Amazon drive alternatives?

nandbytes

nandbytes

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The main reason I signed up to Amazon prime was for their unlimited photo storage and backup. With Amazon drive closing at end of the year the Amazon photos doesn't provide the same level of features or support that I need.

I am looking for alternatives that ideally costs less than a prime membership.

Requirements:
1. Need to act as both photo storage and backup.
This kinda takes out solutions like backblaze. Like Amazon drive once my file is uploaded I don't want it deleted unless I manually delete them from the cloud service. So me deleting them locally should not be reflected online which is what pure backup solutions like backblaze seem to do.
2. Need unlimited storage or something that seems unlimited to me i.e. something like 20-30TBs.
3. Need to be able to automatically back up folders (I think most of them can do this)

Any ideas or suggestions would be appreciated
 
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Why not get yourself one of the smaller Synology NAS units?

No more relying on 3rd parties who shut services down at the drop of a hat.
Synology has Synology photos which you can install on your phone / tablet and will backup automatically to the NAS when connected to Wifi.

I also upoload and store all of my raw files directly to the nas and access them directly from the NAS in LR.

The NAS can also be setup to backup to Backblaze automatically each day/hour etc.
 
How tech-savvy are you? I use AWS S3 for this sort of thing I have terabytes up there and am paying a few dollars a month, however, it takes a bit of effort to set up.

Synology is also a good bet, although it needs to be configured to work as you want. FWIW, I have my Synology backing up to AWS nightly.
 
Synology NAS is a great solution and has also given me access to images that had to be hived off my machine years ago. It’s an accessible duplicate, in addition to USB drives that are exclusively back-up (one copy at home, another off site).

Also look at website providers. I’m not sure if you have a website, but I use my Zenfolio website to store my images, majority only accessible to myself via the admin access. I have a feeling they no longer do unlimited storage accounts but may be others that do.
 
Thanks for the suggestions
I already have a NAS (well something equivalent I have "hand crafted") but if my house burns down so does the NAS. It provides redundancy but not backup.

My understanding about Zenfolio, flickr etc is that they only work with jpgs. I want to store RAWs.

Craikeybaby said:
How tech-savvy are you? I use AWS S3 for this sort of thing I have terabytes up there and am paying a few dollars a month, however, it takes a bit of effort to set up.

Synology is also a good bet, although it needs to be configured to work as you want. FWIW, I have my Synology backing up to AWS nightly.
Click to expand...

I have experiance with AWS S3, use for storage at work. Well I have used various S3 implementations over the years...
hmm... could set it up I suppose and write a script or two to do the backups automatically I guess.... didn't want to bring more work into my hobby and was hoping something would do this.
I guess it makes a lot of sense from money PoV.

But which tier/type AWS S3 do you use for storage? I can't imagine one of the frequent access ones being cheap but I guess glacier is quite cheap.
 
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Just to add I use my NAS to store pretty much all my RAW files. But only the ones I import into LR i.e. my keepers are uploaded to Amazon drive automatically.
I don't bother backing up everything but I'd like to have cloud backup for my keepers in the worst case scenario.
 
Just responding with a couple of thoughts.
If this below is really a problem:
nandbytes said:
Requirements:
1. Need to act as both photo storage and backup.
This kinda takes out solutions like backblaze. Like Amazon drive once my file is uploaded I don't want it deleted unless I manually delete them from the cloud service. So me deleting them locally should not be reflected online which is what pure backup solutions like backblaze seem up do.
Click to expand...
For a start "Backblaze keeps old file versions and deleted files for 30-days. Now you can extend that time up to 1-Year for an additional $2/Month."
So if you did accidentally delete a file, it would be there for 30 days in the cloud even with the basic package or a year with the additional price.

Also if you modify the workflow slightly: treat your local/NAS backup as being the backup of everything (ie before culling any files) then you have everything there for the "just incase I accidentally delete a file" or the "I wonder if I had another angle on that shot that I didn't consider before".

Backblaze can backup external drives as well as your computer's internal drives, so if for example you do your editing on the files on the D drive and keep a copy of everything on the external E drive, both would be backed up into the cloud giving you the option of recovering any of those files.
For example, I put RAW files onto my D drive, edit on there (I only delete a RAW file if it's out of focus). I copy the complete set of RAW files to my external drive.
Once I finish the edit and have exported the finished files to the D drive, I copy them all to the external drive.
Meanwhile Backblaze has been uploading them all to the cloud, meaning I have a cloud backup of both the D drive copy and the external drive copy.

