I’m fairly new to self-hosting and privacy. I used to be all about Apple. I scanned all my important documents and stored them in iCloud. That worked pretty well, but because I tend to make my life harder than necessary, I switched from an iPhone to a Pixel with GrapheneOS. It’s a hassle, but I’m happy with my decision overall. Unfortunately, my files are still in iCloud. As a Mac user, that’s not too bad, but not being able to access my files on the go is annoying.
I’m afraid to store all my important files in an LXC on my Proxmox server, even with daily backups.
Should I switch from iCloud to Nextcloud, Proton, or something similar? Or should I create an offsite backup—one encrypted in the cloud and one in my house? How are others handling this? Would an extra backup at a family member’s house be a good idea? Is paying for cloud storage common? I’d really appreciate any suggestions or ideas. Right now, I’m feeling overwhelmed by all the possibilities. Also, having 2 TB of iCloud storage made it too easy, since I didn’t carefully choose the files to upload. But paying 10 bucks a month feels a little stupid now that I don’t have the comfort factor any more.
Recommend you follow the 321 backup strategy. Adopted to modern times I would say it is broadly:
From what you described if apple was to wipe your data[1] you would be completely out of luck… for example if something deletes data in your Mac and then that deletion gets synced… For the most part syncing data is not a backup.
Lastly, recommend you try to put all your critical data in one folder, or identify folders with critical data and prioritize backup of those first while you figure out the rest.
[1] Not only can a deletion “sync” from your mac, but there can be any number of issues… like a bad update to a file. There is also the possibility, no matter how small, that apple could wipe your data. Over time you always see news of “company X deleted entire set of data for user/company Y”.