What is the best way to back up photos and videos?
November 15, 2013 7:19 PM Subscribe
What is a good place to back up photos and videos from several different devices into one shared place?
Baby echo is almost six months old, hooray! We have tons and tons of photos and videos of her taken on various cameras/iphones/ipads/etc... and also stored on two different computers that we would like to back up to one place in this mysterious cloud that people keep talking about.
iCloud doesn't work because it's both attached to an individual's account and only stores a limited number of recent photos. Dropbox doesn't work because you have to sync with a folder on one computer and we have two computers and I worry about things getting deleted during synching.
Do you have a recommendation for a service that would allow us to consolidate our photo/videos into one place not in our physical location? I'm willing to pay for it, so it doesn't have to be a free service.
Baby echo is almost six months old, hooray! We have tons and tons of photos and videos of her taken on various cameras/iphones/ipads/etc... and also stored on two different computers that we would like to back up to one place in this mysterious cloud that people keep talking about.
iCloud doesn't work because it's both attached to an individual's account and only stores a limited number of recent photos. Dropbox doesn't work because you have to sync with a folder on one computer and we have two computers and I worry about things getting deleted during synching.
Do you have a recommendation for a service that would allow us to consolidate our photo/videos into one place not in our physical location? I'm willing to pay for it, so it doesn't have to be a free service.
Dropbox doesn't work because you have to sync with a folder on one computer and we have two computers and I worry about things getting deleted during synching.
Your worry is misplaced. This doesn't happen.
posted by jayder at 7:45 PM on November 15, 2013 [1 favorite]
Your worry is misplaced. This doesn't happen.
posted by jayder at 7:45 PM on November 15, 2013 [1 favorite]
Buy a couple of cheap hard drives or USB sticks and drop everything on there and keep them somewhere else.
posted by sanka at 7:46 PM on November 15, 2013
posted by sanka at 7:46 PM on November 15, 2013
I actually think Dropbox is the right solution for this. You can connect it to as many devices as you want. You can also share folders between accounts - so if, say, you and your SO both have your own Dropbox accounts and want to keep most of your personal stuff personal, you can just share one or a few folders.
posted by radioamy at 8:46 PM on November 15, 2013
posted by radioamy at 8:46 PM on November 15, 2013
Nthing that your Dropbox concern is not something to be concerned about. I use Dropbox for this very thing!
posted by c'mon sea legs at 9:27 PM on November 15, 2013
posted by c'mon sea legs at 9:27 PM on November 15, 2013
I use Crashplan as a tertiary "backup" for critical, work-related files. This is more for peace of mind than anything else. In my situation, if I have to restore files from Crashplan, it means I've really shit the bed with my other backups.
Having said that, I'd go with Dropbox because you have OS-like local and web access to your files. Cloud backup services like Backblaze and Crashplan are not really designed with convenient search and retrieval of specific files in mind. With Dropbox you can make web galleries and share files with other people in a snap. And of course the syncing is dead simple.
There are also apps that make accessing Dropbox files on your phone dead simple. Dropbox obviously has an app and as far as third-party apps go, I think Boxie is considered the shit these days. YMMV.
If someone could post a tutorial on how to sync multiple locations, I'm sure I and the OP would appreciate it.. :)
posted by phaedon at 11:58 PM on November 15, 2013
Having said that, I'd go with Dropbox because you have OS-like local and web access to your files. Cloud backup services like Backblaze and Crashplan are not really designed with convenient search and retrieval of specific files in mind. With Dropbox you can make web galleries and share files with other people in a snap. And of course the syncing is dead simple.
There are also apps that make accessing Dropbox files on your phone dead simple. Dropbox obviously has an app and as far as third-party apps go, I think Boxie is considered the shit these days. YMMV.
If someone could post a tutorial on how to sync multiple locations, I'm sure I and the OP would appreciate it.. :)
posted by phaedon at 11:58 PM on November 15, 2013
I back up current pictures to Ubuntu One - which is essentially the same thing as Dropbox. Then a couple of time of year I archive the photos to Amazon S3 Glacier, where I'm currently paying about $3 a month for 70GB of storage. So the photos eventually exist in 3 places - my hard drive, Ubuntu One, and Amazon S3.
posted by COD at 5:56 AM on November 16, 2013
posted by COD at 5:56 AM on November 16, 2013
I use Dropbox and for extra peace of mind back up with Crashplan. I think you can't beat that combination for ease of use. Last time I checked, the main difference between Crashplan and Backblaze is the former allows you to back up selected folders and the latter only backs up everything.
posted by Dansaman at 5:57 AM on November 16, 2013
posted by Dansaman at 5:57 AM on November 16, 2013
What is a good place to back up photos and videos from several different devices into one shared place?
Two big fat USB hard drives that you keep in separate buildings except when you're backing up to them. Both should have identical content when in storage and should spend most of their time not connected to your computers.
Or you can pretend that a copy of your stuff on some server connected to your computers via an Internet link typically no more than a tenth of the speed of USB2 - whose availability you have no control over, whose physical location remains a mystery and with whose owner you have no business relationship - is an actual backup, if that pleases you. Totally your call.
posted by flabdablet at 8:48 AM on November 16, 2013
Two big fat USB hard drives that you keep in separate buildings except when you're backing up to them. Both should have identical content when in storage and should spend most of their time not connected to your computers.
Or you can pretend that a copy of your stuff on some server connected to your computers via an Internet link typically no more than a tenth of the speed of USB2 - whose availability you have no control over, whose physical location remains a mystery and with whose owner you have no business relationship - is an actual backup, if that pleases you. Totally your call.
posted by flabdablet at 8:48 AM on November 16, 2013
Use an online drive like dropbox, google drive, etc. also back things up to an external hard drive, because pictures, music, documents, etc., are a huge pain to lose. My external drive died just after I moved into a new computer, and getting stuff back was a massive pain.
posted by theora55 at 11:54 AM on November 16, 2013
posted by theora55 at 11:54 AM on November 16, 2013
My external drive died just after I moved into a new computer, and getting stuff back was a massive pain.
This illustrates an important principle: if your primary copy dies, your backup copy is no longer a backup. That's why careful people always make at least two identical backups.
Digital information doesn't really exist unless you can physically put your hands on storage media for at least two copies.
posted by flabdablet at 9:27 PM on November 16, 2013
This illustrates an important principle: if your primary copy dies, your backup copy is no longer a backup. That's why careful people always make at least two identical backups.
Digital information doesn't really exist unless you can physically put your hands on storage media for at least two copies.
posted by flabdablet at 9:27 PM on November 16, 2013
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by BlahLaLa at 7:38 PM on November 15, 2013