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

tim wrote in post #17794872
A lot of people complain about CrashPlan uploads being slow. If you want to upload that much BackBlaze will probably be a lot faster. Not sure if BB have versioning though.

I've recently moved some stuff around so I'm in the process of uploading 1.1 TB to Crashplan. Its been humming along at 5.1 Mpbs for a couple of weeks now which is what I have it capped to. I don't know what speed Crashplan is supposedly listing people to, but its more than 5 Mbps.

Lyn2011 wrote in post #17794895
Does anyone use Microsoft OneDrive? 1TB free and plans from 6.99 p/month.
I used it to share photos with friends overseas. It took a while to upload, that's true.

They're good for file sync, but its not a proper backup system.

1 terabyte really isn't that much. As far as I know its designed as a file sharing and collaboration site and NOT a backup. I may be wrong. Storage sites are NOT backup sites. A true backup needs to happen without thought or interaction.

wcameron wrote in post #17796006
1 terabyte really isn't that much. As far as I know its designed as a file sharing and collaboration site and NOT a backup. I may be wrong. Storage sites are NOT backup sites. A true backup needs to happen without thought or interaction.

1TB is MASSIVE. I've photographed 125 or so weddings, around 600 images per wedding. If I convert all of those to high quality, high resolution jpeg it comes to around 250GB. RAW files are huge, and don't all always need to be backed up.

I guess it comes down to what you are keeping and what you don't.

1TB is not really that much for me as I keep everything.

Hard drives are relatively inexpensive. The high school play that I shot last weekend that is taking up 53GB of space on my hard drive doesn't bother me, and I know that I have the original RAW files to do whatever I may need to do in the future. In a few years, I will keep the jpg's and dump the raw files, maybe.

Well I do have a 4TB internal RAID mirror plus another 2TB of media, but 1TB for online backups is pretty big.

tim wrote in post #17796553
Well I do have a 4TB internal RAID mirror plus another 2TB of media, but 1TB for online backups is pretty big.

It is, but that's how much I have on Crashplan. I do shoot and keep my raw files. Lightroom is always improving and I've been able to go back and reprocess older files. I export jpgs and keep them on the NAS for viewing within the house. I don't shoot a ton of video but I also keep the original files and the finished product. I also have a rather large library of ISOs and EXE installers for various programs and utilities I've purchased and downloaded. All of this, along with music and personal and work documents are on Crashplan. Its unlimited so I may as well back it up.

I guess it's about attitude. I keep online backups of critical files, but I consider it my second line backup. My multi-TB backup is on disks in three locations. We're getting to the point now where multi-TB backups are practical for technically minded people.

tim wrote in post #17796779
I guess it's about attitude. I keep online backups of critical files, but I consider it my second line backup. My multi-TB backup is on disks in three locations. We're getting to the point now where multi-TB backups are practical for technically minded people.

Most of my data lives on a Synology. The most important 1 TB goes to Crashplan. I also have a couple of 4 TB backup drives that take turns between connecting to the Synology and a media-rated fire-resistant box. They get the same data set Crashplan does, plus things like DVD rips that are important enough to backup locally, but not enough to send to Crashplan since they're so large. For my most active data, Crashplan is the primary backup since it gets done automatically and keeps a deep version history. I work from home so I don't have anywhere to conveniently store my own off-site backups.

I had been paying for Adobe Revel but that is being shuttered in February 2016, so I will be looking for a replacement. I just purchased the Amazon $5 one year special so I will be giving that a try.

I liked Revel because it handled RAW and I also stored all my video there.

Lyn2011 wrote in post #17794895
Does anyone use Microsoft OneDrive? 1TB free and plans from 6.99 p/month.
I used it to share photos with friends overseas. It took a while to upload, that's true.

^ Be Extremely careful of actual file sizes when backing up to One Drive.
I have tried both from their APP and the Desktop Website.
While you CAN load and display raw files, my originals were slightly larger in size.

Therefore I abandoned that idea and chose to load jpegs to Flickr. Not the same, but they are pre-processed and ready for use if needed.

InfiniteDivide wrote in post #17804240
^ Be Extremely careful of actual file sizes when backing up to One Drive.
I have tried both from their APP and the Desktop Website.
While you CAN load and display raw files, my originals were slightly larger in size.

Therefore I abandoned that idea and chose to load jpegs to Flickr. Not the same, but they are pre-processed and ready for use if needed.

It is a fairly well-known problem, within tech circles, that nearly all files saved to OneDrive for business were modified when synced to the cloud. This was due to the integration of OneDrive with Microsoft SharePoint. It would not surprise me to learn that it is a problem for all "editions" of OneDrive.

http://www.myce.com …-files-as-it-syncs-71168/

http://www.infoworld.c​om …siness-changes-files.html

I use two programs.
One is Stablebit Drivepool. This is basically a simple software raid. I like it because if I need more space I just plug in a new drive and add it to the pool. Bam. Done. ALso, you can tell it to duplicate everything or just specific files or folders. I have it set to duplicate my important stuff (photos, lightroom catalogs, and important documents.). I have 3 drives in the pool and it makes sure that the duplicated data is stored stored on two drives (you can also make it do triplicate or more) incase of sudden failure. They also have a program called Scanner which monitors your drives, and can integrate with Drivepool and automaticaly evacuate data from a disk that shows signs of failing. Finally all the data is stored as standard ntfs files, so if you end up in a situation where you need to get at your data but all you have is the drive (mobo died or cpu fried or something), you can plug it into any windows PC and copy the data. No proprietary programs or hardware needed.

2nd is Crashplan. I picked crashplan over backblaze because it also does local backups. If you have slow upload speed to crashplan check your settings. The default settings for compression, dedupe, and etc. are high, so your bottleneck is your cpu instead of your bandwidth. I have several backup sets. Important stuff (again photography and important docs) gets backed up to the cloud, and also to a local external drive. Less importat stuff is just backed up to the cloud. If you know someone who also uses crashplan you can use them as an offsite backup target too (and vis versa).

So I have two copies on my PC (not a real backup per say, but it protects against drive failure which is my main concern), a copy on an external drive, and a copy in the cloud.

I use Amazon for my personal photos, took a long time to upload, but I wasn't sitting there watching it.

I use Smugmug to store all of my delivered files. I have 2 copies on local hard drives, and I use Transporter Sync to sync and back everything up at my partners house. Transporter works very well and it gives me access to everything I have anywhere and on any device, as long as I have internet access.

I would use Amazon, but I've heard they using it for business is frowned upon...

Transporter Sync was very easy to set up and works very well....I just don't know what the future holds for that company.

I recently went through this analysis as well with the goal of having a cost-effective solution. Ultimately, I decided to use:

- Amazon and Flickr for cloud storage. Amazon gives unlimited photo storage (including raw) to Prime members, which I am. Even non-members only pay $12 a year for it. So I use Amazon for all the raw files and Flickr for all the jpegs (for sake of having a diversified cloud solution). Upload speed has not been a concern with my ISP.

- Portable USB 3.0 hard drive for all photos and vids at home, backed up to an identical drive kept at an offsite location. Every 2-3 weeks, I swap them out.