Photo storage

[wmonroe]

How is everyone storing their digital pictures? I have been keeping all of mine on a external hard drive but it has been acting weird lately and I'm worried I'm about to lose 10+ years of pictures. I guess loading them onto photobucket or something similar is an option but that seems like a monumental task. So what is the best/safest way to store digital pictures?

 

[Daver1963]

I use DVDs. I have everything organized by date to start with. I use a numerical format comprised of the year, month, and day. Therefore today would be 20140112 and then follow that with a file name such as Winter Plowing so in the end you get: 20140112 - Winter Plowing
I then label the DVDs accordingly, for example: 01 Archive
I also leave them on an external drive organized under a file name that corresponds to the DVD they are on. Right now the file "20140112 - Winter Plowing" would be on "14-Archive" and on the external drive under the same name.

 

[IslandTractor]

How is everyone storing their digital pictures? I have been keeping all of mine on a external hard drive but it has been acting weird lately and I'm worried I'm about to lose 10+ years of pictures. I guess loading them onto photobucket or something similar is an option but that seems like a monumental task. So what is the best/safest way to store digital pictures?

After years of trying to remember to back up my computer hard drive and failing to do so more than a few times a year, and having to try to remember to store the backup drives someplace other than right next to my computer, I finally just bought into a cloud service, BackBlaze, which backs up my computer almost instantaneously (after the initial upload). For $5/month ($50/yr) you cannot beat it for unlimited storage. I tried a couple of services before settling on BackBlaze which has given excellent service and was much faster loading than some of the others (I was starting with 300 gigabytes of data, mostly photographs, so that took almost a couple of weeks to upload even with fast internet service (no effect on use of the computer as it did it only when I wasn't using the computer for something else). I have not had to retrieve files from BackBlaze as I haven't had a computer crash but I like the idea that I can either download them via internet (it would take three weeks to get all 300 gigabytes back) or I can simply pay them about $100 and they will load files onto a USB stick and send it overnight. If I want to get more than will fit on a stick, they will load everything onto a backup USB harddrive drive and FedEx it to me overnight for $189. Nice options.

There are other services that are also reliable (Carbonite for example) but I found the others really limited the amount you could upload everyday so that if, like me, you already have many many gigabytes of photos on your hard drive, it can take literally MONTHS, to upload the initial backup. That basically leaves you unprotected during that time. BackBlaze was much faster as it uploads at full internet speed rather than artificially slowing things down the way Carbonite and others do.

Bottom line, I pay BackBlaze $95 for two years of instantaneous and unlimited cloud backup and I sleep a lot easier. Anyone wanna buy some barely used backup hard drives now collecting dust in my garage??

Check it out at Online Backup & Data Backup Software | Backblaze Five stars in my book.

 

[Piston]

DVD's can degrade overtime, and an external hard drive can fail. To really keep them safe, you either need to use multiple backups on separate devices (which can all burn in a house fire anyways) or store them online.

Unfortunately, if you store them online, when you upload them to sites like photobucket, they "shrink" your original file size (do they still do this?). Then, there is only one way to get your full sized photo back, BUY THEM!

I use a site called Smugmug. It is a prescription site, so you pay an annual fee for it. There is no adds, no limits to what you upload, and you can get all your files back anytime you want. I have thousands upon thousands of pictures on my account all at full resolution, mostly taken with an 18mp Canon 60D DSLR, so not small files.

It works for me, most don't like paying the annual fee, but for me it's worth it. I feel my pictures are as safe as they can be on the website. We also store them on a back up hard drive as a "just in case".

 

[IslandTractor]

DVD's can degrade overtime, and an external hard drive can fail. To really keep them safe, you either need to use multiple backups on separate devices (which can all burn in a house fire anyways) or store them online.

Unfortunately, if you store them online, when you upload them to sites like photobucket, they "shrink" your original file size (do they still do this?). Then, there is only one way to get your full sized photo back, BUY THEM!

I use a site called Smugmug. It is a prescription site, so you pay an annual fee for it. There is no adds, no limits to what you upload, and you can get all your files back anytime you want. I have thousands upon thousands of pictures on my account all at full resolution, mostly taken with an 18mp Canon 60D DSLR, so not small files.

It works for me, most don't like paying the annual fee, but for me it's worth it. I feel my pictures are as safe as they can be on the website. We also store them on a back up hard drive as a "just in case".

I agree the free photosharing sites are much better than DVD but they do have another problem besides not storing the full size file....they can stop the free service and potentially limit or make inconvenient your ability to get hundreds or thousands of photos off loaded from their site. I tried one of these services but felt it was too limiting. Much prefer just backing up every single bit of data (photos and other) on my hard drive and have a modestly priced off site cloud storage solution that I control.

