On-Board and Off-Board iCloud Photos Storage?

[purdnost]

So, the data recovery scan found around 3.8 TB of photos and videos. Not sure I want to spend nearly $400 for a 4 TB SSD. The bulk of the photo space is used up my RAW files (old client wedding photos). Can’t bring myself to delete them even though I may never view them again. I could keep all my personal photos and videos on a 1 TB SSD… and upload my client files to a university/alumni drive (Box, OneDrive, or Google Drive). Decisions, decisions… What would you do?

 

[BigMcGuire]

So, the data recovery scan found around 3.8 TB of photos and videos. Not sure I want to spend nearly $400 for a 4 TB SSD. The bulk of the photo space is used up my RAW files (old wedding photos). Can’t bring myself to delete them even though I may never view them again. I could keep all my personal photos and videos on a 1 TB SSD… and upload my client files to a university/alumni drive (Box, OneDrive, or Google Drive). Decisions, decisions… What would you do?

If a 4TB SSD is out of the question, what about a nice little spinner? Every time I‘ve cut down data to save space, I’ve regretted it. But your call on that one. But yeah, what would I do? Buy a 4-6TB drive and save that stuff.

Definitely go the route of having your offline saved photos and your online personal photos/videos. My wife does this with her hobbyist photography - her iCloud Photos album is for personal photos and her REALLY good birding photos, then she has a photos album on a 4TB spinner to dump the hundreds of photos she takes while birding.

Glad to hear the recovery worked!

 

[purdnost]

The 4TB ”spinner“ is still a good drive. I think I’ll keep my RAW client files on it, and put all of my personal files on the SSD.

 

[Kimcha]

The 4TB ”spinner“ is still a good drive. I think I’ll keep my RAW client files on it, and put all of my personal files on the SSD.

I would do the same.

And I’m really happy to hear that you were able to restore your photos. That must have been so stressful!

 

[purdnost]

I’m pretty sure I just discovered what happened to all of my photos to cause me to have to recover the data. One little setting in the Photos app: “Importing: Copy items to the Photos library.”

I just spend the last few hours ”importing” recovered photos my new library on the SSD and then deleting the recovered files, only to discover that the thumbnails were still displaying, but the originals couldn’t be referenced.

Fingers crossed for smooth sailing from here on out. 🤞🏼

 

[Kimcha]

I’m pretty sure I just discovered what happened to all of my photos to cause me to have to recover the data. One little setting in the Photos app: “Importing: Copy items to the Photos library.”

I just spend the last few hours ”importing” recovered photos my new library on the SSD and then deleting the recovered files, only to discover that the thumbnails were still displaying, but the originals couldn’t be referenced.

Fingers crossed for smooth sailing from here on out. 🤞🏼

If your SSD / HDD is formatted as APFS there is actually no need to delete the photos right away, because on APFS a copy of the same file doesn’t use any extra space.

Copy the photos to the SSD. Import them into the library.

Check if everything is there and adds up. And only then delete the photos (or don’t delete them and keep both copies).

 

[purdnost]

Yep, that's what I format my external SSDs to (APFS Encrypted).

SSDs a must for photos - let us know how it goes! How big is that library (total GB)?

Is the driver slower with APFS encrypted? My drives never leave my home, so I‘m think I may not need the encryption.

 

[BigMcGuire]

Is the driver slower with APFS encrypted? My drives never leave my home, so I‘m think I may not need the encryption.

I've done both and haven't noticed a difference in speed. I use it on a 4TB spinner and a 1TB SSD. I encrypt everything by default. But logically, it should be a tiny bit slower due to the need to encrypt/decrypt. But in my unscientific tests - I couldn't tell the difference.

Doing some sleuthing : https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/336184/slow-write-speeds-with-apfs-encryped-external-ssd - Says that there's definitely speed differences when writing. Not sure if that above link is due to an OS problem back then (it is an older link).

I've done Blackmagic Disk Speed tests and haven't seen much of a difference between encrypted/unencrypted (on both my SSD/Spinner).

 

[purdnost]

Still having some major issues. I keep coming to my computer to find that only a small percentage of photos have transferred to the Photos app, with the progress bar paused any my portable spinner hard drive (source of the the photos) asleep. I have to force quit photos as it says it’s not responding. I then get the spinning pinwheel and am forced to hard power off my MacBook Pro because Finder stops responding. Running the latest version of Ventura.

 

[Kimcha]

Still having some major issues. I keep coming to my computer to find that only a small percentage of photos have transferred to the Photos app, with the progress bar paused any my portable spinner hard drive (source of the the photos) asleep. I have to force quit photos as it says it’s not responding. I then get the spinning pinwheel and am forced to hard power off my MacBook Pro because Finder stops responding. Running the latest version of Ventura.

Don’t import directly from the spinner.

Copy the photos to the SSD first. Then import.

I imagine that will solve a lot of issues.

And make sure in photos settings, the “Copy photos to library” is enabled.

Otherwise photos will keep the originals in the original location

 

[Bobcat32]

Utilize an old iPad as the hard drive rather than an actual hard drive. Hard drives ALWAYS mess up. We’ve all heard of it. And if one old ipad isn’t enough use 2 old iPhones. So get a big GB model now and when it’s old use it as your back up. Just get the sync cable and your set. And hey the iPad will be a great viewing album unlike a hard drive… Simply preference and the 21st century imo. Don’t forget your passcode though!

 

[purdnost]

So, the screensaver was coming on, causing the Mac to lock as per a setting, causing the transfer to be interrupted, causing the Mac freeze. Settings have been adjusted. Trying again. 😅

 

[purdnost]

Photos is still locking up for some unknown reason. It just stops importing and when I attempt to do anything, I get the spinning pinwheel. Force quit says Photos is not responding and I have to force quit. Transferring from one SSD to another. No idea what the issue could be... Pretty frustrating that I can accomplish this basic task.

 

[rajs]

3.8 TB of photos and videos

Glad recovery seems to have worked.

As an aside -- I'd most likely remove iCloud+ Storage from being the place where you are storing your "originals". At most you'll store "optimized versions" out there. Reason: Unlikely 3.8+ terabytes worth of photos and videos will be stored on iCloud in full resolution with a normal iCloud+ storage only plan. iCloud plans max out at 2TB storage. There is a way to add another 2TB to that for a total of 4TB storage in iCloud -- but it's not cost effective for most (Apple One Family Plan option that includes 2TB storage plus a separate and additional subscription for another plain 2TB iCloud+ plan - which is prob $ 43 / month in total for US based folks).