Windows and MacOS is not particularly reliable after a recent update.

The other option you have is to have an external or network disk which you store your data on. I use both these options. I have all my music on a network disk which my Sonos can access. I also have my photos backed up to it.

I also have all my photos on SmugMug, back up my data to external disks which I keep off sight and in a safe and use Backblaze and CrashPlan to back up my computer to the cloud. This means I have my photos, which are my most precious data, backed up to at least 5 different locations.

[Skier]

How big is your music library? If you want to go the cloud route then you'll be limited to only having access when connected to WiFi unless you tether your phone and have a good data allowance. Another option may be to look at a NAS (that allows you to connect over a WAN) and use it to host your music library and to back-up to.

If you're Microsoft based then have a look at Microsoft's OneDrive. You can test it out with a free 5GB storage allowance. Given that 1TB of storage would cost £70/year I would rather get a NAS as it would quickly pay for itself and offer flexibility.

[Eamon]

A thumb sized usb stick might be an option, e.g
https://www.amazon.co.uk/SanDisk-Ult...dp/B07855LJ99/

Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk

[MakeColdplayHistory]

How big is your music library? If you want to go the cloud route then you'll be limited to only having access when connected to WiFi unless you tether your phone and have a good data allowance. Another option may be to look at a NAS (that allows you to connect over a WAN) and use it to host your music library and to back-up to.
If you're Microsoft based then have a look at Microsoft's OneDrive. You can test it out with a free 5GB storage allowance. Given that 1TB of storage would cost £70/year I would rather get a NAS as it would quickly pay for itself and offer flexibility.

A thumb sized usb stick might be an option, e.g
https://www.amazon.co.uk/SanDisk-Ult...dp/B07855LJ99/

Music Library is 243GB (and growing).
A couple of those USB stick may do it but I'd prefer not to tie up the slots.

I do have an old laptop (the one I'm typing this on). Is there anything I can install to force it permanently on as a NAS?

[Skier]

Music Library is 243GB (and growing).
A couple of those USB stick may do it but I'd prefer not to tie up the slots.

I do have an old laptop (the one I'm typing this on). Is there anything I can install to force it permanently on as a NAS?

You can buy 512GB and larger USB flash drives and if you don't want to tie up a port then get a small USB Hub. Probably your cheapest solution.

[Captain Morgan]

Whats your access profile like?

Does the laptop stay at home all the time?
If you take it on holiday do you need access to photos / music on it while traveling?
Do you have or plan to have smart speakers (Sonos, Chromecast, etc) to access the music?
Do you or want to display the photos on smart tv's (fire, apple tv, etc)?

Thinking about how you access the material gives a better view on what is the most suitable way to access the files and also back them up.
If you lost the music files how long would you take to re-rip them?
If you lost the photos of *daughters wedding and grand daughters fifth birthday and first nativity, how long will swmbo have you on the sofa?


*Other significant events can be imagined here...

[MakeColdplayHistory]

Whats your access profile like?

Does the laptop stay at home all the time?
If you take it on holiday do you need access to photos / music on it while traveling?
Do you have or plan to have smart speakers (Sonos, Chromecast, etc) to access the music?
Do you or want to display the photos on smart tv's (fire, apple tv, etc)?

Thinking about how you access the material gives a better view on what is the most suitable way to access the files and also back them up.
If you lost the music files how long would you take to re-rip them?
If you lost the photos of *daughters wedding and grand daughters fifth birthday and first nativity, how long will swmbo have you on the sofa?


*Other significant events can be imagined here...

The old laptop will (which currently holds all the music and all the photos) will never leave the house. The new (as yet unpurchased) laptop will go on holiday but doesn't need access to photos and music while away - music on my phone (Google Play Music) with some downloaded and the rest accessible when online.
We have a ChromeCast Audio that we will want to play music through if/when we can finally agree on the last of the furniture for the living room.
I have no interest in displaying the photos on a smart TV
Re-ripping the CDs is something I really, really don't want to do again. It basically took a winter of evenings where I sat with a pile of unripped CDs to my left, a laptop on my knee and moved them to a pile of ripped CDs on my right as I watched TV. All the CDs are stored and safe but I don't want to go there again!
Yes, some of the photos are irreplaceable but they are backed up (not full res?) with Google Photos at least.

One option I'm looking at is turning the old laptop into a NAS

[Skier]

The old laptop will (which currently holds all the music and all the photos) will never leave the house. The new (as yet unpurchased) laptop will go on holiday but doesn't need access to photos and music while away - music on my phone (Google Play Music) with some downloaded and the rest accessible when online.
We have a ChromeCast Audio that we will want to play music through if/when we can finally agree on the last of the furniture for the living room.
I have no interest in displaying the photos on a smart TV
Re-ripping the CDs is something I really, really don't want to do again. It basically took a winter of evenings where I sat with a pile of unripped CDs to my left, a laptop on my knee and moved them to a pile of ripped CDs on my right as I watched TV. All the CDs are stored and safe but I don't want to go there again!
Yes, some of the photos are irreplaceable but they are backed up (not full res?) with Google Photos at least.

