Where to store our pictures online?
August 14, 2011 9:44 PM Subscribe
Best current photo/video/etc archiving site
I have somewhere upwards of 40 GB of pictures and videos and would like to store them on some cloud-based service.
I'm looking for a web-based photo & video archiving service that:
1) Is fairly cheap.
2) Is practically or actually unlimited in space quota (as I don't see any realistic limit on the amount of space I'll need over the next few years).
3) Is gonna be around for the next couple of decades.
4) Allows browsing, organizing, sharing, etc., pics and videos directly on a website.
5) Allows at least 2 computers to be used to upload the files.
6) Ideally lets me upload pics and vids straight from my iPhone.
7) Plays nice with Macs.
This is like 95% for pics and videos, though the ability to store other documents is a plus.
I have somewhere upwards of 40 GB of pictures and videos and would like to store them on some cloud-based service.
I'm looking for a web-based photo & video archiving service that:
1) Is fairly cheap.
2) Is practically or actually unlimited in space quota (as I don't see any realistic limit on the amount of space I'll need over the next few years).
3) Is gonna be around for the next couple of decades.
4) Allows browsing, organizing, sharing, etc., pics and videos directly on a website.
5) Allows at least 2 computers to be used to upload the files.
6) Ideally lets me upload pics and vids straight from my iPhone.
7) Plays nice with Macs.
This is like 95% for pics and videos, though the ability to store other documents is a plus.
I've been using smugmug to host my photo site for over 2 years now... it has been excellent! I liked their interface much better than the flickr one. The reliability and speed have always been great.
1. I think the cost is pretty reasonable, given that they offer unlimited storage for photos on all plans and a whole bunch of other features. Here are the three plans' features and costs. I have the 'Power' plan that allows 10-min full HD video clips. With this account, you can also point your smugmug site to your own domain name (like www.yourname.com) instead of something like name.smugmug.com.
2. Unlimited photos, unlimited videos (10-min clips each)
3. This is of course going to be difficult to get any real assurances. As long as you are using a service fairly regularly, you can always move your stuff to another service if something happens to your current service or if you find something better. As long as you stick to something that is used by a decent number of people, you should be able to find tools to migrate to other services whenever you need to.
4. Yes. Lots of options for site customization, organization and sharing.
5. As far as I know, no limits on how many devices can upload to one account.
6. They do have iPhone / iPad / Android apps.
7. Upload from Mac. Plus, because they have a great API, see this really long list of third-party plugins and tools.
8. I haven't used their any-file backup service called SmugVault (via Amazon S3), but it sounds pretty good if you want that type of cloud storage for your other files.
posted by thewildgreen at 10:32 PM on August 14, 2011 [1 favorite]
1. I think the cost is pretty reasonable, given that they offer unlimited storage for photos on all plans and a whole bunch of other features. Here are the three plans' features and costs. I have the 'Power' plan that allows 10-min full HD video clips. With this account, you can also point your smugmug site to your own domain name (like www.yourname.com) instead of something like name.smugmug.com.
2. Unlimited photos, unlimited videos (10-min clips each)
3. This is of course going to be difficult to get any real assurances. As long as you are using a service fairly regularly, you can always move your stuff to another service if something happens to your current service or if you find something better. As long as you stick to something that is used by a decent number of people, you should be able to find tools to migrate to other services whenever you need to.
4. Yes. Lots of options for site customization, organization and sharing.
5. As far as I know, no limits on how many devices can upload to one account.
6. They do have iPhone / iPad / Android apps.
7. Upload from Mac. Plus, because they have a great API, see this really long list of third-party plugins and tools.
8. I haven't used their any-file backup service called SmugVault (via Amazon S3), but it sounds pretty good if you want that type of cloud storage for your other files.
posted by thewildgreen at 10:32 PM on August 14, 2011 [1 favorite]
I'm using SmugMug and am content with it. To address point 3 directly, SmugMug has always been profitable, and they make most of their money by selling photography hosting. So they have a vested interest in keeping their customers (you, not unrelated advertisers) happy. They are sometimes slow to roll out new features because they have just a small team, but most of their efforts are focused and worthy.
posted by seanmpuckett at 5:20 AM on August 15, 2011 [2 favorites]
posted by seanmpuckett at 5:20 AM on August 15, 2011 [2 favorites]
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posted by smirkette at 9:59 PM on August 14, 2011 [2 favorites]