Thanks for the reply. 2 reasons - I haven't figured the cloud out entirely - some of my mail goes there, some doesn't. My documents don't. I have an IMac, my wife has an Ipad and iPhone. We want to keep our address book, mail, etc. separate. I figured an external drive could do that and I could use Timemachine for my IMac.
Also, when I did send some mail to cloud it disappeared from my Imac Mail. I thought it was supposed to sync so if I added or deleted on the IMac it would mirror on the cloud. Pretty confusing. I called Applecare but they weren't a lot of help and neither are the guides.