Online Photo Backup

[FluffedMojo]

I'm looking to have all of my photos backed into "the cloud", just to have everything in another place. Right now I have two mirrored internal drives, as well as two external drives (one on my desk and one in at my girlfriend's house); however, the cloud backup solution is an appealing "non physical" backup.

I've looked at both Mozy and Carbonite, and I'm leaning towards Carbonite...but just wondering what my fellow Dissers recommend for an Online Backup solution.

I don't need remote access or anything like that.

The purpose of this is...in the event that my all my hard drives crash, my house goes up in flames, stitch eats my computer, etc....I can recover all of my photos onto a new hard drive and not lose a thing.

 

[Spaceace5150]

I also looked at Mozy and Carbonite. Part of the reason I picked Carbonite is because they have phone technical support and Mozy is all through e-mail. I thought if I had a file emergency, it might be helpful to talk to someone.

I also saw in the news that Mozy had dropped their unlimited package - although I don't know any of the details on that.

 

[FluffedMojo]

Have you had a chance to test Carbonite's Data Recovery tools?

Storing all your files is one thing, but being able to truly recover everything...in the event of that file emergency, is key.

 

[Marlton Mom]

I'm sitting on the sidelines listening because this is my next step. Thanks for bringing this topic to the table.

Marlton Mom

 

[FluffedMojo]

Was just turned onto a service called CrashPlan. Has anybody heard of this?

What piqued my interest is that their site claims:

"We never throw anything away. Unlike other backup products, CrashPlan keeps your deleted files forever (unless you tell us not to.) No matter how much time passes after you delete a file, you can get it back. (Files backed up to CrashPlan Central are retained as long as you have an active subscription or free trial)."

This sounds particularly useful, in case you ever delete a file on accident or wish you could go back to a particular edit you made.

Carbonite deletes a file you deleted after 30 days.

 

[gacompguy]

Was just turned onto a service called CrashPlan. Has anybody heard of this?

What piqued my interest is that their site claims:

"We never throw anything away. Unlike other backup products, CrashPlan keeps your deleted files forever (unless you tell us not to.) No matter how much time passes after you delete a file, you can get it back. (Files backed up to CrashPlan Central are retained as long as you have an active subscription or free trial)."

This sounds particularly useful, in case you ever delete a file on accident or wish you could go back to a particular edit you made.

Carbonite deletes a file you deleted after 30 days.

Looooove Crash Plan... I've used Mozy, Carbonite, IDrive, and CrashPlan. Now that I've been a CrashPlan customer, I wouldn't use anything else. They've been offering 10% off since Mozy changed over to a fixed disk space model.

 

[FluffedMojo]

Looooove Crash Plan... I've used Mozy, Carbonite, IDrive, and CrashPlan. Now that I've been a CrashPlan customer, I wouldn't use anything else. They've been offering 10% off since Mozy changed over to a fixed disk space model.

Sweet. Same question as with Carbonite, though...have you tried Data or Full System Recovery with Crashplan? Does it work well?

 

[photo_chick]

Yay for off site backup! It's handy if you get robbed.

I've tried Carbonite but am looking at Mozy... though for what I'm looking at now it's far cheaper to stash a copy at hubbies work or the in-laws because I want multiple PC and NAS support.

 

[cosmos]

Have you considered using a photo sharing site that allows you to download your photos exactly as you uploaded them? I started using Zenfolio for backups and gradually started using some of the photo sharing features. Large size file uploads allowed.

 

[FluffedMojo]

Have you considered using a photo sharing site that allows you to download your photos exactly as you uploaded them? I started using Zenfolio for backups and gradually started using some of the photo sharing features. Large size file uploads allowed.

Well, the idea isn't to share the photos, though. A lot of pictures are pictures with my family that I may not want all over the net. While Zenfolio looks awesome, I'm in the market for a strict backup solution.

 

[gacompguy]

Sweet. Same question as with Carbonite, though...have you tried Data or Full System Recovery with Crashplan? Does it work well?

Actually... yes. My wife got a new laptop and had loaned her old one to a friend that was in the hospital. We have the CrashPlan+ Family plan to backup one desktop PC and several laptops. I was able to install the client on the new laptop and do a complete restore of the data from the old laptop. It worked great. I've also done a rather large restore of data from our desktop... same story... no problems whatsoever.

