how to calculate how much storage i need
How do I know how much storage I need?
Question marked as
It will depend on how you want to use iCloud and on how many devices and if you want to share the storage with other family members. What do you want to store in iCloud?
- Do you have iPhones or iPads that you want to backup to iCloud? For the iCloud backups of your devices with a long history, you need at least twice the combined storage size of all mobile devices you want to backup to iCloud.
- You need additional cloud storage for application data, that are only stored in iCloud, for example Mail, Contacts, Messages.
- You can store the complete Photos Library in iCloud and sync it between your devices.
- You can use iCloud Drive to store additional documents and data in iCloud.
- A Mac does not offer an iCloud backup, but you can store the Desktop and the Documents folder in iCloud to sync these documents and data between devices.
- Do you want to use iCloud to extend the storage of your devices and to store more documents and data than will fit onto the device with the smallest storage capacity? With "optimise Storage" you could keep more data in iCloud than will fit onto your devices. For example, if you need more storage for photos and videos, you could keep the originals in iCloud and the devices will store smaller, optimised versions. You cannot extend the storage ad infinitum. The smallest device determines, how much storage you have for the local, optimised versions. Lets say, you have a Mac with 256 GB storage and want to use no more than 20 GB for photos locally on the Mac. Then I would not keep more than 200GB of photos and videos in iCloud, as the optimised versions will need roughly 10% of the full size in iCloud.
To get an idea, how much iCloud storage is useful for you, determine the storage needed for the different purposes listed above and add them up.
