Hi,
I saw previous discussion on cloud storage for photos. I’ve been wondering whether putting all photos on the cloud eg Google photos is sufficient or should I also be doing hard drive backups and which is the most economical and efficient ie portable drive, USB sticks, SD cards? This is for everyday photos as I have a newborn and have been taking a lot more photos than usual.
Thanks
Thanks for your quick reply!
I was thinking of SD cards, but I would have to have an extra step as I use an iPhone so would have to copy to either SD card, external drive or cloud first.
Do you know if Google photos can directly save photos to cloud from iPhone?
Yes, there is an app for IOS.
The HDD I mentioned can work without a computer to automatically make a back up as well, just in case.
That is a big upside of using cloud providers, automatic backup. No need to do anything.
Backup to the cloud - for sure, but also back up to some external media just in case. You don't want to rely on Google Photos or whatever cloud provider you decide to use to keep your photos safe. You want to have as many copies as possible, the more the better. I would recommend Google Photos, I use it and it works perfectly, but if you want something that has more integration with your computer, OneDrive is a good option.
If you're using OneDrive & Windows, you can use this batch file I made to backup your OneDrive folder to a drive on your computer. Just change the Drive letter and Onedrive Path at the top of the file. To use it just download it, open it in NotePad or your preferred editing software and make the necessary changes. If you wanted to automate this to backup every day for example, you can use Task Scheduler on Windows to run the batch file in the background. Google if you need help with that.
The code is here
Thanks for the code. I will look into it, either Google or Onedrive.
Just make up a few google photo accounts, get some Dropbox accounts and search for some codes to make it bigger, invites and such.
Lots of free cloud storage options out there. All of these cloud based storage systems intergrate into your phone with apps and auto upload features. And if it’s a new born, your phone will be your main photo memory maker.
The problem with USB/HDD storage is that you can get large quantities of it, if the drive fails, so do all your files and photos. You can get a 1TB drive to backup to, but if you don’t back that drive up and it gets lost, stolen, damaged, dies, everything will be gone.
At least with cloud storage, your photos are backed up on RAID type servers and the only way you would lose data is if the whole data centre exploded or you deleted it yourself.
Cloud = Pro: always there and no need to be worried about back ups, free/cheap. con: very limited storage allocation. Need internet connection to use.
HDD/USB = Pro: no internet required. Huge amount of storage. Con: can be expensive initially, if the drive dies, you lose everything unless you backup your backups…
Any reason you recommend multiple google photos accounts? I like the idea of spreading across multiple cloud providers, but I don't see the point of using the same one multiple times. Also, remember that obviously when you're using the cloud the photos have to upload through the internet, and this can easily add up if you have a low internet quota (if you have low mobile data, make sure you disable mobile upload), especially if you are using multiple cloud accounts.
If you want to keep your photos uncompressed, you will need a few accounts, as google photos is unlimited with the compression caveat. I upload all my photos to the unlimited google photos and I really can’t tell the difference between their stored ones and the originals. Some people want their original photos untouched, and that requires google drive, and that is limited in size.
And yes, that is a con, if you have low data, but most of these phone apps can be set to WiFi up.oad only and will only store to the cloud once connected to Wifi. Photos are usually no problem on data at 2 to 5mb each, its the videos that can kill your upload…
I use Google Drive and Photo, Dropbox and OneDrive, depending on what I am storing. I don’t use iCloud, because Apple can go eat a (fropanity)
Ah ok, For me switching Google Photos accounts is not worth it for me but it may be a good option for others. Wi-FI upload is certainly a good option.
For me, I exclusively use Google Photos but use OneDrive for storing files. Google Photos is certainly the more photo-centric application, with OneDrive it seems the photos were just an afterthought.
I upload my Drone footage to OneDrive as it goes through my computer, and trying to look at it through the app on my phone is terrible - crap quality and constant buffering on an excellent connection, whereas with Google Photos it uses the YouTube player and works great. But at the end of the day, it's up to you and your personal preference, with OneDrive it's certainly easier to obtain cheap (or free) and plentiful storage.
Also, I had a quick search and you can enable a Google Photos folder in Drive making it easy to download all of your photos to external media.
Trusting the cloud is very short sighted.
To date, Google has looked ok, and you can download your images fairly easily in a big archive. And they offer unlimited storage.
But if you chose smugmug or flickr for your cloud storage, you might have found that you didn't like their new policies any more and had a big job to migrate away.
Do I think the time will come when I don't want to be beholden to Google? Almost certainly. But if you don't have an alternative, you make the problem bigger every time you load more photos.
Trusting a storage device is very short sighted.
Both Google and Dropbox are very easy to use and for photos, offer a lot of storage space for very little cost.
I would never use Samsung, photobucket, Flickr or any of those services, because I don’t like their terms of service or how their apps and/web services are set up. Hence the reason I didn’t mention them as an option.
You don’t have to beholden to Google. There are a plethora of cloud storage companies out there. Microsoft, Dropbox, Apple. The list goes on. So I don’t understand what agenda you’re pushing at there??
I don’t know how much money OP has to throw at this. What I could have said was to set up their own roll your own NAS RAID box with cloud support. That way, they get HDD storage at home, cloud storage while they are out, and the backup redundancy of RAID storage… but, you know, OP might not want to spend $1000 on this stuff or of this complexity…
I say cloud all the way. It’s always there at your fingertip. No more telling nanna that you will go home and get the photos off your hard drive, you can just load the ones you want from your device…
I don't understand why you wouldn't have both off line and cloud, though.