However, Backblaze doesn't solve the "photo" site issue. I've not yet found a good solution that allows me to upload loads of photos, view them and share them with a selected bunch of people.
Google Photos kinda does it, but I want to be able to organise the images into albums/folders not just have an unorganised stream of thousands of images. Also I don't want all my photos on their servers.
SmugMug is one option that allows you to upload a lot of images, organise into folders/albums and share them with differing access levels. But it's aimed an professionals and even the basic one costs $132 per year. https://www.smugmug.com/plans

Obviously a home-based NAS could give you the backup space and can host a web-gallery for your photos. But you'd still need to add in something for an off-site/cloud backup.
 
ABTog said:
Just responding with a couple of thoughts.
If this below is really a problem:

For a start "Backblaze keeps old file versions and deleted files for 30-days. Now you can extend that time up to 1-Year for an additional $2/Month."
So if you did accidentally delete a file, it would be there for 30 days in the cloud even with the basic package or a year with the additional price.

Also if you modify the workflow slightly: treat your local/NAS backup as being the backup of everything (ie before culling any files) then you have everything there for the "just incase I accidentally delete a file" or the "I wonder if I had another angle on that shot that I didn't consider before".

Backblaze can backup external drives as well as your computer's internal drives, so if for example you do your editing on the files on the D drive and keep a copy of everything on the external E drive, both would be backed up into the cloud giving you the option of recovering any of those files.
For example, I put RAW files onto my D drive, edit on there (I only delete a RAW file if it's out of focus). I copy the complete set of RAW files to my external drive.
Once I finish the edit and have exported the finished files to the D drive, I copy them all to the external drive.
Meanwhile Backblaze has been uploading them all to the cloud, meaning I have a cloud backup of both the D drive copy and the external drive copy.

However, Backblaze doesn't solve the "photo" site issue. I've not yet found a good solution that allows me to upload loads of photos, view them and share them with a selected bunch of people.
Google Photos kinda does it, but I want to be able to organise the images into albums/folders not just have an unorganised stream of thousands of images. Also I don't want all my photos on their servers.
SmugMug is one option that allows you to upload a lot of images, organise into folders/albums and share them with differing access levels. But it's aimed an professionals and even the basic one costs $132 per year. https://www.smugmug.com/plans

Obviously a home-based NAS could give you the backup space and can host a web-gallery for your photos. But you'd still need to add in something for an off-site/cloud backup.
Click to expand...
Thanks for your thoughts

My backup/storage workflow:
1) All RAW files are copied on a NAS with two harddrives.
2) While the copies to NAS happen, I import my keepers to LR. The imported files are backed up to Amazon drive/photos automatically using the Amazon photos backup app.
3) At the beginning of a new Calendar year I copy out the previous years import to an external NVMe-SSD which houses all my keepers going back to 2013. So only the current calendar years import is on my local laptop harddrive. In the off chance I need to access/process my files from previous year I just connect the NVME and everything is there. But 3-4 months into the new year I rarely need to connect my NVME.

Places of conflict with backblaze:
1) All my RAW files will never go onto backblaze so no issues.
2) & 3) I will sometimes travel for a long period of time which means religiously connecting my laptop and especually my external NVME every 30 days may not always be possible. So backblaze will delete my files. Having to establish connection to backblaze every 30 days is massive chore especially for my NVME and I don't need that in my life (real first world problems here! lol). But I guess the one year extention solves this issue but also add additional cost (but I think its still cheaper than Amazon drive and also I can backup my non-images).

Once again thanks for the thoughts very helpful, I will think this through again.
 
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that's a huge amount of space, 20-30TB!!!
the only one I can find with that capacity is idrive business
a good 30TB NAS can cost £1k.

I have a 6TB drive attached to my computer and another to the router.
but cloud is more secure in the long run
 
Since you are tech savvy Backblaze has B2 which is their version of s3 effectively and very cheap
 
DizMatt said:
that's a huge amount of space, 20-30TB!!!
the only one I can find with that capacity is idrive business
a good 30TB NAS can cost £1k.
Click to expand...
Well at the moment I have 3TB-ish on Amazon drive. That's roughly 1TB per year.
So 20-30TB keeps me happy for another 15-ish year (taking into account higher res sensors, larger files etc).
Then again who know what is happen in 15 years....

