Cloud Storage

[Lacrossedad]

I have been getting back into photography and am at the point where I have a couple thousand shots that I want to preserve. I bought a separate memory drive for the computer, but I am still worried about losing these pics. Who uses I Cloud storage? Who does everyone use for I Cloud storage? I know the fees differ but also how you access and store the pics vary as well.

 

[ac12]

I would use the cloud as only one PART of a storage plan.

If the cloud company goes out of business, what happens to your files???
What if the cloud company gets hacked???
I have seen numerous complaints about lost email history, when an ISP shuts down.​

My primarily backup is a personal hard drive that I store off-site. And I rotate through at least 3 drives, so if any one drive fails, I don't loose everything.
Cloud is a secondary backup.

But since it runs every day, it backs up stuff between my periodic disc backup.​

 

[Jeff15]

Buy more external hard drives......

 

[Original katomi]

I don’t know about cloud storage but like other have said. I use external storage hard drives.
There used to be a system called grandfather, father, son of backing up files, the three drive system where the drives are rotated so that grand father becomes the son and so on. That way is you loose a file then you have ,depending on how often you back, a relatively new/ compleat file. You may want to look into a buddy storage. Where by you leave an external hard drive with a friend/buddy you trust and the do the same with you.
Just thoughts, use or bin as you feel

 

[Dean_Gretsch]

As AC12 said, what happens if you only store in the cloud? If they are cherished photos, I believe you can't have too many storage options. Hedge your bets in case one suffers a catastrophic loss. I remember years ago hearing how those cd's we probably all used only have a limited shelf life. Hard drives have mechanical elements that certainly can fail, so they aren't failproof either.

 

[ac12]

As AC12 said, what happens if you only store in the cloud? If they are cherished photos, I believe you can't have too many storage options. Hedge your bets in case one suffers a catastrophic loss. I remember years ago hearing how those cd's we probably all used only have a limited shelf life. Hard drives have mechanical elements that certainly can fail, so they aren't failproof either.

Yes, I lost a couple HD to something called "sticksion."
The heads are so close to the disc platter that they can "stick." And the drive will not turn, and the heads won't move.
This is similar to what happens when you stack 2 pieces of glass, then try to separate them. There is no glue, but the physical proximity and flat surfaces makes them stick together.

 

[Strodav]

I'm seeing 512GB thumb drives for under $100 on Amazon and 256GB drives for under $50. Buy one to supplement your separate memory drive. Better yet, buy 2, keep one in an important papers and jewelery safe at home and keep the other one off site like at a family member's house or your safe deposit box.

Nothing major against cloud storage as I use both Microsoft's One Drive and Apples icloud and I use them for a few hundred of my better and portfolio shots. I have concerns about it in that they can charge whatever they want whenever they want and can change the terms of service and even discontinue or sell the service. They discontinued Picassa, which I really liked, and Flickr decided to put a limit of 1000 images for free and charge much, much to much for anything more than that. Remember, when a product is supposedly free, you are the product. When they are not making money on the product, they will change it, eliminate it, or charge for it.

 

[Soocom1]

Multiple copies of the work is in order.

Cloud storage for those things that you intend to grab continuously but with physical backups else ware. Off site and/or large HDs.

Standard back protocol for most gov. entities revolves around this concept.

 

[ac12]

The other problem with cloud storage is YOUR upload speed cap, and how long it will take to upload the files.
If you shoot an event/gig of say 500 pix at 20MB average file size = 10,000MB = 10 GB total size to upload (if my math is correct).
At a 6Mb (bits) per sec (0.6MB) upload speed that is 16,667 seconds.
There is overhead involved with processing each file, so lets add 1 sec per file, total 500 seconds, and we are at 17,167 seconds = 4.8 hours.
This makes it an overnight backup process.

WARNING: Note the upload time above. On your initial backup, you would probably be loading a few hundred GB, or more, of files. Using the above math, 100GB = 48 hours (2 days), 200GB = 96 hours (4 days), 400GB = 192 hours (8 days)

My friend uses iDrive. To avoid the initial backup taking DAYS/WEEKS. They have an option to jump start the backup, where they sent him an external drive, for him to backup to, and ship back to them. Then they load the drive into their system, then nightly online backup does the incremental backups.

What makes sense to me, is to use a hybrid of online/cloud backup for daily backups + periodic full backup to HD.
By periodic, I mean every week/month/quarter (whatever time period is appropriate for YOU) and after any significant gig/event.
A full backup takes longer, but IMHO is easier for a home operation than base + incrementals.

 

[ac12]

I'm seeing 512GB thumb drives for under $100 on Amazon and 256GB drives for under $50. Buy one to supplement your separate memory drive. Better yet, buy 2, keep one in an important papers and jewelery safe at home and keep the other one off site like at a family member's house or your safe deposit box.

You NEED to test the thumb drive, for data transfer speed.
Some thumb/flash drives are SLOW. You don't notice this when copying a few files, but a LOT of files can become painfully slow.
The problem is I have not seen specs on these drives. So you do not know the sustained transfer speed of the thumb drive until you test it for yourself. And do NOT be fooled by the USB3 advertising. That is the INTERFACE that is USB3, not the internals, which could be much slower (to lower the cost). This applies to both thumb/flash drives and external hard drives.

