Some questions for those of you who DO cloud backup/storage...

I wanted to start off by saying that I do not currently do any sort of cloud backup for my RAW files - only for my mobile phone JPGs.

So my question is to those of you who DO backup to "the cloud" (basically offsite storage):
- What service(s) do you use? If more than 1, why?
- Do you SYNC, or just BACK UP (i.e. do you also need to maintain a local copy to have it in the cloud?)
- Do you also maintain a local backup?
- Do you look at this as a backup storage solution IF you needed it, or do you also expect/require "regular access" to the photos in the cloud?
- What do you find is lacking for the service you're using? Does someone else provide it? Why aren't you using them?
- What's your monthly cost? I have TERABYTES of RAW files and worry about transfer bandwidth, monthly charges for space, etc...
- How do you handle your RAW files and the final processed version(s)?

Any other insights/information you could share about your backup and/or cloud access workflows?

I gave up on cloud storage, tried three different ones such as Google, the upload speeds were tragic, 7 days in and a fraction of my 35GB of pics uploaded!! Just invested in a new external drive in the end, much faster and easier.

In hindsight, I should still do it, just save the really good ones, not the filler.

I use a NAS at home that can be remotely accessed in the same way as cloud servers work. The bulk of my photos are uploaded at home on my PC, upload is only limited by the speed of my network. The NAS is synced to my PC for automatical local back-up.

No fees etc and my data is not at the mercy of a third party.

I regularly back-up my NAS to hard-disk drives that I keep in a separate building in the event of any calamity at home.

I use Lightroom and my NAS is synced to the Ligthroom folder for local backup of work in progress.

Where I live is too remote to able to upload/download to a cloud based server without hogging all the bandwidth.

1) SOS Backup. They have version-ing backups so nothing is ever lost even if I delete the local copy. They also allow back-ups of network drives and USB drives.

2) They are a true back-up service.

3) I maintain a local backup for system files and quick access - It is faster to obtain off the local backup. I do not do any further redundancy beyond this setup.

4) Pure back-up

5) Their mac software is nowhere near as advanced as their windows. I have my mac backing up info onto a NAS and the windows machine doing the uploads to SOS.

6) $70 per year

7) As an amateur, my monthly uploads are within reason even with my RAWs. Larger sets would end up taking a few weeks to fully upload. My ISP upload limit is rarely surpassed and those times that I exceeded, no indication/nasty-gram was given. If the uploads are extremely large, they do offer a "PMU" (physical media upload) service where they send you a hard drive to copy stuff onto and then send back to them which they then put on their servers for you. I never inquired but can only assume that service would entail an extra fee.

kaitlyn2004 wrote in post #17725017
I wanted to start off by saying that I do not currently do any sort of cloud backup for my RAW files - only for my mobile phone JPGs.

So my question is to those of you who DO backup to "the cloud" (basically offsite storage):
- What service(s) do you use? If more than 1, why?
- Do you SYNC, or just BACK UP (i.e. do you also need to maintain a local copy to have it in the cloud?)
- Do you also maintain a local backup?
- Do you look at this as a backup storage solution IF you needed it, or do you also expect/require "regular access" to the photos in the cloud?
- What do you find is lacking for the service you're using? Does someone else provide it? Why aren't you using them?
- What's your monthly cost? I have TERABYTES of RAW files and worry about transfer bandwidth, monthly charges for space, etc...
- How do you handle your RAW files and the final processed version(s)?

Any other insights/information you could share about your backup and/or cloud access workflows?

I don't, but here are my answers if I did:
- Either BackBlaze (if you leave them on your PC) or Amazon Glacier. Glacier is pretty much the most reliable backup system available, but is a bit more complex than average. It won't lose data.
- If you sync you MUST keep versions, otherwise corruption can take out your "backups".
- Yes, plus an offsite backup on disk
- Look at it as last resort, not for regular access. RAW files are big, Internet is slow.
- Not using
- Calculator for Glacier here. You will probably want to back up only your "keeper" RAW files, or maybe even lossy compressed DNG files. Or, if you have both onsite and offsite disk backups you might just put Q8 jpeg files into Glacier, to keep costs down.
- I keep RAW and keeper jpeg files for everything. I keep PSD files locally.

With that much data, I'm guessing you make money off your work. In that case, you NEED off site storage. It would only take one fire/break in /hurricane to destroy everything you have stored on site.

I don't have specific recommendations, but you'll need a service that lets you send in a seed hard drive or you'll have to setup a peer to peer back with somebody so that you can manually seed their end. The less attractive option is manual back and moving media to an off site facility. In my experience, the only back up solutions that really work in the long term are the fully automated ones. Anything that requites manual effort becomes something that you'll take care of "mañana".

I have an on site copy of everything, plus an off site copy. The off site is only for disasters.

I would not use a company that has been in the biz for less than 5 years and even then I'd be very careful about selecting them.

1) Crashplan
2) Backup
3) Yes, I rotate a couple of USB drives, keeping the "off" one in a fire resistant box.
4) Backup only. I only process files on one PC at home, so there's no need to access raw files from anywhere else. The imagesI wish to share with others live on Smugmug.
5) Can't think of anything that's lacking. Its been pretty great. And yes, I have had to restore from it.
6) One computer is $60/yr for unlimited storage. I have the family plan which allows 10 computers for $150/yr. There are no bandwidth charges.
7) I use Lightroom and keep all of my raw files in a folder structure on my NAS. I export processed full resolution jpgs to a different folder on the NAS. These are the files other people in the house see. All of it, including the database backups get backed up to Crashplan.

