Accessing my music in the 'cloud'

[youandiaredominoes]

Hi there

I currently subscribe to spotify which is ?10 per month - it's a good service to have on the go but can anyone suggest alternatives I could use to upload my mp3 collection of music so I can access it from different devices (iPhone, iPad, work computer)?

I like spotify because I do come across stuff I don't usually come across, so might be willing to keep it if I could upload my MP3 collection into the cloud and save some selected playlists offline.

What does everyone else use?

[Loz]

Cheapest solution? Buy a network drive, plug it into your home network, open port-forwarding on your router and *Bob*'s your uncle. The downside is that you use the upload speed of your broadband link, so unless you are on Virgin cable, it might be a bit slow.

[????]

Apple match - matches all your MP3s and upgrades them if they are already in the iTunes store, the ones that it doesn't have it just uploads too. This includes anything you've got, not just Itunes purchases. In the cloud, can use on 5 devices (i think) ?23ish a year and you can download them all again in the future. For me the clincher was getting better standard versions that the quick rips i'd done for all my CDs.

[DulwichFox]

I use an Iomega Home Cloud 1Tera Byte.. remote access Free for first year.

Just renewed. 9.95 US Dollars -- ?6.44 for further year from Tzo.com

Includes Quick Protect software that Auto saves files/folders that you select.

which keeps multiple versions of your files so you can revert to older versions if you

make a mistake updating files.

Fox.

[youandiaredominoes]

Cheers guys - some useful pointers

I'm also buying a new laptop - how much storage should it have? Looking at some of the MacBook airs with 128gb but wondering if this is sufficient. I don't have any saved films but probably about 40-50gb of music. Is it wise to save it on the laptop or have an external passport size hardrive and back up stuff on there and load straight onto cloud?

Will probably use the laptop for other bits and pieces - saving photos, writing in word/pages and a light use of photoshop and indesign.

[El Pibe]

Google Play, it's free.

Storage is cheap these days, backing up to cloud is well and good, but make sure you get yourself a terabyte external drive, internet can go down as well as up!