Storage space for photo's

mollybird

Ive always been a keen photographer and have hundreds of photo's. My husband got me a DSLR camera last year so as you can imagine my photo's have doubled within the last year. So im quickly running out of space on my laptop for all the photo's im taking.

wondering if anyone would have any good suggestions on what would be the best place to store my hundreds of photo's. somewhere that would be handy that i could look at them if i ever wanted to or to copy over to something or to simply email to family and friends

thanks

Kenny Logins

Flickr is pretty good now that they give a huge amount of storage free. You can set albums to 'private'.

magicbastarder

what format are you storing your photos in?
reason i ask is that any reasonably modern laptop (i.e. less than four years old) should have plenty of space to store hundreds of photos - it's usually only when you run into thousands or tens of thousands that space starts to become an issue.

PLL

Get an external hardrive, e.g. http://www.currys.ie/product/seagate-expansion-sgr39201-portbl-hard-drive-1tb-black/315064/7.15.0

That is the one we have, I am actually adding more to it as we speak. It has 5 years worth of photos, videos, documents as well as about 100 movies and isn't even halfway full. Very handy and gives great peace of mind.

Alanstrainor

PLL wrote: »

Get an external hardrive, e.g. http://www.currys.ie/product/seagate-expansion-sgr39201-portbl-hard-drive-1tb-black/315064/7.15.0

That is the one we have, I am actually adding more to it as we speak. It has 5 years worth of photos, videos, documents as well as about 10 movies and isn't even halfway full. Very handy and gives great peace of mind.

Only if you have it stored in another location also, if you're not and the seagate dies you're stuffed. Really the answer is online backup, https://www.backblaze.com/ is cheap and unlimited, however it may take an age to do the initial sync.

pullandbang

PLL wrote: »

Get an external hardrive,

That is the one we have, I am actually adding more to it as we speak. It has 5 years worth of photos, videos, documents as well as about 100 movies and isn't even halfway full. Very handy and gives great peace of mind.

You really need to make a copy of that one because when it dies (and it will die) you've lost the lot.

magicbastarder

yep, an external harddrive is no more reliable than an internal one; it only provides peace of mind when used as a backup.

Alanstrainor

magicbastarder wrote: »

yep, an external harddrive is no more reliable than an internal one; it only provides peace of mind when used as a backup.

I would go further and say that they are more unreliable, especially the portable drives. They're generally not the same quality that finds their way into laptops, and they tend to get knocked around a lot more than any laptop would; thrown into bags, pockets etc.

Kenny Logins

Have to agree. I wouldn't trust any external HD after my WD crapped out taking all of my backups with it.

PLL

Alanstrainor wrote: »

Only if you have it stored in another location also, if you're not and the seagate dies you're stuffed. Really the answer is online backup, https://www.backblaze.com/ is cheap and unlimited, however it may take an age to do the initial sync.

It is backed up on dropbox too, I just meant for ease of use. I find it easier to search through things by just connecting the hard drive and copying them over. Online clouds wreck my heard. Personal preference though.

Wabbit Ears

OMG, My faith in humanity has been restored, The amount of times Ive had to explain ad-nauseum that a External hard drive is the singularly WORST possibly solution for data storage. Its, at best, a semi reliable backup soloution due to the fact that its a mechanical spinning disk in a very unstable and knockabble chassis. In the same vein of thinking a laptop or mobile phone is also a terrible place to store your only copy of photographs.

Safest drives are drives in a PC chassis, Raided or mirrored combines with off-site, usually online cloud backups of that data.

Pc chassis are sturdy, pretty immovable and pretty well surge protected. A surge protector is also a good and cheap investment.

Tiriel

At the moment I have 2 external drives. I use one day to day and on a monthly basis back it up.. wondering now what else I should be doing.

I've had 2 drives die in the past 3 years.. but have never lost very much as I've always had the backup relatively up to date. They are definitely not reliable and 2 is the very minimum you should have for storage.

bren2002

I use backblaze and Google Drive. Although the only stuff I put on Google drive is photos of the kids.
The Mrs would kill me if I lost those. Phones I leave to OneDrive & iCloud.

Kenny Logins

I think I'm going to give Backblaze a go. Looks Good!

bren2002

I'm a big fan of it, but it does take an age to do the initial sync. Also, be aware I once ran a Glary Utilities (or it might have been Norton) machine optimisation job on my PC and it turned off Backblaze. I didn't notice until they emailed me to say nothing had backed up for 2 weeks.

If you're into it, they've a very interesting blog on how they build and use their pods.

They have version control too, which is handy.