DizMatt said:
I have a 6TB drive attached to my computer and another to the router.
but cloud is more secure in the long run
Click to expand...
I have local backups which is are mostly for redundancy. I need/want something "off-site" I guess.
 
nandbytes said:
...
2) & 3) I will sometimes travel for a long period of time which means religiously connecting my laptop and especually my external NVME every 30 days may not always be possible. So backblaze will delete my files. Having to establish connection to backblaze every 30 days is massive chore especially for my NVME and I don't need that in my life (real first world problems here! lol). But I guess the one year extention solves this issue but also add additional cost (but I think its still cheaper than Amazon drive and also I can backup my non-images).

...
Click to expand...
You don't need to connect to Backblaze every 30 days - files only get deleted from BackBlaze if the backblaze app on your pc detects that you have deleted them - in which case it marks them for deletion in 30 days (or 1 year, if you opt for the extension).

At least, that's my understanding of how it works - if you have read differently, please let me know!
 
nandbytes said:
The main reason I signed up to Amazon prime was for their unlimited photo storage and backup. With Amazon drive closing at end of the year the Amazon photos doesn't provide the same level of features or support that I need.

I am looking for alternatives that ideally costs less than a prime membership.

Requirements:
1. Need to act as both photo storage and backup.
This kinda takes out solutions like backblaze. Like Amazon drive once my file is uploaded I don't want it deleted unless I manually delete them from the cloud service. So me deleting them locally should not be reflected online which is what pure backup solutions like backblaze seem up do.
2. Need unlimited storage or something that seems unlimited to me i.e. something like 20-30TBs.
3. Need to be able to automatically back up folders (I think most of them can do this)

Any ideas or suggestions would be appreciated
Click to expand...

Other than Blackblaze and a NAS as suggested above, I have no other options.

Can I ask what Amazon Drive provides that Amazon Photos doesn’t. I use both, so just wondering what I have overlooked.
 
Faldrax said:
You don't need to connect to Backblaze every 30 days - files only get deleted from BackBlaze if the backblaze app on your pc detects that you have deleted them - in which case it marks them for deletion in 30 days (or 1 year, if you opt for the extension).

At least, that's my understanding of how it works - if you have read differently, please let me know!
Click to expand...
My understanding is app on the computer is also responsible for backing up external drive.
And if you don't connect the external drive for 30 days the files that were uploaded from the drive gets deleted.

On a base level the ideal solution is that files are never deleted but that's a storage solution and backblaze is only providing a backup solution. Unless you use their B2 solution suggested above.
 
Brentor said:
Can I ask what Amazon Drive provides that Amazon Photos doesn’t. I use both, so just wondering what I have overlooked.
Click to expand...
Can't create folders and sub folders in photos. You can only create albums which is isn't useful for organising.
Having said that photos app does maintain folder structure in the back when I backup the lightroom import folder which is organised by year and then dates for subfolders.
 
I'm just watching this thread as I've started to look at these options. I currently back up on two external hard drives and have just started to use Prime Photos (for keepers) as it appears you can upload JPEG and RAW files. I've just got images stored in albums that match the names of the albums I've created in lightroom.

I'd not heard of other options before and had no idea what a NAS was lol
 
One more reason for wanting a solution that doesn't delete files when I delete them locally is because I produce large tiff/dng during post processing. These come from panos, stacks etc. I keep the original RAW files locally but I don't like keeping these large tiff/dngs locally as they take a lot of space individually (sometimes GBs each). I can always reproduce these files but it's a lot easier to be able to just download them.
 
https://www.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/comments/10uh8l3
View: https://www.reddit.com/r/DataHoarder/comments/10uh8l3/aws_glacier_deep_archive_is_far_superior_to/


This is a very interesting read and I think it would be wise ( for all of us) and really map out your back up strategy. If you start with your local copies on the network redundancy here is very easy and we are not far off 20TB drives ( think you can already get (14TB) ones, so two synologys in the home with data copied across multlple drives ( not raid ) will be very low risk

Then you need to factor in natural disaster fire or theft to the local solution - it seems AWS deep glacier long term is the way to go, but you would need to put money aside or be prepared to pay a high amount to get ALL the data back
 
nandbytes said:
I have experiance with AWS S3, use for storage at work. Well I have used various S3 implementations over the years...
hmm... could set it up I suppose and write a script or two to do the backups automatically I guess.... didn't want to bring more work into my hobby and was hoping something would do this.
I guess it makes a lot of sense from money PoV.

But which tier/type AWS S3 do you use for storage? I can't imagine one of the frequent access ones being cheap but I guess glacier is quite cheap.
Click to expand...
Yeah, I have a rule set up to move it to Glacier fairly quickly, but in my use case it is a third copy, so we are talking major disaster recovery if I need to access the files.
 
