2012's solution to storing images on the cloud
January 16, 2012 7:25 PM Subscribe
A non-tech savvy friend needs to store 25 - 50 GB of images on the cloud. What is a simple and cheap way to do it nowadays?
While I am internet smart, I have never had to deal with this. How do people do it now?
If it was <5GB I would just show him Dropbox.
While I am internet smart, I have never had to deal with this. How do people do it now?
If it was <5GB I would just show him Dropbox.
(From my experience, you're not going to be able to upload more than a few gigs per day on a typical cable/DSL connection, even going 24/7. So you would need a couple of weeks at least, hoping your internet never went out during that time).
posted by drjimmy11 at 7:30 PM on January 16, 2012 [1 favorite]
posted by drjimmy11 at 7:30 PM on January 16, 2012 [1 favorite]
Flickr. No storage limits with paid accounts.
posted by pmb at 7:31 PM on January 16, 2012 [2 favorites]
posted by pmb at 7:31 PM on January 16, 2012 [2 favorites]
I don't know your syncing needs, but Picasa + Google Web Albums is pretty cheap. 80 gig plan for $20/year.
posted by colecovizion at 7:32 PM on January 16, 2012
posted by colecovizion at 7:32 PM on January 16, 2012
We use LiveDrive. Lots of space (2 TB is standard) and it's very affordable.
posted by Ostara at 7:52 PM on January 16, 2012
posted by Ostara at 7:52 PM on January 16, 2012
What's the reason for doing this—is it just for backup purposes, or do they need to access them regularly? If it's just for backup, Backblaze is only $5/mo and works great.
posted by deansfurniture5 at 8:31 PM on January 16, 2012 [1 favorite]
posted by deansfurniture5 at 8:31 PM on January 16, 2012 [1 favorite]
If he's doing this for backup, he should use a cloud backup provider. Backblaze and CrashPlan both have pretty friendly clients that handle everything, and unlimited data storage.
posted by neckro23 at 10:43 PM on January 16, 2012 [1 favorite]
posted by neckro23 at 10:43 PM on January 16, 2012 [1 favorite]
For backup I like Crashplan a lot. If your friend is in the US, you can seed your initial backup. They'll send you a disk and you put stuff on it and send it back. In a disaster recovery scenario they can overnight you a disk for faster restore which is nice too. You have to pay extra both ways, obviously, but the cost is nominal. The client is pretty feature rich (deduplication, differential backups, VSS support, blah blah blah things a storage nerd cares about) and they have support for different levels of security ranging from "it's okay" to "crazy person level of encryption". I have chosen the latter and I like it.
Keep in mind, they are a small company. I don't know their infrastructure, but I wouldn't expect them to be super awesome redundant and always up like you would expect from Box.net or Dropbox. If there is a disaster and they, say, lose an entire datacenter, I wouldn't be shocked if there was some extended downtime (though I WOULD be shocked if they lost any data). As long as the data being backed up is not mission critical then Crash plan is great and super cheap ($5 a month or less). If the data being backed up is mission critical then you can still use Crashplan but you should do some other things too. Please refer to local IT professional.
posted by tracert at 6:05 AM on January 17, 2012
Keep in mind, they are a small company. I don't know their infrastructure, but I wouldn't expect them to be super awesome redundant and always up like you would expect from Box.net or Dropbox. If there is a disaster and they, say, lose an entire datacenter, I wouldn't be shocked if there was some extended downtime (though I WOULD be shocked if they lost any data). As long as the data being backed up is not mission critical then Crash plan is great and super cheap ($5 a month or less). If the data being backed up is mission critical then you can still use Crashplan but you should do some other things too. Please refer to local IT professional.
posted by tracert at 6:05 AM on January 17, 2012
if it's for backup, i would absolutely use crashplan. i switched to them when mozy changed their pricing structure. i had about 200GB to back up, so seeded it as tracert talks about (way too slow to do it over internet with that much data).
if it's for being able to access stuff from anywhere, i cautiously recommend dropbox. i have reservations about it and don't like using it because what i need to use it for does not line up very well with what it was made for (alas, clients demand its usage...).
my computer geek friends all lurve box.com. but i have no experience with it.
posted by misanthropicsarah at 8:06 AM on January 17, 2012
if it's for being able to access stuff from anywhere, i cautiously recommend dropbox. i have reservations about it and don't like using it because what i need to use it for does not line up very well with what it was made for (alas, clients demand its usage...).
my computer geek friends all lurve box.com. but i have no experience with it.
posted by misanthropicsarah at 8:06 AM on January 17, 2012
I've been meaning to use the Flickr solution myself, but haven't gotten to it so I can't vouch for how well it works in practice.
What I can say, though, is that FlickrSync can automatically sync a folder on your desktop to your Flickr account, with neat features like defaulting to private, etc.
posted by RikiTikiTavi at 3:43 PM on January 17, 2012
What I can say, though, is that FlickrSync can automatically sync a folder on your desktop to your Flickr account, with neat features like defaulting to private, etc.
posted by RikiTikiTavi at 3:43 PM on January 17, 2012
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The main issue would be actually getting them up there- uploading 50gb from a home connection would take an incredibly long time. If he doesn't want to do that, Amazon offers a service where you mail them a hard drive and they mail it back to you after copying the files to their servers.
posted by drjimmy11 at 7:28 PM on January 16, 2012 [2 favorites]