iCloud Storage or iCloud Photos for Historical Content

I have an external hard drive that is aging but also newer but recently when connecting it heard it start to click.

I plan on replacing this hardware to have a local copy available if ever an issue or internet outage.... But also started to make me think for the safety of my data since I have a family plan, should I save this data to iCloud Drive in file/folder structure or iCloud Photos for indexing? I mean we are talking 500GB of photos, and probably 70,000+ items.

I'm used to manually indexing, searching, and finding via the file folder structure and they will still be available on all of my Apple devices through files. Plus when you move it to the cloud, you can easily right click and then ask it to remove the download to remove that space from your local device and access on the fly.

When I tried to do this previously through photos, first issue was the photos library folder became large and also my devices (iPhone, iPads, Mac, etc) were constantly indexing in the background. Some devices would then prompt for who is what it is, sometimes overlapping and or just becoming tedious but also leveraged the nice features of indexing people by faces, locations, and dates if the Metadata existed. However unlike the file folder process, you have to rely on the Mac (at that time - maybe 2 years ago) to determine when it was best to optimize storage and remove the picture locally.

Just wondering what folks have as a suggestion, since I already have this and now with the latest iOS updates iCloud storage can easily be expanded on the fly other than paying google or other services. And since I'm a native Apple based user I have no need for those other storage options.

Any suggestions, feedback or other things to help me determine the best utility/medium to use with the above thoughts? I'm leaning towards iCloud Storage only using the file explorer process but wondering if I have any remaining GOTCHA's I'm not thinking of or considering.

**I am also aware that if I pull the images out of photos or my phone that the ability to edit an image for depth, portrait or other effects is eliminated but at the time of archiving them I'm happy with what I have since that's what I have always done. I have photo editing software to dot that if ever needed and will take that restriction. Photos from other services don't have this and will respect that limitation once I pull it out to a disk file format available via iCloud files or external HDD.

Thanks!