Online photo storage sites

[mtnat]

Who do you use for online photo storage? I'm thinking I want to stay away from Snapfish, Photobucket, Flickr, etc. because I should probably be backing up important files as well, but right now my 10 years of digital photos are most important.

Dropbox? Carbonite? I'm willing to pay, but I want to most bang for my buck.

 

[photo_chick]

Dropbox is cloud storage. Carbonite is online backup. Neither are online photo hosting sites though you can certainly store image files at either.

I host my images at Smugmug but it's not a backup. I used to use Carbonite for online backup but it's too expensive for our multiple computers and multiple platforms. DH and I both use Dropbox to share files as well as to have the ability to access files anywhere but again, it would cost a bit to have enough space there for a real backup.

A cheap off site storage solution is a regularly updated HDD that you keep somewhere other than your house.

 

[nigelp]

The trouble with online photo hosting sites is that they are not designed to be used as backup. If your computer crashed/got stolen and you lost all your files, then you would have to download each of your photos one at a time.

An online backup company will cost but allows you easy recovery of all your files in the case of emergencies.
I use JustCloud - I don't think they are necessarily the cheapest or best. It costs me £130 ($190??) a year for unlimited daily backup plus 11Gb of cloud storage (like Dropbox)

I do use dropbox but more for temporary storage and Flickr for 'sharing' my photos.

 

[wiigirl]

I use google Drive. Works pretty well.

 

[cisobe]

I use smugmug pro as an online gallery and as an offsite jpg backup. I have unlimited storage for Jpgs and movie files which is included in my yearly subscription {$60 a year). I'm able to upload full resolution jpgs and movies and store them. I can do single image downloads, or i can download a full gallery so retrieving from smugmug is relatively easy.

With Smugmug, you have the option to add smugvault which is a backup service that you can backup raw, tif, or any non-standard files that Smugmug does not support. For the addtional smugvault service, its $0.09 a month per GB of storage for vault files. They do charge $0.12 per GB to download though. The vault storage is with amazon so there is a lot of redundancy built in for storage.

 

[mabas9395]

I've actually been thinking about this a lot this week. I think I'm going to cancel my Smugmug account. Lately, all of my photo sharing has been done with Facebook or Google+. I used to think of Smugmug as a type of off-site backups, but that required too much work on my part and it only had the jpg's (I mostly shoot raw). I am now considering an on-line backup program/service such as BackBlaze or Crash Plan. They offer unlimited storage (which comes in handy when you have over 650 GB of photo/video files) and the price is not that much different than what I was paying Smugmug.

 

[Pixel Dust]

Like cisobe, I also use Smugmug pro for my jpgs and movies. Unlimited storage is great for the price. As well as the other photo hosting services they provide.

Facebook and Google+ doesn't save the full size image and adds compression. (Google+ can save full size at the expense of your overall Google Drive storage. Photos smaller than 2048 pixels on the long edge are unlimited/free.)

Copy.com is a new cloud storage service, very similar to Dropbox. The main differences are that Copy starts you off with 15GB free and the interface is a bit more intuitive with drag-and-drop into the browser. When you share a folder, the total space used is split up between the number of people it's shared with. So if you shared 100MB with 4 people, each user is only using up 25MB of their own storage. Where as in Dropbox, each user is taking up 100MB of their own storage. They also have desktop and cell phone apps, just like Dropbox too. You can also pay for 250GB or 500GB storage too. I have yet to find a downside, other than it's new. If anyone does, please let me know.

It looks like the cloud storage game is heating up. That's great for us!

 

[photo_chick]

The one downside to using a photo hosting site for a backup, even Smugmug, is that it changes your files. Sites like Smugmug and Zenfolio change them very little. Other sites like Flickr change them more. Photobucket and similar sites mutilate image files. The exception are things like Smugmug's Vault service, which is for storing RAW files and costs way too much for what you get. But the point is you may not get back exactly what you upload.

 

[KerTggr]

I recommend getting a desktop with a large hard drive (or multiple) and attaching it to your home network. It will "act" like a server that is much faster to store and restore from than an offsite or online option.

That or you could go my route and marry a geeky guy who will build you your own home server

(Note: I still do a backup to an external HD about once every 3 months and put in our fire safe.)

 

[BirdsOfPreyDave]

I have all my computer files backed up nightly by Norton 360 to a WiFi hard disk hidden in a closet in the house. I figure if burglars take my laptop, they probably wouldn't find that. It would be the quickest way to restore any lost files.

I also have a CrashPlan account, and backup all files to their cloud continuously. If the house burns down and I lose both my laptop and the backup drive in the house, I have this as a backup. It took this account a full month to finish the initial backup!

I have two Flickr accounts. One that every single photograph automatically uploads to through my Eye-Fi cards. This entire account has privacy settings so only I can see the images. I don't put watermarks on the versions on here. I consider this my third backup, that if I ever lose my RAW files I'll at least have a JPEG of everything. I'll also use this account if I want to access a photo to post here on the DIS when I'm not sitting at my computer.

I then have a public-facing Flickr account that only has select images posted to it. These are watermarked. My web site is hosted via Zenfolio, and I'll post photos on there for clients.

 

[SkaGoat]

I recommend getting a desktop with a large hard drive (or multiple) and attaching it to your home network. It will "act" like a server that is much faster to store and restore from than an offsite or online option.

That or you could go my route and marry a geeky guy who will build you your own home server

(Note: I still do a backup to an external HD about once every 3 months and put in our fire safe.)

The problem is it's still on site, the best thing to do is buy 2 big external hard drives, copy your photos to both of them, take one of them to a friend or relative's house (that lives out of town is ideal),or a safe place at work, then every week, or month (or however often you think is appropriate), back up to the one you still have at your house, and swap it out with the one at your friend's house or work.

That way you always have an easy to access backup at home, but you have a backup offsite in case you are robbed, or there is a flood/hurricane or fire. The copy you have at work/friend's/parents house is still there.

 

[rtphokie]

Just a friendly reminder that while this is a great topic to discuss and all are welcome to provide information about their favorite solution for online photo hosting or storage, please leave the affiliate links or other promotional things to other forums.

In a nutshell, if it directly benefits you (free months of service, cash back, etc.) it's not appropriate to share here.

 

[EnDisney]

smugmug is another good site. Athought you have to pay for annual membership

 

[rtphokie]

smugmug is another good site. Athought you have to pay for annual membership

I've used smugmug for years. It's a bit expensive and lacks some of the professional features that other sites have but for sharing among family it's worked well. Really easy for others to download photos from there and it links up with other family member's sites pretty well.