Cloud backup/storage??

[Box Brownie]

I know this has come a few times over the years but as I am now 'revisiting' it for my purposes I just wished to get the current lowdown on 'what is best' now???

TIA for user experiences et al

Hopefully at max £100 per year

 

[troutfisher]

Have a look at zenfolio it seems to be on offer at the moment with 50% off annual plans
I have used it for years and I don't know about now but it has never increased

 

[Craikeybaby]

Do you just want to store files for disaster recovery type situations? Or do you also want to be able to view the files?

 

[hunnymonster]

Amazon prime @ £95/yr comes with unlimited image storage & other "Prime benefits"

Is it the best, undoubtedly not, but I'm using it as a third level backup (or 4th if you count the backup at my bro-in-law's house)

 

[wiltw]

While you are seeking a vendor with 'the best solution' in your thread, I will deviate from that goal to point out that caution is needed by the consumer, in the selection process of a 'cloud storage' vendor...DOZENS of such services have either

1. gone out of business entirely (gone bankrupt, in some cases), or
2. withdrawn from offering such storage services

over the years. And just because you deal with a 'too large to fail' vendor, one of the aforementioned has applied!. IOW, cloud storage is not a good 'archival' solution that should be relied upon to the exclusion of other methods, to serve as a backup to that cloud solution!

Two somewhat recent (Jan. 2023) examples...

• "American Virtual Cloud Technologies Inc. filed for bankruptcy Wednesday and plans to sell part or all of its cloud communications business in chapter 11 after running out of time to make the company profitable." (January 2023)
• "After nearly twelve years, Apple is shuttering one of its most innovative cloud-based photo services, with all uploaded photos set for deletion by July 26, 2023." (June 2023)

 

[Box Brownie]

Have a look at zenfolio it seems to be on offer at the moment with 50% off annual plans
I have used it for years and I don't know about now but it has never increased

Thanks, will check their offers and details.

Do you just want to store files for disaster recovery type situations? Or do you also want to be able to view the files?

As I perceive it, it is for backup not for viewing access. The files will raw, Tiff, jpeg

Amazon prime @ £95/yr comes with unlimited image storage & other "Prime benefits"

Is it the best, undoubtedly not, but I'm using it as a third level backup (or 4th if you count the backup at my bro-in-law's house)

I have prime but am unsure whether and for how long I might keep it???

So looking for a more specialised service.

While you are seeking a vendor with 'the best solution' in your thread, I will deviate from that goal to point out that caution is needed by the consumer, in the selection process of a 'cloud storage' vendor...DOZENS of such services have either

1. gone out of business entirely (gone bakrupt, in some cases), or
2. withdrawn from offering such storage services

over the years. And just because you deal with a 'too large to fail' vendor, one of the aforementioned has applied!. IOW, cloud storage is not a good 'archival' solution that should be relied upon to the exclusion of other methods, to serve as a backup to that cloud solution!

Two somewhat recent (Jan. 2023) examples...

• "American Virtual Cloud Technologies Inc. filed for bankruptcy Wednesday and plans to sell part or all of its cloud communications business in chapter 11 after running out of time to make the company profitable." (January 2023)
• "After nearly twelve years, Apple is shuttering one of its most innovative cloud-based photo services, with all uploaded photos set for deletion by July 26, 2023." (June 2023)

Point taken ......... Backblaze and iDrive get mentioned and AFAIK have big user base and legacy of performance?

 

[srichards]

For actual backup I use crashplan. Used it for several years. It’s just got back a load of missing stuff after a drive failure. Seems to work ok.

I have photos in iCloud too. Also documents. I like stuff to be saved in three places so backup, computer and iCloud or similar.

 

[Craikeybaby]

For archival storage, I use AWS S3 Deep Glacier storage. It is not very user friendly, but as I use AWS in my day job (and most side projects) that isn't a problem for me. I am paying <$5 per month for the 1TB+ I currently have on there. However, it gets expensive if you ever need to get the data out in a hurry, but I am working on the basis that if I need to get this data, my house will have burnt down and I will have lost everything, so I won't be in too much of a rush...