Well at the moment I have 3TB-ish on Amazon drive. That's roughly 1TB per year.
nandbytes said:
So 20-30TB keeps me happy for another 15-ish year (taking into account higher res sensors, larger files etc).
Then again who know what is happen in 15 years....


I have local backups which is are mostly for redundancy. I need/want something "off-site" I guess.
Click to expand...

well then for me it's fairly easy.
You want 30 TB for in 15 year's time.
You need 4-5 TB for short and medium term use.
Put this into your search criteria. As time goes on, then storage will become cheaper.
Right now you're limiting your options and pricing yourself out of the market.
Look at what you need, not at what you might want in 10+ years time.
idrive looks to be the most logical option
 
DizMatt said:
Well at the moment I have 3TB-ish on Amazon drive. That's roughly 1TB per year.


well then for me it's fairly easy.
You want 30 TB for in 15 year's time.
You need 4-5 TB for short and medium term use.
Put this into your search criteria. As time goes on, then storage will become cheaper.
Right now you're limiting your options and pricing yourself out of the market.
Look at what you need, not at what you might want in 10+ years time.
idrive looks to be the most logical option
Click to expand...

Short to medium term 4-5TB would suffice. But as the data grows moving it to another provider is PIA. Uploads will take for ever!
2TB I am caculating roughly 100 hours. I really don't like keeping my laptop on all day and night simply for uploading. So for me 100 hours is like one month!

now if I need to upload 4-5TB that's 2-3 months. Though I guess at this stage it makes sense to just suck it up and leave the backup going for a week or whatever and get it done.

not too keen to change providers too often if I can help it.

Thank you for suggesting idrive. Their 10TB option would still last me a fair while and its fairly well priced for that.
But once out of their "offer" price for two years, I can envisage me having paying up significantly more after two years.
I guess with idrive I would just have to get whatever I need for next two years and then upgrade when I need more.... :thinking:

Edit:
Looks like my metal maths sucks, its actually 0.3TB per year that I need :facepalm:
ok now that changes a lot of things!
so 5TB will easily take me another 5 years

I was thinking of unlimited storage as I also wanted to video storage but honestly speaking I haven't got huge lots of videos to store.
We only really shoot videos on our phones so they are not huge. I did mean get more into it but I guess I should cross that bridge when I come across it
 
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have you thought of dropbox? I can transfer the pics to my tablet from camera then upload to dropbox to free up the space on tablet then edit on pc later when i get home. You can store all sorts of files on dropbox and even make special password coded shared folders. I have my tablet, my laptop, and pc connected to dropbox and can access anything on any of my devices
 
ADragon said:
have you thought of dropbox? I can transfer the pics to my tablet from camera then upload to dropbox to free up the space on tablet then edit on pc later when i get home. You can store all sorts of files on dropbox and even make special password coded shared folders. I have my tablet, my laptop, and pc connected to dropbox and can access anything on any of my devices
Click to expand...
Yes, I have a free account too (in fact have had it since release like 15 years ago or whatever).
Their paid plans for storages options above 2TB are rather expensive compared to competition.
 
nandbytes said:
My understanding is app on the computer is also responsible for backing up external drive.
And if you don't connect the external drive for 30 days the files that were uploaded from the drive gets deleted.

On a base level the ideal solution is that files are never deleted but that's a storage solution and backblaze is only providing a backup solution. Unless you use their B2 solution suggested above.
Click to expand...
OK, I don't use it to backup any external drives (the external drives I use are, themselves, backups), so hadn't looked into the policy on disconnected external drives - as you say, it's quite clear that these do need to be connected at least once every 30 days to maintain the backup.
I did note that the 1 year extension to the deletion option is only $2/month - it might be worth checking with them how this would work with respect to external drives
- IF $2/month means that an external drive gets flagged for deletion if not seen for 30 days, but the data is not deleted for a further year, then you probably only need to plug the drives in once per year to maintain it as a backup - this be the most cost effective option.
 
I am in a similar position but I have a NAS and use Amazon Photos as my backup.

I'm working on the idea that I continuing using Amazon Photos once Drive support goes, and if the worst case happens and my NAS were to die, I could redownload from Amazon Photos and a simply script to restore files back into folders.

Currently have around 4TB on Amazon Photos so really don't want to move, plus the Amazon Photos product is good, especially with facial recognition.
 
Tysonator said:
I have Amazon Prime and have not used the photo storage option.

Is the this option of free 5GB ending soon ! ?
Click to expand...