 

[smoke665]

I use multiple external drives, rotating them. However, I also use a free Windows app called Synch Toy. Download SyncToy 2.1 from Official Microsoft Download Center that compares my current folders to the backup folders. New files are added, or modified if changes have been made and files deleted from my HD are removed from the backup. Gives me much better utilization of my backup space.

 

[GrantWoj]

HDDs are cheap now, if you have a good way to store them, you could just buy an external drive case and buy HDDs as you can afford them.

External Drive Case (Example, might want to shop around to make sure it can handle better transfer speeds)
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00LS5NFQ2/ref=psdc_160354011_t2_B009F7TXMK

If you do go the route of using multiple drives, multiple stand alone external, or 1 case + multiple drives, stay away from Seagate, they're cheaper, but I've had 3 or 4 fail on me in a fairly quick succession, but Western Digital has always been strong for me. (FWIW, I was transferring tons of different data types and constantly removing/adding/adjusting the files, so that might be part of the reason I was having failures. Might be fine to use Seagate if you're just throwing them on there and booting it up only when you need to add or access them)

Also, unless you plan on carrying around the images with you all the time, I wouldn't suggest a thumb drive. You get less space for the same cost as a HDD.

 

[Derrel]

The other problem with cloud storage is YOUR upload speed cap, and how long it will take to upload the files.
If you shoot an event/gig of say 500 pix at 20MB average file size = 10,000MB = 10 GB total size to upload (if my math is correct).
At a 6Mb (bits) per sec (0.6MB) upload speed that is 16,667 seconds.
There is overhead involved with processing each file, so lets add 1 sec per file, total 500 seconds, and we are at 17,167 seconds = 4.8 hours.
This makes it an overnight backup process.

WARNING: Note the upload time above. On your initial backup, you would probably be loading a few hundred GB, or more, of files. Using the above math, 100GB = 48 hours (2 days), 200GB = 96 hours (4 days), 400GB = 192 hours (8 days)

My friend uses iDrive. To avoid the initial backup taking DAYS/WEEKS. They have an option to jump start the backup, where they sent him an external drive, for him to backup to, and ship back to them. Then they load the drive into their system, then nightly online backup does the incremental backups.

What makes sense to me, is to use a hybrid of online/cloud backup for daily backups + periodic full backup to HD.
By periodic, I mean every week/month/quarter (whatever time period is appropriate for YOU) and after any significant gig/event.
A full backup takes longer, but IMHO is easier for a home operation than base + incrementals.

Are there cloud sites using much faster FTP uploading? I really have no idea, but I sent 300 or so (304 as I recall) 5-10 MB files out for printing a few year back, and the entire upload was SO FAST that I thought the connection had dropped during the time I left the room for a bathroom break.

 

[ac12]

The other problem with cloud storage is YOUR upload speed cap, and how long it will take to upload the files.
If you shoot an event/gig of say 500 pix at 20MB average file size = 10,000MB = 10 GB total size to upload (if my math is correct).
At a 6Mb (bits) per sec (0.6MB) upload speed that is 16,667 seconds.
There is overhead involved with processing each file, so lets add 1 sec per file, total 500 seconds, and we are at 17,167 seconds = 4.8 hours.
This makes it an overnight backup process.

WARNING: Note the upload time above. On your initial backup, you would probably be loading a few hundred GB, or more, of files. Using the above math, 100GB = 48 hours (2 days), 200GB = 96 hours (4 days), 400GB = 192 hours (8 days)

My friend uses iDrive. To avoid the initial backup taking DAYS/WEEKS. They have an option to jump start the backup, where they sent him an external drive, for him to backup to, and ship back to them. Then they load the drive into their system, then nightly online backup does the incremental backups.

What makes sense to me, is to use a hybrid of online/cloud backup for daily backups + periodic full backup to HD.
By periodic, I mean every week/month/quarter (whatever time period is appropriate for YOU) and after any significant gig/event.
A full backup takes longer, but IMHO is easier for a home operation than base + incrementals.

Are there cloud sites using much faster FTP uploading? I really have no idea, but I sent 300 or so (304 as I recall) 5-10 MB files out for printing a few year back, and the entire upload was SO FAST that I thought the connection had dropped during the time I left the room for a bathroom break.

Upload speed depends on connection method and your setup with your ISP.
Mine is capped at 6Mb/sec, unless I want to pay $$ more for a faster upload.

 

[RVT1K]

I have been getting back into photography and am at the point where I have a couple thousand shots that I want to preserve. I bought a separate memory drive for the computer, but I am still worried about losing these pics. Who uses I Cloud storage? Who does everyone use for I Cloud storage? I know the fees differ but also how you access and store the pics vary as well.

I don't use it for a variety of reasons with privacy being the biggest for me.

I've got an external hard drive. Its one of two items I'm running into my burning house to save.

TigerDirect shows a WD 4T (four thousand gig) for $120