Bit of a numpty question about photo-hosting – For those who use hosting websites heavily, do you treat it as a back-up, or even the primary storage place for your pictures? Is the expectation that all your pictures on flickr or wherever are there on some sort of permanent basis?

I only use flickr sporadically, so don’t really know the mindset of piling 1000s of pics onto it. Do you bother with a separate storage drive or is PC + web enough for you?

I’d never trust Flickr completely, but it’s a handy place for hosting, and if the house burns down they’ll still be there at least. At home, images go onto the PC drive, and then backed up on a NAS.

I suppose one way would be to use Flickr and Photobucket or the like – the chances of both going bust at the same time are pretty slim 😉

I treat smugmug as one of several backups. That’s why I don’t mind paying a few $’s a year.