Replace SSD or Purchase more iCloud ?

Different functionality. An external ssd and iCloud do not provide the same function. If your requirement is cross device sharing over the Internet get the iCloud plan. If your need is additional storage get the ssd.

"On the cloud" is great for sharing photos, but is not a viable backup solution for everything you have. The stuff is not under your control, and is subject to sloppy handling, arbitrary changes in policy, theft, data loss, and bankruptcy of the company that holds it. It can easily take three days to restore it at ordinary Internet speeds.

... and if it is not a viable backup solution, it is certainly not a primary storage solution.

Buy a real drive. They are cheap by historical standards. and buy an external backup drive while you are shopping.

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Well, buying an iCloud storage make you have your files anywhere on your apple devices, for example the files you saved there on iMac will show on your MacBook even you are across the country, so if you need that then you should buy the iCloud storage. If you want to expand your internal storage buy an ssd.

Your SSD upgrade pricing is not real. The cost of most SSDs is between 1/3 and 1/2 of the capacity. Expect a 500GB SSD to cost between $150 and $250 for a top quality product. Some are much cheaper if they are also off-brands. A good source for such is OWC, Samsung, OCZ, and AData. These will be bare drives in a 2.5" form factor for which you will need an enclosure.

I concur with Grant (taught him everything he knows) 😀

<<"And how often should I make backups ?">>

Apple thinks you should have backups no older than a few hours ago, and that you should never have to set aside a special time for making backups, and do nothing but make backups for hours on end. To that end, they have built Time Machine into the system software, and it is ready to make backups for you automatically, at low priority in the background, while you continue to work.

Consider using Built-in Time Machine. Take steps to acquire an external drive as soon as possible. If you buy one, a drive 2 to 3 times or larger than your boot drive is preferable for long term trouble-free operation. Do not pay extra for a drive that is fast.  (You can get by for a while with a "found" smaller drive if necessary, but it will eventually become annoying).

Attach your external drive and use:

System preferences > Time machine ...

... to turn on Time Machine and specify what drive to store your Backups on.  It may ask to initialize the new drive, and that is as expected.

Time Machine may spend all afternoon making your first full backup. You can continue to do your regular work while it does this. The first Full Backup is by far the biggest backup. After that, it will work quietly and automatically in the background, without interrupting your regular work, and only save the incremental changes.

Time Machine's "claim to fame" is that it is the backup that gets done, because it does not ruin performance of the rest of the computer while doing its backup operations. You do not have to set aside a "Special Time" when you only do backups. When you need it, your Time machine Backup is much more likely to be there.

How to use Time Machine to Backup or Restore your Mac:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/ht201250

If you choose to connect your Time Machine backup drive only from time-to-time, try to do so at least every-other day, at minimum. Otherwise, it may take several hours of computation just to decide what needs to be backed up, before any files are transferred.

You need sufficient iClould space to hold the files you want to share between multiple devices. You need enough external storage to hold all your backup iterations and maybe a copy of your internal drive, depending on if you want to backup just your data or your system.

Back up frequently and save often. Consider your situation. If you create a lot of data quickly you should backup incrementally and immediately when the data is created. If you only create data once a month then backing up once a month on data creation would be enough.

And here is someone else’s opinion: I would not trust any anonymous online server with my private data for reasons already mentioned. Hence, I choose not to share anything and do not use iCloud - period. I rely on multiple external hard drives which are rotated and have redundant copies and clones.

When it comes to your data, “deals” aren’t important - your needs, privacy, and your data are.

Should users really have to calculate how much iCloud space they need and when and what to backup ?

Yes. How can anyone else determine your needs?

hy doesn't Apple offer a "One plan fits all" a plan that automatically resizes to your needs ?

I think they offer this. They offer a certain size iCloud plan that meets most users needs. If you need more then you have to option to buy more space. I don't want Apple "automatically" increasing space and committing me to more cost.

plan that will calculate what and when to backup your devices ?

Only you know what data you want backed up and when. You can configure your backup app for what and when to backup.

plan that can differentiate between important files and redundancy such as music and movies.

Only you know what data is important to you.

hy does everyone need a copy of the same song or movie or photo or common files on the iCloud.

You don't need multiple copies of the same data on iCloud. iCloud is for sharing not for storing. You need one song for example on the cloud that can be accessed by all your devices.

hy can't there just be one copy that everyone accesses ?

Exactly what iCloud is for and what iCloud does.

hat would remove allot of backups and save space for everyone.

You can configure your backups to remove backups on a schedule.

pple already has copies of these files on there servers.

People typically don't have servers. And if they did, why would there be copies of anything on them?

f Apple can do this they could streamline there backup service and the iCloud.

You are conflating storage,/backup, with sharing,/iCloud.

veryone would be better off and make more money for Apple.

No I disagree.

What do you think ?

I think you still don't understand the difference between the functionality and purpose of storage/backup and sharing/iCloud.

When Apple finally secures it’s computers and gets rid of all it’s external ports there is not going to be any other option but the iCloud.

Speculation about Apple's future plans is expressly prohibited on these forums.

Or wireless drives.