Cloud storage for Photos

I am currently using Google Drive and MS One Drive for photo storage, but now I need more space.

Looking at Google Drive as an annual subscription of up to 100GB, any other storage options worth looking at?

I thought one drive was 1000Gb? Or are you on a free version? I’m just using my work one drive

I think Amazon do something bundled with prime

I use Amazon photo, which is literally unlimited storage for photos for prime members.

If you decide to leave the prime-e-verse then I think you have about three months to download all your photos.

I use Flickr, unlimited for abour $50/year.

Who is your ISP?

I know BT do/did give you 1TB with some packages. Others might offer something similar.

I don’t make use of it personally as I’m iCloud.
Another option depending on phone brand.

Problem with going with your ISP is it’s much harder to then leave for a better deal, same with email addresses.

Personally I’d keep everything separate.

Flickr, unlimited for abour $50/year.

It used to be but they changed it to £6.99/month (just checked they now have a £5/month billed annually so £60/year).

They way they’ve dicked about with pro id not trust them not to dick about with this again. Hence why I ditched pro pre-pandemic…

They way they’ve dicked about with pro id

Can’t say I noticed anything, been a pro user since 2005.

The other question is where else are the photos backed up?

As per the poster on here who had his local nas drive compromised and lost all his photos, with no backup.

Now you might say that Google or Microsoft will backup the cloud for me and they will, but what about if they cancel your contract?

There was a chap on PistonHeads who had his Microsoft account cancelled without warning or ability to download his data, he believes it’s because of some photos of his kids in the bath raising some flags so unlikely for many but why put yourself in that risk position

Can’t say I noticed anything, been a pro user since 2005.

I joined in ‘06, took out pro about ‘10.

Then yahoo dicked about with and killed the community aspect of it, when unlimited for free then limited to 1000 pics or pro.

I’ve a mate that has been pro for about the same time as you and he cancelled for the same reasons. Might be something for grandfather pro rights but a new account is min £60/yr.

when unlimited for free then limited to 1000 pics or pro.

Always been a pro so always been unlimited (or large enough number that it never mattered).

Might be something for grandfather pro rights but a new account is min £60/yr.

No idea the exact amount but $50 / £60 is low enough that I neither notice nor care….

Anybody have any experience with personal cloud devices (there’s probably an official name for them, but I don’t know it)? I’ve heard about them but don’t know anybody who has actually tried one.
I like the idea, but don’t know where to start.

Anybody have any experience with personal cloud devices (there’s probably an official name for them, but I don’t know it)? I’ve heard about them but don’t know anybody who has actually tried one.
I like the idea, but don’t know where to start.

Have a read of this…

Help! Qnap NAS hacked and files locked

I use two, Microsoft Onedrive for everything (inc photos) and SmugMug (just photos). I’m happy to pay given how much I value my photos.

@captmorgan

I wan’t thinking of using NAS (thanks for the name) as my sole back-up. It was more as a place I can store things I might wish to access when I’m elsewhere; like a personal, private version of Dropbox.

@easily

AFAIA NAS devices are the start point for these personal clouds and then you either open ports and firewall rules on your router to allow access to your data or the nas sync’s with some cloud storage managed by the nas vendor

If you are looking for secure cloud storage that is encrypted and the cloud provider is incapable of accessing then take a look at spideroak or protonmail

Didn’t think about Amazon photos, any problems using that?
I might as well go with that one as it comes included?

Didn’t think about Amazon photos, any problems using that?

Not for me. Worth a quick check to make sure your file types are supported since they do have limitations but beyond that prime is what I use as the cloud back up of choice since I have enough stored off to break the one drive limit.

I always have 3 backed up copies of everything, Google Drive, One Drive (both up to 15GB) and a separate local hard drive.

The 15GB storage is almost full and I need to upgrade, some good options on here to have a look through, cheers.

I should have done my research first on Google Drive, its utter $HITE!

Its either crashing, freezing or I end up rebooting everything including the PC and the router!

???

It just runs silently in the background. I’ve been using it since it was first available and never seen any problems with it on Windows or Android over multiple of each OS.

Has anyone tried Azure storage for photo’s?

Backblaze B2 is likely to be cheaper

This is a reasonable overview of various options

Cloud Backup Showdown: Azure vs Amazon S3 vs Google Cloud vs Backblaze B2

@Mounty_73 I’m also using Google Drive (on a pid for tarrif) and not seeing issues you are. I’m syncing across a couple PC’s (Win10/11) , and also sync photo folders from Android tablet and and mobile and been happy for a few years now. Could you be trying to sync a massive amount all at once and bandwidth can’t cope?

The major problem I am having with googledrive is uploading and syncing the files, it gets so far then stops, it also appears to be stopping our broadband too after a period of time. I then have no choice but to turn the router off and on again.

It has to be googledrive as nothing else is connected or running within the house. Is it just the simple case of the files being either to big or too many?

Could you be trying to sync a massive amount all at once and bandwidth can’t cope?

I think so. :-)

I will have to break it all down and do folder by folder. I have been leaving the PC on overnight to let it sync.

When looking at photo storage don’t you need to check how the photos are stored online. Some services compress your images rather than storing them in original format. That might not matter to you, but better check before finding all those hi-res images are now a different quality

Another shout out for backblaze b2 here, but used as backup for my NAS. The NAS is the primary repository of stuff, and this means it’s not restricted to photo storage. I’m runnign TrueNAS on an HP microserver, which directly supports B2, so it’s easy to setup a job to backup content automatically. B2 can also be configured to keep every version of a file which will also protect you from overwriting a good file with a corrupted one, or being hit by an encryption virus.

You also pay for what you use, rather than a flat fee. I have ~2Tb stored which costs me around US$6 per month.

For photos, i have…

Google Photos/Drive. Same thing but for images I use the Photos front end rather than drive. Pay whatever the small amount is for a 200Gb Drive (mix of photos and some other stuff). If/when I fill that I’ll probably just pay for the next level up.

Flickr Pro. Moved up from free when they were absorbed by SmugMug. Don’t really need two cloud backups I guess (as a hobbyist) but I had loads of stuff on Flickr already and prefer it’s organisation and ability to hotlink over Google Photos.

External HD. Photos get backed up to this every so often (basically when I remember).

Local copies on laptop. Basically temp storage. Get deleted once backed up to external HD.

I do have Prime, so could always use their image storage instead, but feels like a hassle to move everything over…