Big photo library uploading to iCloud Photo

Thanks! If I'm figuring a 2 mbps connect and my library is about 500GB – rough approximations – it should take about 626 hrs. Assuming that I have nothing better to do with the computer, or this connection, and that the Photos doesn't crash, and a few other things.

Obviously, these are big numbers, but I'm not in a huge hurry – if it takes several months, that is what it is – sure, if they offered a way to send them an HDD with my photo library, I'd consider that.

I guess what I'm wondering is more this: what happens when I get there? Will it fill up all of my other devices – iPads, iPhones, laptops, etc. – with my entire 500GB photo library?

And, BTW, why do I have a 500GB photo library? I've taken a lot of pictures, and more recently, video.

Well, I think I'm in for a much longer wait, at the current rate.

In a week, it has managed about 800 of the 92.5k items. I ran the exact numbers in Numbers, and at the current rate, I got 918 days to completion, and a completion date of November 1, 2017.

Of course, part of this is an interface issue – when the upload process is allowed to run, it takes up ALL of my outbound bandwidth, so everything else grinds to a halt. And the ONLY option for pausing it is a 'start again in 24 hours' option – which is obviously silly, because that has it starting up again at exactly the same time of day when I need the computer.

Some more controls would be VERY nice to have here – most backup tools give you the ability to control the time of day when this works, for example.

Or the option to just send them the whole package on an external HD?

Yes, you are quite right. A couple of guesses – I've probably left it 'paused' for at least part of that time – it is really stupid that you have to remember to 'un-pause' it all the time. Other guess is simply that the upload thread stops of its own accord. Since it doesn't really have any kind of interface at all, I have no idea.

Are there logs that I could look at, perhaps? I'd rather not... but this seems ridiculous.

I've been letting it upload for a couple of weeks now, and it now claims that the are about 88k items to go. That works out to about 385 items per day so far, and about 246 days to go – so it will be done early in January of 2016...

Actually, I suspect that it will be done sooner, but it will certainly be a multi-month process.

I should note that I pretty much have to turn off the upload process when I want to use the computer – it uses ALL the bandwidth otherwise, and everything else just stops entirely – and then remember to turn it on again – otherwise it waits 24 hours before resuming – how about making that 12 hours, Apple?

I'm still wondering what is going to happen as I get a larger and larger library online – will it start filling up all of my other devices? Do I have any control over how much space is devoted to pictures on those devices? Which pictures get saved there? At this point, it is totally opaque.

OK, this is still going. I'm down to 71k 'items' to go, and by my calculations and based on the progress-to-date, that works out to a completion date of mid-September, at an average daily rate of around 600 'items' (movies and pictures, I presume).

So, some time in July/August, they seemed to have dramatically increased the transfer speed somehow, and when I got back from a two-week trip, the entire upload process was complete. So that was good.

I'm generally pleased. The biggest problem I have found so far is that all of my devices (iPhone, iPad, laptop, etc.) want to download as much of the photo library as possible. Unfortunately, the way it is currently designed, that often puts the devices right up to the edge of being out of space. After playing around with it for a while, I've basically turned off the iCloud feature on all of my devices—it was just too problematic.

I can still access all of my photos in iCloud via the web interface, which is definitely good.

So, I'm moderately pleased, although I look forward to improvements.