I've had everything in the cloud for the last 10yrs or so. I stopped attempting to do local backups due to cost/complexity/time constraints. Network access is so prevalent now, it's hard to argue with using the cloud IMO. You arguably don't have quite the control as if it's local and on your equipment, but for me, it's a fair trade.
- Photos are backed up to Google Photos
- Music is backed up/downloaded from Spotify (no backup previously)
- Video services are spread around
- YouTube (used to be Google Play Movies/TV) now has some of our purchased content
- Netflix, Disney+, Hulu, ESPN+, but those aren't really file storage
- We do download quite a bit for "off network viewing" mostly to the boys devices for trips in the car.
- Documents are spread across OneDrive and DropBox
- I have (3) Onedrive accounts (Office, School, Personal)
- Each is used for something specific
- Using the cloud makes for easy and quick sharing, storage, and permission controls. Critical use cases for office and school.
- System configs for phones are backed up to Google.
- System configs for tablets/PC's are images that live on dropbox
- (They're woefully out of date, and I should just delete them)
- Most apps have a login now, and that will hold that apps setup/preferences/etc.
Recently got a new phone. Took ~15min to sync apps/config/files from the old phone to the new one. Had my laptop crash at work a few months ago. SSD died. I lost no data, and it took about half a day to recover my apps and get everything set back up. All of my personal data lives in the cloud. All of my office data lives on the server....With a caveat on office data; see below.....Overall, I've been super pleased with keeping all the data somewhere else. The only real hiccups are when I'm in an area without cell or wifi service. Typically that isn't often, I know I'm headed there, and can prep my local data ahead of time. Then I resync when I'm back to service (usually only a few days of notes, and a few documents to corral).
I use FreeFileSync to manage local vs cloud copies of everything. It will let you mirror/2-way sync/copy/etc, as well as filter file types. SO, say I'm headed to a jobsite and need CAD models, PDF drawings, and things like that. I'll grab a local copy of 2-3 main project folders as part of my trip prep, then resync them when I get back. All changes live in the same folder structure I'm used to, then it's a few clicks to get it all back on the server when I return, and then I delete the local copy once verified it's moved. Sounds complicated, but takes under 10min each trip. Super easy.
We had a ransomware attack back in October. Shut down the office for about a week, then was a 2mo process to get systems back to 100%. I now keep a cloud copy of my "personal" files for the office. Thing like performance reviews, expense reports, critical emails for personnel logs, approval emails for time off, things like that. Almost lost those in the attack, and decided to make them redundant. I still keep the "alpha copy" on the server, but backup to the cloud once a month. Set an Outlook reminder, and it takes like 2 minutes.
**EDIT** .....I should mention that OneDrive and Dropbox both do their own "syncing" to the cloud. So I have a local copy by default, and those services take care of syncing to the cloud when I have service. That makes it SUPER simple to move to a different device. Just download/install the app, and log in. Your preferences on what sync's and what doesn't comes along with your login, and after a few minutes you're files are there and ready to use.
Also, in discussions with the wife, literally just this morning, we're considering buying a year of service to Google Drive. She's out of space for pictures. SO, we might be adding that to the list of "digital stuff to manage" in the near future.
