How and where do you save your photos?

[LuvOrlando]

For a long time I used Amazon but about a year ago I stopped syncing because it creeps me out to have all my images on all the TVs, I didn't know it was happening - not a fan. Any free standing devices that will just hold images like a photo album not linked to one of these giant data mining businesses? Is Polaroid all that is left for privacy?

 

[fla4fun]

For a long time I used Amazon but about a year ago I stopped syncing because it creeps me out to have all my images on all the TVs, I didn't know it was happening - not a fan. Any free standing devices that will just hold images like a photo album not linked to one of these giant data mining businesses? Is Polaroid all that is left for privacy?

Well, I prefer to have local backups instead of cloud backups. I take most photos with my phone, which is copied to my iPad as the first backup the same day. Then once a month, I backup the new photos from that month to my laptop. I have been considering an external SSD for backup as well, but I will be replacing my iPad next year so I want to get the new iPad first and then get a compatible device to back it up.

 

[LuvOrlando]

Sounds like a reasonable way to manage the images, thanks.

 

[mom2rtk]

I have several external hard drives I back them up to locally.

 

[tony67]

I store everything on Amazon and One Drive.
The phone syncs to them.
Yeah I don't like having them there and I don't use the fire so I don't have that issue.
I wish I could find an app to get my photos on Roku - but there does not seem to be one.
I have a Fire for just that purpose, but its not great IMO.

As others said - get an external hard drive - preferably a raid array.

I am very happy with this one and you can put 5 drives in it, up to 100TB storage. (you need to buy the drives seperatly)
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B094Y9RQXJ/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1
(Its not cheap - but well worth it)

In addition I have two 4TB SSD external drives - so I have the photos in three locations - just keeping them all up to date is a PITA. SSD has gotten a lot cheaper than it was and is probably safer for storage.

This is a decent pocket size case - again you need to buy the drives
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09T97Z7DM/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

There is probably software that could handle this for me, but manual works fine.

 

[PollyannaMom]

I was much better years ago about storing physical copies in books. Now they are on my iPhone and backed up to the cloud.

 

[jazzsmith]

Just iCloud and nothing else

 

[slo]

All of my photos, since I started using a smart phone, are at Walgreens.

I know many that use other places, but I feel pretty confident that Walgreens isn’t going anywhere, and when I want to print pictures they are 5 minutes away to pick them up. I have everything in categories/albums so I can always go straight to what I want - it’s very convenient.

 

[Stratman50th]

My photos go from my camera to the laptop. If I use the phone, same process. From the laptop I back them up on a couple external hard drives. From the computer I pick what I want to print. I'm also very selective of what I post on line. If I post a photo on here for instance it's something I don't mind people seeing.

 

[firefly_ris]

Multiple hard drives and some .zip file backups on my web server for the full archive, and I keep about a year's worth of phone photos on Google Photos. That gets purged when space is getting low.

 

[kdonnel]

I follow the 3-2-1 backup strategy.

My digital data exists on the primary drive, is copied to a NAS locally using automation, and also pushed to BackBlaze for my off site backup.

You don’t want all your copies to be local because you might experience a fire or some other disaster.

 

[Meriweather]

External hard drive.
Print and scrapbook a lot.....but all are saved on that drive

 

[jimmymc]

I use Amazon and a second hard drive. I also don't use the smart features of my TV or any assistant devices, so there won't be random vacation photos floating around my house.

External hard drives are cheap these days, but they also can sometimes break, so you're better off having at least two copies saved somewhere.

 

[Lord Manhammer]

I have the mega subscription to iCloud and keep everything there. I don't keep any questionable photos in that account so I'm not worried about anyone seeing what I have, unless they want to see dozens of winding European streets. Plus it all syncs to my computers, iPhone and iPad and it makes categories very easy to navigate. I like it.

 

[tvguy]

My wife transferred all our digital images to an external hard drive. A lot are on my Facebook page. But as our kids are 32 and 36, we have lots of good old fashioned negatives and prints in photo albums. and bought a viewer/scanner to digitize them. As only children, we inherited our parents photo albums. I have printed photos going back to about 1910.

 

[tony67]

Just a general comment for folks that only store photos on line - I am pretty sure some services had started reducing the quality of the photos etc... so have a local backup just in case IMO

 

[SueInBoston]

All in ICloud. I used to do the camera >laptop>local HD and then another offsite HD, but it all got to be a PITA. Since I now exclusively use my iPhone, it all goes to the cloud and I can easily share albums.

 

[sam_gordon]

Varies. Photos I take with my DSLR go onto a HD. I would love to upload to cloud, but have nearly 2TB. I really need to delete a bunch, but am lazy. SOME get uploaded to Google photos for sharing.

Photos I take with my phone are there (of course) and automatically uploaded to Google photos.

My IDEAL would be a network RAID (4TB) AND Google photos. But I'm not only lazy, but cheap.

 

[kdonnel]

Varies. Photos I take with my DSLR go onto a HD. I would love to upload to cloud, but have nearly 2TB. I really need to delete a bunch, but am lazy. SOME get uploaded to Google photos for sharing.

Photos I take with my phone are there (of course) and automatically uploaded to Google photos.

My IDEAL would be a network RAID (4TB) AND Google photos. But I'm not only lazy, but cheap.

If you value your photos, $99 a year, for BackBlaze.com is invaluable. You get unlimited storage. I have 3.3TB of family pictures and videos backed up.

I also have a RAID, and had two drive failures at once, and lost the volume. I had to restore from BackBlaze. If I had not had the offsite backup or a second backup of any type, 20+ years of photos would have been lost.

 

[_19disnA]

Just a general comment for folks that only store photos on line - I am pretty sure some services had started reducing the quality of the photos etc... so have a local backup just in case IMO

I agree. Anything stored online has the risk of them suddenly going out of business or perhaps having damage done by hackers. I prefer offline storage that doesn't depend on some 3rd party. Even if they are just family photos, I don't want random strangers having access to them online (either those who run the backup/cloud storage or potential hackers). There are many types of devices that can be used for that purpose and there is no ongoing charge when you manage your own backup files.