BionicRasher

I would definitely recommend Flickr and PickBackMan

I have an all photos that we have (as a family) on our PC
These are backed up to an external drive
This is then backed up to Flickr (incidentally I also back the photos up to Google+ as that’s a nice way to be able to get some cool effects such as Auto Awesome movies etc)

I used http://www.picbackman.com/ to do the initial sync and I pay $2.49 a month for the Premium account – its great for keeping things in sync across various services.

Here is what we do
• We have 3 smart phones in the house and these all have an app installed that syncs any photos taken to a folder on our shared PC. (the app runs in the background and once it detects new photos it uploads them to the PC over WiFi.)
• We also plug in our main cameras (we have 2 semi decent cameras) and upload photos from them to the same folder on the PC
• I have set up a nightly automatic task that monitors this folder on the PC and copies any new photos to the external drive
• The folder on the PC is also monitored by PicBackMan and that backs up a copy to Flickr and also to Google+

We can then all see the photos online anytime through either Flickr or Google+. We can cast them to the main TV trough Chromecast and we like to have slideshows running on the TV sometimes and it’s a great conversation starter when we have friends and family visit.

I have chosen Flickr as my recommendation as its free and offers 1TB of storage. Also I would highly recommend PickBackMan as it works flawlessly

mollybird

Thanks everyone for the replies. Im actually on flickr so could possibly go down that route but could take a week or two possibly to get all my photo's on there. ive only a smallish selection on there at the min.

Slidinginfinity

Flickr is fine and all but, do get and external drive, they don't cost much much and can keeps you in possession of your own. I currently have three.

As for backup/disaster plan I currently use CrashPlan. For free you can back up to an external drive, another of your computers, or a computer at a friends/family members place. For a small annual fee you can also back up to their cloud storage.

adox

Flickr is grand and all but I wouldn't be relying on it as an only source of backup. Lets remember its a photo hosting site first, meant for sharing and offers 1TB of free storage. Their priority and business model doesn't have the safety of your data at the top of their list.

Also if you add a watermark to any of your public images remember to put up another copy un-watermarked and mark private. If you need to download one of the public images the watermark will remain.

I think Im going to give backblaze a go. Sounds like a good solution. Am I right in thinking its like a mirrored back up service, so basically it keeps your back up up to date with your hard drive and the changes you make to it, be it adding or deleting, and not a archive type service where you can go back and retrieve old files that have been deleted?

BionicRasher

mollybird wrote: »

wondering if anyone would have any good suggestions on what would be the best place to store my hundreds of photo's. somewhere that would be handy that i could look at them if i ever wanted to or to copy over to something or to simply email to family and friends

thanks

As per the OP Flickr fits the bill perfectly. Google+ is also a good fit.
Flickr is available on all major systems from mobile to PC and Mac etc. It hasan unbeatable 1TB if free storage.
PicBackMan is the ideal tool to get the photos synced from various places to either Flickr or Google+
As for a pure backup solution then that's a different conversation. You should always have your photos backed up locally and to a cloud location.

Cameraman

I'd recommend a site like Crashplan, rather than Backblaze for this reason :

(from the Backblaze FAQ)
"If the drive is detached for more than 30 days, Backblaze interprets this as data that has been permanently deleted and securely deletes the copy from the Backblaze datacenter."

This would apply to external drives.
Crashplan can be configured to not do this. Also, you can use Crashplan to backup to a remote computer (e.g. a friend) - even on the free version.

fret_wimp2

This is something that ive been bashing my head against for years and i finally have a solution im almost happy with.

1. Store your pictures on your pc, where you can easily find them. otherwise they will just sit on a drive, in a drawer somewhere, where you never look at them. want proof, how often do you take out your old physical photos to look at? Never.. because they are safely out of reach in a press or in the attic.

2. Back them up, back them up , back them up!. For years I had my photos on my computer. I had 2 external drives that i copied my photos directory to each month. One of the drives lived in my drawer, the other in my office, away from my house. Worked well when i remembered to actually do the backing up.

Now i use ZipCloud. ZipCloud provide me with about 300GB of online "cloud" storage. They provided a windows program and service that monitors my photos directory and automatically backs up any new/changed items. They charge extra for backing up external drives and stuff but are very flexible on price.
This makes sure I dont lose photos if i forget my monthly backup routine.

3. Viewing regularly. Hard to say as we dont know what formats you're using and what you mean by "viewing". If by viewing you mean simply seeing them regularly, convert them all to jpeg, put them on a drive , plug it into your tv and watch the slideshow, or get one of those electronic picture frames. If you mean regularly browsing them then there are tons of free programs out there for simple image viewing. I use lightroom to organize and edit my photos. Its worth every cent.

