Best way to move ~3TB of iCloud Photos to external storage?
I currently have around 3TB of photos in my iCloud from the past 5 years. I’m paying for the 6TB iCloud tier right now, but I want to stop this subscription and move everything to external storage.
I’ve already bought a Samsung T7 4TB SSD, but I’ve heard that HDDs might actually be better for long-term “cold storage” due to durability and cost per TB, so I’m also reconsidering whether SSD is the right choice here. I am meanwhile looking into getting an HHD such as a Seagate.
I’m deciding between two possible approaches to move my photos on to this external harddrive:
1. Manual export via Apple Photos:
Following this guide: https://www.reddit.com/r/ApplePhotos/comments/188hv9o/what_is_the_best_way_to_back_up_photos_from/
The idea would be to fully export my iCloud Photos library to an external drive, verify everything is backed up, and then delete the photos from iCloud so I can downgrade my storage plan (ideally to 1TB and save costs).
Long-term, I’d repeat this process every 5–10 years and create a new Apple Photos library each time, since very large Photos libraries can become slow and less responsive over time.
2. Using Parachute for Mac
Using an app like “Parachute for Mac” to transfer everything from iCloud Photos directly to an external hard drive. From what I’ve read, it’s faster and more automated than method 1.
However, it exports everything into folder structures rather than an Apple Photos library. That could actually be a plus since it would make the files accessible on any device (Mac/PC), but I mainly use Apple devices so I’m not sure how important that is for me.
So I’m trying to decide:
Which method is generally safer / more reliable for long-term archival of a large iCloud Photos library like this?
Would appreciate any advice or experiences - thanks!