As you point out, cloud providers can have unacceptable terms, and when Google changes theirs to be unacceptable it will be much nicer to have a local copy to upload to another cloud provider.
External drives are cheap (e.g. https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/357160) by almost any measure, so it seems foolhardy in the extreme to only have a cloud storage.
Well, that’s different, you never said both in your posts to me, and I certainly never said cloud only. I made points for both mediums of storage, and there is nothing wrong with using both. I listed pros and cons for both.
The chances are pretty high that OP will take a majority of their photos using their phone. The easiest, simplest, cheapest, most connected way to do this is automatically via a cloud service and an app. OP would then have a copy of the photo on their phone (HDD storage) AND on cloud.
With a HDD back up, OP would need to take photo and wait until they are connected to the HDD to enable the backups. If the phone is lost or stolen or damaged in that time, the photos are gone. If the drive fails at any time, the photos are gone (unless you’re investing in higher end storage systems.)
Yes, I agree, HDD storage can be cheap, but its initial outlay is still marginally higher than “free” cloud storage.
And if in the event that Google change their terms of service, they usually email you and let you know of the changes and if you don’t like them, you migrate to another service, but I think you are clutching at straws there for the simple function of trying to produce an argument over something that will either never happen, or would be easily dealt with.
At the end of the day, I find it extremely foolhardy to place all your trust in a HDD system. Cheap hardware fails. Cloud based data centres tend to be a bit more robust.
My final suggestion is OP should spend big dollars and roll their own NAS cloud service, because the children are worth it.
Anyway, I know you are only baiting me, so that’s the last I will I say on the matter. You obviously have your view and experience and I have mine. I’ve lost too much data in my life that I would never trust my photo collection to a single device.
So it looks like at least one external drive backup and one cloud backup. So Google photos is not unlimited upload?
Google Photos offers unlimited cloud backup if you opt for them to compress your image quality. I can't tell the difference, but it may be important for some people.
For OneDrive, you can score an extra 200GB from this deal. If you're not with Telstra, all you need is a $2 SIM to become eligible.
I think they only compress images over 16megapixel.
In any case, if you wanted to store bigger, Google extra space is about $2/mth for 100Gb, and as you point out, other services are free or nearly so.
Yep, just had a look and all photos/videos are compressed to 16MP, meaning if your camera is shooting in under 16MP, your photos and videos will remain untouched. Very good considering 16MP still allows for some massive file sizes.
Do you know if Google photos can store Live iPhone photos? Does it store it as one JPG and one MOV?
I don’t mind an outlay of an external drive if it’s best to have more than one backup. I never contemplated this until recently.
Google photos will end up being a privacy nightmare.
Use cloud providers but encrypt first.
I have four copies. Three locally (HDD, External, NAS) and one cloud (Google cloud free credit but rclone encrypt before they go up).
After reading the terms for Google photos I decided that I didn't want to hand the rights for images of family and friends to Google.
I also object to others who take photos of me and my family and then allow their phone to sync to the cloud.
I have 4 Backups of all my family photos/videos, updated every month, all on different pcs and external HDDS, one of which I keep offsite at work.
You can never be too careful when digital photos are concerned, they are too easy to lose.
I never considered the cloud as when I moved from film to digital back in 2004 there wasn't many options, and the internet connections were terribly slow then too! Now may be a different story, but I have multi terabyte disks so it'll take ages to upload it all anyway.
External HDDS are cheap, photos are priceless, look after them.
The minimum recommendation is the 3-2-1 rule; 3 copies, 2 different media, 1 copy off-site.
Windows file history doesn't count (usually stored on the same machine).
Cloud services like Dropbox etc don't count either because they automatically sync, if the local copy is corrupted or deleted then so is the "backup". Better than nothing though. (Yeah some archive old copies but that's a hassle, plus Dropbox wipes them after a while.)
The 3-2-1 rule is very legitimate.
Your Dropbox complaints are also legitimate, and I've experienced the 'synced deleted item' issue before.
My preferred solution is Google Photos (I'm using high-quality not uncompressed): the one-way syncing of photos from phone to the cloud is simple and reliable. Then, you can set it to sync to multiple devices (located on different continents if you please) and ALSO set the 'Remove Items' setting to either 'Ask' or Don't Remove' so you can't delete items inadvertently.
This solution means I have multiple copies in multiple locations on multiple media types (external HDDs, SSDs etc). And not only free, but reliable.
Thanks everyone for all your replies… now I will go and get myself at least two HDDs. Which is the best place to get them? MSY? And which is the best HDD? Western digital?
How safe is Cloud? I have never used Cloud as I have plenty of external hard drives as they are very cheap now when on special now less than $50 per TB. (my first hard drive cost me over $2000 for 10mb.)
In pre-cloud days I had a hard disk plus CD-ROMs to hold my pics.
When the HDD failed, and the CD-ROM was unreadable I ended up losing 7 months of photos.
Now I use SD cards once (and keep them in a draw when full as the last chance back-up), have an external drive I copy to, another HDD at work I copy to a few times per year, and everything on Google photos.
This setup cost about $300 all up, but I would happily pay $300 for those missing shots back.
My tips are to make a system you can easily use so that all the copying etc. gets done straight away, not so you leave it till later.
A good device for this is Western Digital My Passport wireless, a portable disk with a built in SD card reader. It can be set up to automagically copy all the new files from the card onto the disk, so I just stick the SD Card in it. When I plug the drive into my computer, Google automatically backs the photos up to the cloud.
I'm sure I could write a script to do the same thing from a normal card reader, but I liked the neat package of having it all bundled up together.