Yay for off site backup! It's handy if you get robbed.

I've tried Carbonite but am looking at Mozy... though for what I'm looking at now it's far cheaper to stash a copy at hubbies work or the in-laws because I want multiple PC and NAS support.

Mozy's plan isn't unlimited; they have tiered pricing that charges you more for more disk space. Both CrashPlan and Carbonite are offering unlimited backup... CrashPlan is the only provider that has openly come out and said they won't be limiting storage space. Carbonite also has this pesky problem with backing up videos. You have to go into every single folder and tell it to back up the videos.

CrashPlan also has their standard client that will actually let you backup between several PC's over the Internet or to an external hard drive. Just install the CrashPlan software, create an account, and then give your access code from the software to the person that you want to allow to back up to your computer. CrashPlan can transfer your files to their computer over the Internet. Pretty cool feature for free, huh?

 

[FluffedMojo]

Actually... yes. My wife got a new laptop and had loaned her old one to a friend that was in the hospital. We have the CrashPlan+ Family plan to backup one desktop PC and several laptops. I was able to install the client on the new laptop and do a complete restore of the data from the old laptop. It worked great. I've also done a rather large restore of data from our desktop... same story... no problems whatsoever.



Mozy's plan isn't unlimited; they have tiered pricing that charges you more for more disk space. Both CrashPlan and Carbonite are offering unlimited backup... CrashPlan is the only provider that has openly come out and said they won't be limiting storage space. Carbonite also has this pesky problem with backing up videos. You have to go into every single folder and tell it to back up the videos.

CrashPlan also has their standard client that will actually let you backup between several PC's over the Internet or to an external hard drive. Just install the CrashPlan software, create an account, and then give your access code from the software to the person that you want to allow to back up to your computer. CrashPlan can transfer your files to their computer over the Internet. Pretty cool feature for free, huh?

Haha...you sound like you work for CrashPlan. I'm pretty sold on that one. But one question...I only need it for one computer, so I'm looking at the Non-Family Plan. If I get a new Computer, and I want the new one to be my primary machine...do they allow you to do a kind of "hardware swap" and have the new computer be the one covered or do I need to purchase another license?

 

[Revan]

I just bough crashplan at the beginning of the month - my initial backup was 232gb of files (120+gb of photos, the rest home movies), it took less than a week to upload. Plus, I'm able to back-up to a hard drive on my Father-in-laws computer at his house, over the internet and their software will backup to external drives that are connected to my machine by USB.

One other thing, I store all these files on external drives, Crashplan can pull data from external drives and upload to the cloud, it's also smart enough to pause a backup if the drive is offline and restart once it comes back online.

 

[FluffedMojo]

Ok, decided to try Crashplan. Its gonna take 11 days to backup all my photos.

 

[Marlton Mom]

Ok, decided to try Crashplan. Its gonna take 11 days to backup all my photos.

11 DAYS!!! OMG this is going to be me!

~ How many TB of data do you have to back up??? ~

I can't imagine....

I think I'm going to organize my photos first and then decide based on the sheer # of gigs and how long it would take me to up load versus buying yet another external hard drive!!

I feel faint....

Marlton Mom

 

[WilsonFlyer]

Well, the idea isn't to share the photos, though. A lot of pictures are pictures with my family that I may not want all over the net. While Zenfolio looks awesome, I'm in the market for a strict backup solution.

I use SmugMug. 90%+ of what I put up there is posted as private and nobody can even see it but my wife and me. Full resolution and archived with the advantage of our being able to make some photos accessiable to family and friends if we want to. Best of both worlds.

I'm an IT pro for over 30 years and SmugMug is my cloud/off-site backup. It works great for me.

 

[FluffedMojo]

11 DAYS!!! OMG this is going to be me!

~ How many TB of data do you have to back up??? ~

I can't imagine....

I think I'm going to organize my photos first and then decide based on the sheer # of gigs and how long it would take me to up load versus buying yet another external hard drive!!

I feel faint....

Marlton Mom

I actually only have 33.3GB of photos. But apparently my upload speed on Roadrunner is awful because it's only transferring 200kb/s. Ugh.

I use SmugMug. 90%+ of what I put up there is posted as private and nobody can even see it but my wife and me. Full resolution and archived with the advantage of our being able to make some photos accessiable to family and friends if we want to. Best of both worlds.

