Why backup to the most likely place to fail?

June 24, 2009 6:51 AM

How can I backup my flickr account... but not to my desktop computer?

I know there are applications out there for backing up flickr accounts, but they all seem to want back them up to my least-trusted storage space -- namely, my underpowered, could-die-any-minute desktop computer. Is there a paid service for backing up flickr photos to another server?

(And I'd love to do the same with my gmail.)

posted by Jonathan Harford to computers & internet (6 answers total)

Do you not have a CD or DVD burner? I guess I'm old school that way, so probably not the answer you're looking for.
posted by dave*p at 7:04 AM on June 24, 2009

Here's one possibility:

For Flickr, use whatever app appeals to you for backing up to your desktop computer and then use Jungle Disk (which uses the Amazon S3 service) to make backups to Amazon's cloud.

I'd do something similar for Gmail - use a POP3 or IMAP client (eg Thunderbird, Outlook etc) to download your e-mails locally and then backup those files using the Jungle Disk solution described above.

I use Jungle Disk\S3 to backup a handful of critical files from my PC once a week and it's great value for money and seems to work very well.
posted by sunkzero at 7:14 AM on June 24, 2009

http://lifestreambackup.com

(No personal financial involvement, but it is owned by a friend. And by friend, I mean somebody I've known by email / blog for years but never actually met in real life.)
posted by COD at 8:11 AM on June 24, 2009 [3 favorites]

If you're looking for a service that can backup and store copies of your Flickr photos directly, without going through your computer first, LifeStream comes to mind. When you create an account, you provide LifeStream with your Flickr credentials, and their servers will do the work for you. I believe they run periodic backups and send you emails letting you know the status of each one.

I can't speak for the reliability of the service, since I've never used it. It's not free, though, and you can check out their prices here. It looks like you can pay a yearly ($26.95) or monthly fee ($3.95) to store up to 20GB on their servers, or pay $9.95 yearly to have them store your media on Amazon's S3 (which probably has a fee of its own).
posted by vall at 8:11 AM on June 24, 2009

QOOP will backup your flickr pics to CD/DVD and send it to you.
posted by csimpkins at 8:40 AM on June 24, 2009

COD (and vall)! That is exactly what I was looking for!
posted by Jonathan Harford at 10:30 AM on June 24, 2009