Which cloud, if any?

[88V8]

In the good olde days, I took rather a lot of pics, hopefully wrote the subject on the back altho not always tuttut, end then they went in the cupboard ready to fall out in a Marx Brotheresque heap, and probably never to be looked at again.
Well, at least I knew they were safe.

Since 2007 I've been digital, still with the same camera that was already five years old when I bought it. Stick in the mud, me??? And today, belatedly doing some editing I couldn't help noticing that I have thousands of pics sitting on our seven year old PC.
OK, it does get backed up weekly to an HDD.
But in addition to the concern that they might somehow evaporate, they're taking up an awful lot of space.

I did use Bucket for a while, but only as a staging post for pics I wanted to post in a forum, I never used it for mass storage, and when they embargoed third-party posting, I stopped using them at all. Yes, I know they reviewed that decision, but it underlined that one's cloud storage is at the whim of the cloud owner.

How do you manage your digital collections?

V8

[swill453]

How do you manage your digital collections?

I have my Pictures folder on my Windows PC synchronised to Google Drive. Currently it's about 30,000 images taking up 97GB.

It means I can access it from my phone or tablet anywhere, and also send shareable links to individual albums (folders) to anyone.

Scott.

[ReformedCharacter]

Might be worth mentioning that Amazon Prime 'membership' allows unlimited photo storage at no additional cost.

RC

[kyu66]

How do you manage your digital collections?

Primary SSD, backup HDD, cloned HDD, copies on local NAS (Network Attached Storage) and backup of NAS.

Never really fancied going the free or paid cloud route, I prefer my multiple local and off-site backups/copies.

Local storage is cheap and easier to restore from if needed.

The NAS has the capability to provide off-site access via VPN if needed, but I rarely enable this.

[Lanark]

I never put anything on the cloud, with all the metadata thats hidden in photographs thats a treasure trove for Google to trawl through.

Simple local backups, but I also cull the collection regularly keeping only the best shots. I used to keep everything but it then becomes such a chore trying to find anything worth looking at.

Also theres a lot to be said for an old style nice photo album with physical prints in it.

[JohnB]

Backup to different internal disk and external drive every 2-3 months, every 6 months I swap the drive my brother stores 1/2 mile away

[jonesa1]

Stored on PC, manually backed up to USB hard drive and a USB flash memory drive, automatically synchronised with Dropbox for offsite storage.

[bungeejumper]

Not quite the same thing, I know, but a few years ago I had the awkward task of deleting a relative's numerous Flickr accounts after his sad and untimely death. The said relative had had some (ahem) arcane photographic interests, and he had a different ID and a different set of passwords for each of them. Together with a lively (ahem) collection of exotic emails from his "fan club". The thought of those photos still being out there was causing his widow a good deal of distress. And I don't think she ever knew about some of his aliases...….

Fortunately I'd found a couple of his passwords in an old exercise book in his study, and I was able to guess several more. But I never did persuade Flickr to even talk to me about deleting the other accounts, even though they agreed that he had indeed been their owner, and that I'd been genuinely tasked with cleaning up. The only bona fide that they'd accept, they said, was a stamped copy of the death certificate. Which, given the amount of grief flying round and the (double ahem) nature of the accounts his wife didn't even know about, was going to make things more than difficult.

The last I heard, his dodgy pics were still up there in cyberspace, and I suppose his online ID was still attracting admiring emails from who knows whom? Be careful out there!

BJ

[Watis]

It's a similar issue on Facebook.

Someone I used to work with died suddenly last year at an early age.

It would have been their birthday the other day. Facebook suggested I might want to post something on their wall to celebrate this.

Well, I had a look anyway - and found that five 'friends' had sent the usual gushing congratulations. So they can't have been very close not to have heard about their friend's demise!

Watis

[gryffron]

I think cloud is a useful extra backup.

It's always a really good idea to have backups away from your house. Thieves often target tech. Fire or theft could deprive you of all your memories.

A separate disk stored at relatives is a great backup idea. Cloud is an alternative, or extra protection.

Bear in mind free storage could vanish at any time. Paid for somewhat less likely, but still not utterly reliable. You can't rely on cloud storage, but it's still a useful extra.

I use a free Dropbox account for the important photos. I picked that when I was still on XP, which the others didn't support. Don't think there's much to choose between them these days.

Gryff

[jfgw]

I use three hard drives in rotation. I can fit more than one backup on each. I also use blu-ray disks for additional backup. These are easy to store off-site.

I have never used cloud storage for backups. What happens to the data if it rains?

Julian F. G. W.