Do you store/back up photos online?

[poohfriend77]

I currently use Picasa, but we are looking for a better way to consolidate and back up about 9 years worth of digital pics. Currently, we have the older ones on an external hard drive, and the last couple years on our desktop computer (which we'll probably be getting rid of soon). My first thought was to burn DVDs, but that of course would be VERY time-consuming.

DH is a computer guy, so he is convinced there must be an online solution, but he's not impressed with google or picasa. I am not a techy person, but I am the keeper of the photos in our house, so it needs to be fairly easy too! We are willing to pay for the right service, we just don't know where to go.

DH says he wants something that automatically uploads our photos to a "cloud" but allows us to have ONE account for multiple users/computers. So the program would periodically check our computer for updates, and upload them automatically. If we edit a photo on our desktop, the edited version would go to the "cloud" as well.

We'd also like the ability to share albums with family and friends. Most of my friends only take photos with their phones, or always forget their cameras... so I'm usually the designated photographer. I'd love to be able to let friends access a certain album easily, rather than always emailing photos or making CDs for them.

Does anything like this exist? Or does anyone have a better solution? Any advice is appreciated!

 

[photo_chick]

Picasa is not a backup solution, it's an image hosting site. And Picasa (like many hosting sites) changes your images when you upload them so what you download really isn't your original. The easiest way to backup online is to use something like Mozy or Carbonite that is for backing up files in general, not just images. If you want an image hosting site that does not mutilate your images so if you need to re-download them they're not changed (much), Smugmug and Zenfolio are good.

I was using online backup, but it got too expensive and too difficult with the number of computers we have. I have my originals at home and my backup on a second drive and then a backup stashed at another location. I've also got DVD's of everything up until last year (when it got to 40+ discs for a year I stopped) stashed in a fire proof box still as that was my old backup method and if I get a blu-ray burner from Santa I may continue to do that as well. You can never have too many backups and IMO you really need one off site of some kind.

 

[krb2g]

I back up onto an external hard drive (along with the rest of my computer). I'm not sure about automation, but I'd try something like Dropbox or SpiderOak to back up. Dropbox puts a folder on each of your machines and then the pictures are saved on the machines and on the cloud, with the latest version updating.

 

[theduck619]

We use an external drive as well for pics and videos. We got a 1 TB last year on black Friday for $69. Thre are 3TB available now and the prices on some will drop before the holidays.

 

[msummers]

It sounds like you have two different needs, backing up the photos and sharing them. Unfortunately, I don't know of any service that does both. There are several good photo hosting services that allow password protected galleries that would enable you to share the original files with friends and family. Personally, I use Smugmug and like the fact that they allow you to download the full resolution files from those galleries.

Regarding backing up the images, Carbonite is an excellent backup service and I've heard good things about Mozy as well. I don't use either for my photos because the inherent problem of an online backup system is that it is limited by internet speed. I have close to 2TB of images and on a DSL connection that could take up to a year to backup if I don't use the internet for anything else.

Instead of using an online service, I have 3 external drives. One is attached to the computer all the time and is my primary photo storage device. The second is a network attached drive that serves as my onsite backup and the third drive is stored at my office and is only brought home when I need to backup new files to it. I use SyncToy to transfer the files from one drive to another because it only copies the files that have been changed since the last backup which saves a ton of time.

 

[handicap18]

I use smugmug to upload many of my photos. They are a photo hosting site, but do not compress any of the files I upload there. I don't have all my photos there though.

I have about 6 years of jpeg and RAW files backed up on CD and DVD's.

I also use an external hard drive to back up all the files on my computer, but right now, the HD I'm using has crashed and I need to replace it and start the back up again.

For online back up protection I use carbonite.com. For $55 a year its worth having that extra protection. I know there are a few other online backup site as well, but I went with carbonite a number of years ago.

 

[pgowder]

When I import a new set of images I copy the raw files to an external HD. I was doing CDs, but got to be too many.

They are stored on a Windows Home Server with 4 drives. The drives use disk duplication.

I then also backup that whole server.

I'd love to do online backup, but it is very expensive!

 

[thomas998]

If memory serves me there was a site a year or so ago that was used by people to store photos... when the company declared bankruptcy people were notified that they had X number of days to download any photos they had stored before the assets were to be liquidated.... I'm not sure of the final outcome, but I do recall people were having problems because everyone that had used the site was trying to get their photos and the servers would continue to get overloaded and crash.

So for me, I don't want to put my faith in someone else's business model and assume it will be around forever.

 

[LPZ_Stitch!]

After messing around for the past few years with external HDs and burned DVDs, we just switched over to Carbonite. Seems pretty solid and safe and it's not too expensive for unlimited encrypted storage.

However, it *has* been pretty slow to get started ... we joined a month ago still haven't uploaded all of our photos or videos (though small documents and everything else is safe). Upload speeds are generally much slower than download speeds from most ISPs (like Comcast).

Of course, I'd never delete the originals from my PC! When I fill the HD completely, it's time for a new PC!

 

[nvtsallo]

I do it consulting for a living. I would recommend sos online backup and nothing else. Its award winning and you can count on it. You also get email reports on its success or failures. Finally there are iphone/ android apps to access the files. Carbknite and mozy are not as good in my opinion. Good luck.