icloud storage

Since April 2005, I’ve been a member of Apple’s online service, first starting with .Mac, then transitioning to MobileMe and now iCloud. Under the .Mac and MobileMe service, you got 20gb of space to store things like synced calendar and contact entires and a shared folder called iDisk, which I have missed since it went away in June of 2012 when MobileMe was shut down for good.

I got that 20gb of space for many months after that 2012 shut down until one day, it was gone. Yes, I got many notifications to sign up, but never did, thinking that I could live with the free 5gb of data that every iCloud user gets. And for a while, I was able to use the 5gb limited storage for my iPhone and iPad backups. Until one day in May, I noticed that things were backing up anymore. I logged in and sure enough, I had reached my 5gb limit. This includes some 400mb of email I have accumulated as well as photos that got backed up. Not really wanting to do much cleanup, I simply resorted to backing up locally under iTunes.

icloud storage

I held out until July of this year, when I bit the bullet and ponied up $40 for 20gb of storage per year – which also included the free 5gb, giving me 25gb of space. I finally had some breathing room, even if it was at a price that I balked at paying. Yes, I was spoiled with the .Mac and MobileMe 20gb plan… and yes, I paid a bit more for that 20gb [ $65 per year, discounted thanks to Amazon.com ] than the current $40. But for some reason, I just thought that 20gb should be cheaper or free.

icloud storage

With the recent introduction of the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, iCloud storage plans changed. And got [mostly] cheaper. As I learned, my 20gb plan is now $11.99 a year, not $40. And I got a pro-rated refund on what I paid for back in July. I’m pretty happy about this, but don’t think I need any more than 20gb. Especially given the fact that the next storage option is 200gb for just under $50 a year for 10 times the storage. 500gb will set you back $120 a year [not a great deal at all] and 1TB of space is double that, setting you back $240 a year. Although the one change now is that your Photo Stream photos will now count towards your iCloud storage [they used to be free with very few limits].

Those of you on iCloud, are you using only the free 5gb or did you buy more storage? Do the cheaper prices for 20gb and 200gb entice you to add more storage?