 

[/pine]

prices vary but you can also rent space on a hosted server...I've seen them as low as $4/month

Most offer unlimited space and you can do a whole lot more than just store your data...

you do not need a domain name just use an IP address to FTP or tunnel in via telnet or SSH...

want to share some pictures...just make a public directory and send the link to anyone to view the pictures etc...

 

[Piston]

If you want to try smugmug, there is a free trial of the full version I believe. The other thing I like about it is that I can access my pictures anywhere. I work away from home so it would be a PIA for me to constantly carry a hard drive and make sure it was up to date. Not to mention I use multiple computers so all my pics are only a click away.

 

[wmonroe]

I use DVDs. I have everything organized by date to start with. I use a numerical format comprised of the year, month, and day. Therefore today would be 20140112 and then follow that with a file name such as Winter Plowing so in the end you get: 20140112 - Winter Plowing I then label the DVDs accordingly, for example: 01 Archive I also leave them on an external drive organized under a file name that corresponds to the DVD they are on. Right now the file "20140112 - Winter Plowing" would be on "14-Archive" and on the external drive under the same name.

I do have some on DVDs as a secondary backup but I have become way behind. I use a similar filing system also, it makes it easy looking back at a old picture to remember when it happened.

 

[wmonroe]

After years of trying to remember to back up my computer hard drive and failing to do so more than a few times a year, and having to try to remember to store the backup drives someplace other than right next to my computer, I finally just bought into a cloud service, BackBlaze, which backs up my computer almost instantaneously (after the initial upload). For $5/month ($50/yr) you cannot beat it for unlimited storage. I tried a couple of services before settling on BackBlaze which has given excellent service and was much faster loading than some of the others (I was starting with 300 gigabytes of data, mostly photographs, so that took almost a couple of weeks to upload even with fast internet service (no effect on use of the computer as it did it only when I wasn't using the computer for something else). I have not had to retrieve files from BackBlaze as I haven't had a computer crash but I like the idea that I can either download them via internet (it would take three weeks to get all 300 gigabytes back) or I can simply pay them about $100 and they will load files onto a USB stick and send it overnight. If I want to get more than will fit on a stick, they will load everything onto a backup USB harddrive drive and FedEx it to me overnight for $189. Nice options. There are other services that are also reliable (Carbonite for example) but I found the others really limited the amount you could upload everyday so that if, like me, you already have many many gigabytes of photos on your hard drive, it can take literally MONTHS, to upload the initial backup. That basically leaves you unprotected during that time. BackBlaze was much faster as it uploads at full internet speed rather than artificially slowing things down the way Carbonite and others do. Bottom line, I pay BackBlaze $95 for two years of instantaneous and unlimited cloud backup and I sleep a lot easier. Anyone wanna buy some barely used backup hard drives now collecting dust in my garage?? Check it out at Online Backup & Data Backup Software | Backblaze Five stars in my book.

DVD's can degrade overtime, and an external hard drive can fail. To really keep them safe, you either need to use multiple backups on separate devices (which can all burn in a house fire anyways) or store them online. Unfortunately, if you store them online, when you upload them to sites like photobucket, they "shrink" your original file size (do they still do this?). Then, there is only one way to get your full sized photo back, BUY THEM! I use a site called Smugmug. It is a prescription site, so you pay an annual fee for it. There is no adds, no limits to what you upload, and you can get all your files back anytime you want. I have thousands upon thousands of pictures on my account all at full resolution, mostly taken with an 18mp Canon 60D DSLR, so not small files. It works for me, most don't like paying the annual fee, but for me it's worth it. I feel my pictures are as safe as they can be on the website. We also store them on a back up hard drive as a "just in case".

I agree the free photosharing sites are much better than DVD but they do have another problem besides not storing the full size file....they can stop the free service and potentially limit or make inconvenient your ability to get hundreds or thousands of photos off loaded from their site. I tried one of these services but felt it was too limiting. Much prefer just backing up every single bit of data (photos and other) on my hard drive and have a modestly priced off site cloud storage solution that I control.

prices vary but you can also rent space on a hosted server...I've seen them as low as $4/month Most offer unlimited space and you can do a whole lot more than just store your data... you do not need a domain name just use an IP address to FTP or tunnel in via telnet or SSH... want to share some pictures...just make a public directory and send the link to anyone to view the pictures etc...

I'll have to start looking into online or server storage, I've kind of avoided it due to having to pay for it. The more I think about it though I have a lot of pictures that I would be very disappointed if I could no longer access them, so the small fee is probably worth it.

 

[IslandTractor]

I'll have to start looking into online or server storage, I've kind of avoided it due to having to pay for it. The more I think about it though I have a lot of pictures that I would be very disappointed if I could no longer access them, so the small fee is probably worth it.

If you don't have a lot of files you can store several gigabytes for free on Dropbox, google, yahoo and a number of other free services.

I figured that $95 for 24 months of automatic daily protection was worth the peace of mind. $4/month is less than I spend at Dunkin Donuts each morning.