One option I'm looking at is turning the old laptop into a NAS

Given the above my first recommendation to you is properly BACK UP all your files (music, pictures etc.) ASAP. Use an automated system and keep original high quality images. If you lost the originals and had to rely on low-resolution copies pulled from the Cloud you'd never forgive yourself. Ask yourself how much you'd pay to get those files back and then compare this with the cost of a robust long-term solution. If you back-up your music files correctly you will remove any requirement to re-rip your CDs.

If you're not looking to stream music to your new laptop when away from home I would be seriously looking at a small NAS. Or, if your router has a USB port that allows a small portable hard drive to be accessed on the network this may be a solution for you. If you do get in the world of the NAS then you need to understand the basics of RAIDs and the advantages/disadvantages of the different types.

There are various OS options for setting up a NAS on your laptop: FreeNAS, Amahi, and XigmaNas for example.

[Xantiagib]

By all means I also recommend as many physical backups as you can do to usb drives you can store one at home and another off site

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[Captain Morgan]

The old laptop will (which currently holds all the music and all the photos) will never leave the house. The new (as yet unpurchased) laptop will go on holiday but doesn't need access to photos and music while away - music on my phone (Google Play Music) with some downloaded and the rest accessible when online.
We have a ChromeCast Audio that we will want to play music through if/when we can finally agree on the last of the furniture for the living room.
I have no interest in displaying the photos on a smart TV
Re-ripping the CDs is something I really, really don't want to do again. It basically took a winter of evenings where I sat with a pile of unripped CDs to my left, a laptop on my knee and moved them to a pile of ripped CDs on my right as I watched TV. All the CDs are stored and safe but I don't want to go there again!
Yes, some of the photos are irreplaceable but they are backed up (not full res?) with Google Photos at least.

One option I'm looking at is turning the old laptop into a NAS

Okay I’d suggest the following.

Move the music & photos to a usb drive attached to you’re old laptops, this would be the main store you rip new music and add new photos too. This is so if the old laptop fails the data is in a easy format to move to another machine. I wouldn’t bothering trying to turn them into a nas.

Buy a nas drive and copy the music to that for streaming and also back up the photos here.
You copy the music files rather than backup here because you want to access them via chromecast.

Final stage is off site backup, MS one drive has been mentioned, as has iCloud but I recall your not keen on that, I think amazon also offers cloud storage to back up too.

The idea is to have a minimum of three copies of your data, one of site so that fire, flood, theft aren’t the end of you data. Also when one hdd dies and you’re resorting your data and suffer a second failure you’ve got a third to fall back to, you might think it’s unlikely but when doing a full restore is when you’ll hammer the drives.

[MakeColdplayHistory]

Okay I’d suggest the following.

Move the music & photos to a usb drive attached to you’re old laptops, this would be the main store you rip new music and add new photos too. This is so if the old laptop fails the data is in a easy format to move to another machine. I wouldn’t bothering trying to turn them into a nas.

Buy a nas drive and copy the music to that for streaming and also back up the photos here.
You copy the music files rather than backup here because you want to access them via chromecast.

Final stage is off site backup, MS one drive has been mentioned, as has iCloud but I recall your not keen on that, I think amazon also offers cloud storage to back up too.

The idea is to have a minimum of three copies of your data, one of site so that fire, flood, theft aren’t the end of you data. Also when one hdd dies and you’re resorting your data and suffer a second failure you’ve got a third to fall back to, you might think it’s unlikely but when doing a full restore is when you’ll hammer the drives.

Thanks - I like the advice of keeping the music and photos on a USB drive on the laptop. I'll also copy them onto another USB drive which I can keep securely at work. That will need updating from time-to-time but I'm not buying much music on CD these days or taking pics on my camera. I won't need NAS access to my music as Chromecast will just use my Google Play Music library which holds 99% of what I've got in iTunes.
I think I can get all my photos into 100GB of free Degoo space too.
With all that set up, I reckon I'm free of the need for a big HDD.

[Captain Morgan]

Thanks - I like the advice of keeping the music and photos on a USB drive on the laptop. I'll also copy them onto another USB drive which I can keep securely at work. That will need updating from time-to-time but I'm not buying much music on CD these days or taking pics on my camera. I won't need NAS access to my music as Chromecast will just use my Google Play Music library which holds 99% of what I've got in iTunes.
I think I can get all my photos into 100GB of free Degoo space too.
With all that set up, I reckon I'm free of the need for a big HDD.

In that case I’d do this.
Have one drive permanently connected to your old laptop as discussed.

USB hdd are cheap enough these days so buy two for use as the offsite backups and alternate the two monthly that way you have a habit of cycling them and you should only lose a month at most.

I don’t use windows so can’t recommend any specific backup software for your old laptop but have a look for some, if you are going to keep the disks at work I’d encrypt them for security.


While we are at it what are your document usage?
If you plan do much with documents on either laptop you can use a free Dropbox account to give you 2G of storage that can sync to both laptops and the cloud giving you the three copies for security.
You could also include those folders in your offsite backup schedule if wanted. If so only perform the backup on the old laptop to make life easier and lower risk of overwriting backups by backing up two laptops to the same drive.

As already said by another poster if you end up with office 365 then you could simplify the cloud aspects with one drive but this might impact access from handheld devices.