The J Stands for Jay

I have all my files (raw and jpg) on my PC. Am external HDD is plugged in which runs windows backup or some such. I have manually backed up all my photos (again raw and jpg) to Google drive and my favourite ones across various free online services using jolicloud. Dropboz looks after Any pictures on my phone.

denismc

Just a note for anyone considering cloud backup, I signed up to backblaze last week and was told my initial backup would take over 100 days:eek:

So if you are on a slow internet connection with a lot of files you may want to consider something else. BTW I have about 200gb of files to backup.

adox

denismc wrote: »

Just a note for anyone considering cloud backup, I signed up to backblaze last week and was told my initial backup would take over 100 days:eek:

So if you are on a slow internet connection with a lot of files you may want to consider something else. BTW I have about 200gb of files to backup.

What sort of upload speed do you have on your line?

I`m considering backblaze and would have about 450GB to upload.

denismc

adox wrote: »

What sort of upload speed do you have on your line?

I`m considering backblaze and would have about 450GB to upload.

I have upto 8mb download and 0.12mb/s upload, the upload speed is the important one. Having fibre broadband should improve this greatly, at work we have 21mb/s upload speed which is over 100 times faster.

surpy

google+ will give you unlimited storage if you allow them to resize your photos (heresy around these parts I'm sure, but a free backup is a free backup!)
the only problem i had with it is that its very hard to browse large amounts of photos. but they do offer a 1 click download of all files if you ever need to recover everything at once

i used to use it in addition to local copies but ended up paying from dropbox pro as i can link it from so many devices.

fret_wimp2

denismc wrote: »

Just a note for anyone considering cloud backup, I signed up to backblaze last week and was told my initial backup would take over 100 days:eek:

So if you are on a slow internet connection with a lot of files you may want to consider something else. BTW I have about 200gb of files to backup.

Im on UPC and backup of 180GB took just under 2 days. ( I just left it running over the weekend and it was done when i checked on sunday night).

surpy wrote: »

google+ will give you unlimited storage if you allow them to resize your photos (heresy around these parts I'm sure, but a free backup is a free backup!)

Free is not free in this case. Like leaving your Ferrari in for a free service and getting back a fully working golf.

Alanstrainor

denismc wrote: »

I have upto 8mb download and 0.12mb/s upload, the upload speed is the important one. Having fibre broadband should improve this greatly, at work we have 21mb/s upload speed which is over 100 times faster.

Unfortunately you're stuffed not matter what Cloud backup service you use in that case. Backblaze is good, and reliable though, and not terribly expensive! You just need to have the bandwidth handle any cloud backup solution.

adox

denismc wrote: »

I have upto 8mb download and 0.12mb/s upload, the upload speed is the important one. Having fibre broadband should improve this greatly, at work we have 21mb/s upload speed which is over 100 times faster.

Cheers. I have fibre and get about 14mb upload. It will probably still take a few days but once it doesnt hog everything I`m fine with that.

Alanstrainor

adox wrote: »

Cheers. I have fibre and get about 14mb upload. It will probably still take a few days but once it doesnt hog everything I`m fine with that.

You can throttle the upload so it doesn't eat it all. But for starts it might be an idea to give it as much as possible.

adox

Alanstrainor wrote: »

You can throttle the upload so it doesn't eat it all. But for starts it might be an idea to give it as much as possible.

Signed up last night and started uploading unthrottled. Started backing up last night around 10am and at 7.00am this morning it had backed up over 25GB. I`m happy enough with that - over 50GBs a day. At that rate I should be done in 8 or 9 days.

milkjunkie90

mollybird wrote: »

Ive always been a keen photographer and have hundreds of photo's. My husband got me a DSLR camera last year so as you can imagine my photo's have doubled within the last year. So im quickly running out of space on my laptop for all the photo's im taking.

wondering if anyone would have any good suggestions on what would be the best place to store my hundreds of photo's. somewhere that would be handy that i could look at them if i ever wanted to or to copy over to something or to simply email to family and friends

thanks

Flickr now allows you to upload full resolution photos and gives you up to 1tb of storage space for jpegs. Only problem is you cannot backup your RAW files, i use an external hard drive for that

Myksyk

I signed up to Backblaze with 600 GB to upload ... My speedtests tell me I have a fairly consistent 15mb upload but I don't have that when Backblaze measures my upload speed to their server ... more like 2-6mb. After 7 days I'm one third of the way through the upload and that's leaving my Mac on 24/7 at full throttle! Mind you it has a made me go into Lightroom and delete almost 12,000 redundant photos ... a well overdue task.