...

Two somewhat recent (Jan. 2023) examples...

• "American Virtual Cloud Technologies Inc. filed for bankruptcy Wednesday and plans to sell part or all of its cloud communications business in chapter 11 after running out of time to make the company profitable." (January 2023)
• "After nearly twelve years, Apple is shuttering one of its most innovative cloud-based photo services, with all uploaded photos set for deletion by July 26, 2023." (June 2023)

What service did Apple shut down?

 

[Brentor]

I looked into this earlier in the year as Backblaze, which I have been using for a few years, were hiking up their charges. I had also just moved from PC to Mac and wanted something with faster upload speeds. However I decided to stick with BB as it just works for me without a problem. I also started a subscription to IDrive as it was very cheap for the first year. So far I still prefer BB.

The amount you want to backup is obviously a factor in the pricing for most providers.

 

[wiltw]

Point taken ......... Backblaze and iDrive get mentioned and AFAIK have big user base and legacy of performance?

And Apple does not have a big user base...which has not stopped them from discontinuing cloud storage?!

"My Photo Stream is being officially discontinued on July 26th with Apple pointing its remaining users towards iCloud Photos."​

 

[Box Brownie]

I looked into this earlier in the year as Backblaze, which I have been using for a few years, were hiking up their charges. I had also just moved from PC to Mac and wanted something with faster upload speeds. However I decided to stick with BB as it just works for me without a problem. I also started a subscription to IDrive as it was very cheap for the first year. So far I still prefer BB.

The amount you want to backup is obviously a factor in the pricing for most providers.

I think at this stage 4-5TB will suffice for some time to come.

And Apple does not have a big user base...which has not stopped them from discontinuing cloud storage?!

"My Photo Stream is being officially discontinued on July 26th with Apple pointing its remaining users towards iCloud Photos."​

I surmise this is where two cloud suppliers is best for absolute mission critical needs....to have a fallback....of which mine is not one.

 

[LCPete]

While you are seeking a vendor with 'the best solution' in your thread, I will deviate from that goal to point out that caution is needed by the consumer, in the selection process of a 'cloud storage' vendor...DOZENS of such services have either

1. gone out of business entirely (gone bankrupt, in some cases), or
2. withdrawn from offering such storage services

over the years. And just because you deal with a 'too large to fail' vendor, one of the aforementioned has applied!. IOW, cloud storage is not a good 'archival' solution that should be relied upon to the exclusion of other methods, to serve as a backup to that cloud solution!

Two somewhat recent (Jan. 2023) examples...

• "American Virtual Cloud Technologies Inc. filed for bankruptcy Wednesday and plans to sell part or all of its cloud communications business in chapter 11 after running out of time to make the company profitable." (January 2023)
• "After nearly twelve years, Apple is shuttering one of its most innovative cloud-based photo services, with all uploaded photos set for deletion by July 26, 2023." (June 2023)

They are closing one small feature of iCloud (the Photo Stream) as almost no one uses it. The rest of iCloud is not affected

 

[Musicman]

They are closing one small feature of iCloud (the Photo Stream) as almost no one uses it. The rest of iCloud is not affected

Exactly.

My Photo Stream uploaded a copy of your 1,000 most recent iPhone photos to the cloud for temporary access from your other devices for 30 days. After that they expired and were deleted from My Photo Stream. It never was permanent cloud storage, backup or sharing.

All the photos from my phone are still mirrored in iCloud with iCloud Photos, which effectively replaced My Photo Stream in 2017 and is long term cloud storage.