I'm an IT pro for over 30 years and SmugMug is my cloud/off-site backup. It works great for me.

Hmm, interesting. Is there a simple way to restore your entire collection back to your computer?

 

[WilsonFlyer]

As far as I've been able to find, there's no "batch copy" or mass move per se. Sadly, it's one photo at a time (I have almost 40 gigs up there now so I get your point.).

I guess the part I didn't explain is that this is primarily a photo sharing site (obviously, I guess). It is secondarily a backup site and that's the way I use it. All my stuff is on a rack-mount RAID 5 Windows server in my home office. It's all backed up twice weekly to external hard drives and rotated between a fireproof/waterproof safe in my home and the same type safe at the home of my best friend (we do reciprocity on the backups).

I guess what I'm trying to stress is that I'm covered 6 ways from Sunday... PLUS ONE. SmugMug is my backup of last resort. Quite honestly, it would take a helluva catastophe to make me have to go up there and get everything. I dare say if I ever have that problem, I will have much bigger fish to fry long before I'm worrying about my photos. I'll know they're safe and I'll get to them when I can, if that makes sense.

While all this "cloud stuff" is fine and dandy, nothing beats a good local backup strategy. It's not hard. It's just good ole common sense. Copy it all to a QUALITY external HD and put it somewhere safe away from your home. Stick it in your desk drawer at work if you have to. Get in a habit of doing it with two drives and keep one at home UNPLUGGED from your computer when you're not actually backing up to it. Rotate them every week or two or whatever your photo adding volume dictates and makes sense to you.

Treat your backups as backups. Never work on the photos on your backup drive. Treat them as masters. If you need to revert to them for a disaster or just to recover a file you inadvertently deleted a week ago, copy it from your backup to your working PC first.

My backup policy is actually much more complicated than just rotating 2 drives weekly. I retain month-ends, quarter-ends and year-ends too, but that's mostly because of my business concerns. The photos are just along for the ride, if you will.

Why do I make that point? Because what if you deleted a photo 6 months ago or more importantly an entire directory and didn't even realize it until today and were on a two-week rotation? Ooops! For most consumers, I have to believe that SmugMug is enough protection for that type of situation. You can always go there and get it/them. I never delete anything from SmugMug. Never. Anything. Even my throw aways go up there FIRST. It's just a habit and a workflow and getting use to it.

OK, I'm babbling on but I hope this helps. Get a SmugMug account and use it primarily as a sharing site but know that it's there in case of a catastrophy, and if you use SmugMug, a program called "SmugUp" will be your best friend.

 

[Revan]

Ok, decided to try Crashplan. Its gonna take 11 days to backup all my photos.

The time quoted changes based on what other activity is going on with your bandwidth or machine. During the day, when my family was using their laptops and iPads it would show an estimated date of 30+ days with a much lower upload speed; overnight it would ramp up.

 

[gacompguy]

Haha...you sound like you work for CrashPlan. I'm pretty sold on that one. But one question...I only need it for one computer, so I'm looking at the Non-Family Plan. If I get a new Computer, and I want the new one to be my primary machine...do they allow you to do a kind of "hardware swap" and have the new computer be the one covered or do I need to purchase another license?

Nope... you can "adopt" the new computer: http://support.crashplan.com/doku.php/recipe/adopting_another_computer

I guess the part I didn't explain is that this is primarily a photo sharing site (obviously, I guess). It is secondarily a backup site and that's the way I use it. All my stuff is on a rack-mount RAID 5 Windows server in my home office. It's all backed up twice weekly to external hard drives and rotated between a fireproof/waterproof safe in my home and the same type safe at the home of my best friend (we do reciprocity on the backups).

You might want to check on the actual fire rating of your safe. Most safes that I've seen, unless they specifically say they will protect hard drives, won't. I had a co-worker who had a family member lose their house in a fire. They had a two story house with basement and the fire safe was in the basement. When the house burned, a large amount of debris fell into the basement and burned. He brought in a name brand external hard drive enclosure that had been in a safe that was purchased in the last few months specifically because it was "data safe." The picture on the vendor's web site even showed a hard drive in the safe in one of the marketing pictures. The enclosure hadn't melted, but the drive was non-functional because the temperatures rose above what the drive could handle.