Myksyk

My upload (on continuously for three weeks) finished this evening!

adox

I bought a 2TB external drive and am using it for films, tv and lossless music.
Only bought it last week, connected it to the Mac and moved some stuff over and then added it as an external drive for back up with Backblaze.

Its fantastic that you can add an external at any time at no extra cost. It already seems like very good value without that addition.

fret_wimp2

adox wrote: »

I bought a 2TB external drive and am using it for films, tv and lossless music.
Only bought it last week, connected it to the Mac and moved some stuff over and then added it as an external drive for back up with Backblaze.

Its fantastic that you can add an external at any time at no extra cost. It already seems like very good value without that addition.

Its not a full solution though. What happens if your house is burgled and your laptop & the backup drive are stolen?

A full backup solution accounts for this also, by keeping a 3rd copy somewhere away from your house, such as a 3rd drive you keep in your office, or a copy of everything in the cloud.

Alanstrainor

fret_wimp2 wrote: »

Its not a full solution though. What happens if your house is burgled and your laptop & the backup drive are stolen?

A full backup solution accounts for this also, by keeping a 3rd copy somewhere away from your house, such as a 3rd drive you keep in your office, or a copy of everything in the cloud.

They say they added it to backblaze...which is a cloud backup solution. If you lose everything, just login and download your stuff.

fret_wimp2

Alanstrainor wrote: »

They say they added it to backblaze...which is a cloud backup solution. If you lose everything, just login and download your stuff.

fair enough! the way it was phrased, It sounded like backblaze was some backup software, didnt realize it was a cloud solution.

My bad, Carry on...

dirtyghettokid

i'd love to try out backblaze, but my bandwidth limit is capped 70gb a month...and when i have 500gb to cloud store.. that would take an eternity to upload via throttling!
right now just have stuff stored on 2 x 2TB external HD, but i am still nervous with that setup!

adox

dirtyghettokid wrote: »

i'd love to try out backblaze, but my bandwidth limit is capped 70gb a month...and when i have 500gb to cloud store.. that would take an eternity to upload via throttling!
right now just have stuff stored on 2 x 2TB external HD, but i am still nervous with that setup!

Yeah there is an option to throttle the upload or even schedule it. It would take you a long time but you dont even notice it working in the background. It had no affect on my speeds. It would take you a few months though for the initial back up.

They give a 15 day free trial.

Also how the hell have you a cap of 70GB???

dirtyghettokid

adox wrote: »

Yeah there is an option to throttle the upload or even schedule it. It would take you a long time but you dont even notice it working in the background. It had no affect on my speeds. It would take you a few months though for the initial back up.

They give a 15 day free trial.

Also how the hell have you a cap of 70GB???

is that good or bad? i live in the sticks, so only have ripplecom. they cap us at 70gb. used to be dongle internet, which was hideous .. had 20gb cap then, but couldn't even upload a 500kb picture half the time.

with what we have now, just by watching some netflix and ordinary internet usage, we use most of our monthly bandwidth.

adox

dirtyghettokid wrote: »

is that good or bad? i live in the sticks, so only have ripplecom. they cap us at 70gb. used to be dongle internet, which was hideous .. had 20gb cap then, but couldn't even upload a 500kb picture half the time.

with what we have now, just by watching some netflix and ordinary internet usage, we use most of our monthly bandwidth.

70GB would seem incredibly small in this day and age, although sounds like you don't have many options for providers.

Alanstrainor

I'm not familiar with ripplecom, but I can bet the upload speeds will be dire. And with caps, a cloud backup solution is just not feasible.

With that much data to backup, the only thing I can think of would be to purchase another portable and high capacity drive, and do a big copy and give it to a friend, family member etc to keep. A bit messy, but it is workable. Incrementing your backup every 6 months or so.

dirtyghettokid

yea our download speed is 8mb max, 1mb up max. it's actually amazing compared to the dongle **** we had to use for years.
i'm hoping that i don't live up here forever, so that eventually cloud storage will be a feasible plan for me

Reati

I got an Office 365 Personal subscription to have Office at home and it came with 10TB of storage space. It's meant to be going unlimited according to this blog post. http://blogs.office.com/2014/10/27/onedrive-now-unlimited-storage-office-365-subscribers/ Not bad for 79 quad a year.

The only thing is you want a hell of an upload speed for the first batch backup and I can't get it to connect to Lightroom so I have a local copy of my files on a HHD too. But if that dies everything is in the cloud at least.

Bears and Vodka

If any of you are students, or still have access to an educational email address (aka one that ends with @tcd.ie etc.) you get unlimited Google Drive storage. Currently backed up about 30GB worth of NEF's. It's taking a while but it's worth it in the long-run.

almorris

The clouds great, unless you live in the bog like me and it becomes a no go.