Key recovery
If you lose every device, sign in to your Apple Account on a new Mac to get your key back. Setup also gives you a recovery page to print; keep it away from home, with a relative or at work, in case you ever lose the account too.
Every drive you own is in one house.
A second drive is a good backup until something happens to the house. Vault will keep an encrypted copy of your files away from home, in three Amazon data centres, for MountedStorage on Mac.
Vault is coming soon. It isn’t available yet. Leave your email and we’ll write once, when it is.
Another drive only gets you so far.
Pick any file. These are the chances of losing it in the next ten years. A second drive helps a lot. After that the odds barely change, because a fire, a flood or a break-in reaches every drive in the house.
1 drive19.8%about 1 in 5
2 drives2.37%about 1 in 42
3 drives1.69%about 1 in 59
4 drives1.64%about 1 in 61
5 drives1.64%about 1 in 61
1 drive + VaultLess than 1 in 10 billionabout 1 in 100 billion on Amazon’s design figure
Vault would keep your copy in one of Amazon’s US regions. Amazon has no reported loss from Glacier in the US since it launched in 2012.
How we worked this out
| What reaches every drive in the house | In ten years | With Vault |
|---|---|---|
| A break-in | 1.2% | Your copy is safe |
| A fire | 0.25% | Your copy is safe |
| A flood | 0.2% | Your copy is safe |
| Together, however many drives you own | 1.6% | Your copy is safe |
At home. Best estimates for US households, for any one file: losing it means losing every copy of it. A drive at home fails about 2% of the time a year (1 to 4%); a backup drive on a shelf is unreadable about 2.5% of the time when you need it, and in 1 case in 10 a whole batch is bad; a break-in takes every drive 0.12% a year, a fire 0.025%, a flood 0.02%; lightning or a surge harms plugged-in drives 0.015%. With one drive those add up to 2.18% a year, which is 19.8% over ten years. Ranges over ten years: with one drive, 10% to 36%; with more, 0.6% to 6.7%. Sources: drive statistics, Q2 2026, BJS 2024, USFA, III.
With Vault. Amazon designs Glacier for 99.999999999% durability per file a year, across at least three data centres (AWS): a 1 in 100 billion chance a year of losing a given file. We assume a file Amazon loses is never noticed, so it’s gone if your drive at home fails at any point after that in the ten years, at 2.18% a year. Over ten years that comes to about 1 in 100 billion. The table says less than 1 in 10 billion, which leaves ten times the room in case Amazon falls short of its design figure.
That figure is Amazon’s design target, not a guarantee, and it doesn’t cover war or another disaster that destroys a whole Amazon region. Only files that have finished uploading are covered. Both sides leave out viruses and mistakes; the Vault side assumes MountedStorage keeps running and leaves out losing your account, a missed payment or your key.
Encrypted before it leaves your Mac.
Amazon keeps only what it can’t read. The key stays in your iCloud Keychain, so only your Apple devices can decrypt it.
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On your Mac
The original, as you shot it.
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At Amazon
Encrypted. Unreadable to Amazon, and to us.
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On a new Mac or iPhone
Decrypted with the key in your iCloud Keychain.
Version history
When a file changes, Vault keeps the earlier version too, so ransomware or a bad save can’t overwrite your copy.
Recently Removed
Anything you remove from Vault stays recoverable for 7 days.
Choose how much to protect.
Planned prices. Every plan has the same encryption and the same three data centres.
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2 TB
A portable drive of finished work.
$3 a month
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4 TB
Every finished project, with room to grow.
$6 a month
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8 TB
A full desktop drive: your projects and the footage behind them. The size we suggest for most people.
$12 a month
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16 TB
Everything, raw footage included.
$24 a month
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Over 16 TB, each extra TB is $1.50 a month. Restores aren’t free: they cost what Amazon charges to send files back, about $90 per TB, and are ready within 48 hours. Prices may change before launch. TB means 1,000 GB.
How long the first upload takes
| Upload speed | 2 TB | 4 TB | 8 TB | 16 TB |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 20 Mbps | 9 days | 19 days | 37 days | 74 days |
| 50 Mbps | 4 days | 7 days | 15 days | 30 days |
| 100 Mbps | 2 days | 4 days | 7 days | 15 days |
| 1 Gbps | 4 hours | 9 hours | 18 hours | 36 hours |
At the full upload speed, day and night, with nothing else using the connection. Uploading only at night, or at a speed you set, takes longer. Home internet usually uploads much slower than it downloads, so check your upload speed. If your plan has a monthly data cap, the cap may set the pace instead: under a 1 TB cap, 8 TB takes at least eight months. Only files that have finished uploading are protected.
Questions, answered.
What counts toward my plan?
Everything in your vault, including earlier versions of files you’ve changed. MountedStorage tells you before you run out of room.
What if I miss a payment, or MountedStorage closes?
Miss a payment and nothing is touched for 60 days; pay, or download what you want first. After 60 days your vault is deleted. If MountedStorage ever closes, you get at least 90 days’ notice to download all of it, still readable with your own key.
Do I need it if I already have a backup drive?
A backup drive in the same house protects you from a drive that dies, not from what happens to the house. If you already keep an up-to-date copy somewhere else, like an office or a relative’s home, you may not need Vault.