 

[ecoleman]

If you are using this purely for backup purposes then I recommend Backblaze

 

[Faldrax]

While you are seeking a vendor with 'the best solution' in your thread, I will deviate from that goal to point out that caution is needed by the consumer, in the selection process of a 'cloud storage' vendor...DOZENS of such services have either

1. gone out of business entirely (gone bankrupt, in some cases), or
2. withdrawn from offering such storage services

over the years. And just because you deal with a 'too large to fail' vendor, one of the aforementioned has applied!. IOW, cloud storage is not a good 'archival' solution that should be relied upon to the exclusion of other methods, to serve as a backup to that cloud solution!

Two somewhat recent (Jan. 2023) examples...

• "American Virtual Cloud Technologies Inc. filed for bankruptcy Wednesday and plans to sell part or all of its cloud communications business in chapter 11 after running out of time to make the company profitable." (January 2023)
• "After nearly twelve years, Apple is shuttering one of its most innovative cloud-based photo services, with all uploaded photos set for deletion by July 26, 2023." (June 2023)

However, as the Cloud backup should be only one of a multi-backup strategy, then you have to be extremely unfortunate for them to shut down without notice the same day as your house burns to the ground, thus destroying all copies.

If they discontinue the service, you simply switch to another before they close.
If they shut down without notice you simply switch to another before disaster strikes and you lose the originals (and any on-site backups).

 

[ChrisR]

Another Crashplan for Small Business (!) user here. I like the fact that it does a local backup to a USB drive as well as the remote backup. The latter I'm treating mainly as a precaution against getting ransomware, since this PC is used by the less danger-savvy users in the household (not to say that more danger-savvy users couldn't also get hit!).

I do think it's strange that, AFAICS there's nothing in the Windows world that comes anywhere near Time Machine, which I use on my Mac, with drives left in several remote places. Plug in a drive and it does a backup for you!

 

[wiltw]

However, as the Cloud backup should be only one of a multi-backup strategy, then you have to be extremely unfortunate for them to shut down without notice the same day as your house burns to the ground, thus destroying all copies.

If they discontinue the service, you simply switch to another before they close.
If they shut down without notice you simply switch to another before disaster strikes and you lose the originals (and any on-site backups).

As I clearly stated in my original cautionary post (#5)
" IOW, cloud storage is not a good 'archival' solution that should be relied upon to the exclusion of other methods, to serve as a backup to that cloud solution!"

 

[JonathanRyan]

Always a relevant Xkcd....

 

[A_S]

I'd like to suggest another solution.

I've just bought myself a second synology NAS that I will be backing up to remotely.

So I have 1x NAS at home which is setup with Synology drive - a "simulated" cloud if you will that gives me access to all the files i choose on my NAS remotely.

I also host all my archive on my NAS and just yesterday i set up Tailscale to create a VPN tunnel between my laptop and my NAS so via a mapped network drive I can access my archive remotely in lightroom.

All this set to periodically backup to second synology NAS - I bought a refurbished DS920J for £205 direct from synology which I will host offsite and use hyperbackup to backup my NAS "folders/shares" periodically, once a week, or 3x a week for my photo archive.

Saves paying cloud fees, being tied to a cloud provider and payback (I worked it out) is around 3 years vs some cloud providers - with the added bonus I am in control and don't have monthly fees:

Good workflow here:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLYl5sY0sL98ifl2M-TM7KMmH438ROmlZh

 

[hunnymonster]

Amazon prime @ £95/yr comes with unlimited image storage & other "Prime benefits"

Is it the best, undoubtedly not, but I'm using it as a third level backup (or 4th if you count the backup at my bro-in-law's house)

As I clearly stated in my original cautionary post (#5)
" IOW, cloud storage is not a good 'archival' solution that should be relied upon to the exclusion of other methods, to serve as a backup to that cloud solution!"

As if to illustrate the fragility of relying on the cloud - Amazon Photos in the UK took a lie down on Wednesday afternoon/evening for at least 8 hours - when you launched the app none of your photos appeared but the placeholders for them did. Similarly on the web - placeholders but no pics & none were downloadable... All back now but if that was your sole backup solution you'd have a bum twitching like a rabbit's nose until it came back.