My images are stored in RAID enclosures on my desk, and I use Backblaze to back up my computer and all of my external drives. As has been pointed out, the internet is slow (relatively speaking) so relying on cloud storage for working data isn't really feasible.

I backup to external drives, plus a mirrored drive in the same PC.

For cloud I am Using Amazon, free with Prime and the upload speeds aren't terrible. Initial load took 5 days but monthly's are less than 2 hours typically.

kaitlyn2004 wrote in post #17725017
I wanted to start off by saying that I do not currently do any sort of cloud backup for my RAW files - only for my mobile phone JPGs.

So my question is to those of you who DO backup to "the cloud" (basically offsite storage):
- What service(s) do you use? If more than 1, why?
- Do you SYNC, or just BACK UP (i.e. do you also need to maintain a local copy to have it in the cloud?)
- Do you also maintain a local backup?
- Do you look at this as a backup storage solution IF you needed it, or do you also expect/require "regular access" to the photos in the cloud?
- What do you find is lacking for the service you're using? Does someone else provide it? Why aren't you using them?
- What's your monthly cost? I have TERABYTES of RAW files and worry about transfer bandwidth, monthly charges for space, etc...
- How do you handle your RAW files and the final processed version(s)?

Any other insights/information you could share about your backup and/or cloud access workflows?

1. Crashplan - $60/yr for one computer or $150/yr for up to 10 computers
2. You need to maintain a local copy as there's no way to use Crashplan like a network attached storage
3. Yes, using Time Machine (I'm on Mac)
4. I would restore from my Time Machine first and only use Crashplan if my main copy plus Time Machine were destroyed (i.e. fire)
5. Nothing lacking for me
6. I pay $150/yr and backup my main Mac, my Macbook Air, my wife's Macbook Air and my father's Windows machine
7. I keep all RAW files. I only keep exported JPGs for as long as I need them and then delete them.

I have 2 redundant 2Tb HDD's for my raw files.

I have them all organized by month and then date folders on my Mac
I recently batched them all to Jpeg without applying processing at full res zero compression.
I used Flickr Uploader app to load them privately.

Now all of my full res images exist in their 'cloud' in jpeg form.

If something goes terribly wrong to my Mac, and both my HDD's with the raws, at least they exist online.

While not your exact request regarding raw files, this is what I do and my cost is $0 per year.

And here is Amazon's solution to the question of how to move a lot of data

Amazon Snowball

kaitlyn2004 wrote in post #17725017
I wanted to start off by saying that I do not currently do any sort of cloud backup for my RAW files - only for my mobile phone JPGs.

So my question is to those of you who DO backup to "the cloud" (basically offsite storage):
- What service(s) do you use? If more than 1, why?
- Do you SYNC, or just BACK UP (i.e. do you also need to maintain a local copy to have it in the cloud?)
- Do you also maintain a local backup?
- Do you look at this as a backup storage solution IF you needed it, or do you also expect/require "regular access" to the photos in the cloud?
- What do you find is lacking for the service you're using? Does someone else provide it? Why aren't you using them?
- What's your monthly cost? I have TERABYTES of RAW files and worry about transfer bandwidth, monthly charges for space, etc...
- How do you handle your RAW files and the final processed version(s)?

Any other insights/information you could share about your backup and/or cloud access workflows?

1- Amazon- because I'm cheap, they are a huge company that will probably be around for a while.
2- I maintain a local backup on an external drive.
3- In case of emergency, basically. I have my lightroom catalog in two physical locations at home , 1 jpeg on my website or flickr or both, and 1 raw copy in the cloud. I've yet to have to do a restore, but I have accessed images when not at home.
4- nothing yet.
5- I only back up the raw files I want to keep- the processed versions are uploaded to flickr if I need a jpeg- I can always recreate what I want from the raws.

I usually sit down on Friday or Saturday night after the kids have gone to bed and do all my backups. Local incremental update, upload to the cloud. I'm not worried about the upload speeds- it's never still been running when I wake up in the morning.

tandemhearts wrote in post #17737458
And here is Amazon's solution to the question of how to move a lot of data

Amazon Snowball

I just saw that on their blog - looks like a great way to get a lot of data in - 50TB. It's only $200, including the cost of loading data onto S3, but then of course you pay for S3, EC2 processing costs if you access it, etc. A good way to suck you into their impressive ecosystem.

You absolutely need an offsite backup. Just check out these links:

http://petapixel.com …ars-steal-21-hard-drives/
http://www.huffingtonp​ost.ca …newspaper-_n_7804004.html
http://www.theprovince​.com …theft/10070316/​story.html

I use BackBlaze. It took months to get everything uploaded and it would take a long time to get it back - but it's safe. When I first started the process, I was selective in what it uploaded to ensure that the highest priority files were uploaded first. As that was complete I widened the parameters until all the files made their way up to the cloud.

An additional upside is that it gives me access to any file from any computer in the world. All I need to do is log-on and download any file that I may need.

Don't get caught without an offsite backup.