Yes, you can turn off iCloud without losing your data by signing out rather than deleting your Apple ID. How do you deactivate icloud on an iPhone, iPad, or Mac, your photos, contacts, and backups will still be kept in iCloud. While signing out, you’ll be asked if you want to keep the data on your device. If you want, go for Keep a Copy. You can always sign in later to sync again. What this does is simply block your access temporarily, and it does not delete any data that is stored on Apple Inc. servers.