If you have Prime then you get unlimited photo storage with Amazon Prime but only 5gb for videos.

The free 5gb is for non Prime members.

It is Amazon Drive that is ending.
 
Slightly off topic, but I find the upload speed to Amazon Photos to be painfully slow. I have fast internet although upload is 25 Mbps and use an Ethernet connection.
 
Brentor said:
Slightly off topic, but I find the upload speed to Amazon Photos to be painfully slow. I have fast internet although upload is 25 Mbps and use an Ethernet connection.
Click to expand...
around 3MB jpeg a second at capacity? What speeds are you seeing?
 
Brentor said:
Slightly off topic, but I find the upload speed to Amazon Photos to be painfully slow. I have fast internet although upload is 25 Mbps and use an Ethernet connection.
Click to expand...
Uploading multiple smaller files is a lot slower than the large files used for speed tests.
 
For about $50 a year you can get unlimited storage with a website hosting service (shared). Use website development software with FTP integration like DreamWeaver (paid) or CoffeeCup (open source) to sync the files... not quite as easy as automatically detecting/uploading new files, but it also will not do anything you don't tell it to do. Plus, you can use it for file sharing, portfolio, etc...
 
Brentor said:
If you have Prime then you get unlimited photo storage with Amazon Prime but only 5gb for videos.

The free 5gb is for non Prime members.

It is Amazon Drive that is ending.
Click to expand...
That is good to know as my might save my Show Case images on Prime !

many thanks

T
 
sk66 said:
For about $50 a year you can get unlimited storage with a website hosting service (shared). Use website development software with FTP integration like DreamWeaver (paid) or CoffeeCup (open source) to sync the files... not quite as easy as automatically detecting/uploading new files, but it also will not do anything you don't tell it to do. Plus, you can use it for file sharing, portfolio, etc...
Click to expand...
I can do the automation myself if it saves money in the long run.
the option you mention is very interesting.
Got any examples of website hosting services you could share please?
 
nandbytes said:
I can do the automation myself if it saves money in the long run.
the option you mention is very interesting.
Got any examples of website hosting services you could share please?
Click to expand...
Mine is with Hostmonster, but I don't really recommend them for full website/email/etc because their shared hosting uses shared email servers which get flagged for spam regularly (I'll be moving soon).

Here's a short list I found of other options... and spammy email servers aren't much of a concern if you're not using them.
themeisle.com

5 Best Unlimited Hosting Plans (Websites, Bandwidth, and Storage)

Looking for the best unlimited hosting plans for unlimited websites, bandwidth, and storage? We compare 5 great options - starting at $3.50.
themeisle.com themeisle.com

Find one that offers free/automatic server backups and you've got an extra layer of protection and all of your files in a compressed (downloadable/movable) format.
 
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sk66 said:
Mine is with Hostmonster, but I don't really recommend them for full website/email/etc because their shared hosting uses shared email servers which get flagged for spam regularly (I'll be moving soon).

Here's a short list I found of other options... and spammy email servers aren't much of a concern if you're not using them.
themeisle.com

5 Best Unlimited Hosting Plans (Websites, Bandwidth, and Storage)

Looking for the best unlimited hosting plans for unlimited websites, bandwidth, and storage? We compare 5 great options - starting at $3.50.
themeisle.com themeisle.com

Find one that offers free/automatic server backups and you've got an extra layer of protection and all of your files in a compressed (downloadable/movable) format.
Click to expand...
thanks, I have actually used bluehost before.
they were pretty good actually but getting support at some points was a pain because they were all in the US. This was like 10 years ago though.
 
The main reason to use Amazon Photos is the app; for quickly finding photos, there isn’t much better.
 
sk66 said:
For about $50 a year you can get unlimited storage with a website hosting service (shared). Use website development software with FTP integration like DreamWeaver (paid) or CoffeeCup (open source) to sync the files... not quite as easy as automatically detecting/uploading new files, but it also will not do anything you don't tell it to do. Plus, you can use it for file sharing, portfolio, etc...
Click to expand...

nandbytes said:
thanks, I have actually used bluehost before.
they were pretty good actually but getting support at some points was a pain because they were all in the US. This was like 10 years ago though.
Click to expand...

That all may sound like a good option but you need to make sure you do not come up against the hosts file/inode limits

Most shared hosting having similar limits: 500,000 files and folders (Windows) or 250,000 inodes (Linux). File name lengths between 1 and 16 characters count as 1 inode, 17 and 32 characters count as 2, 33 and 48 characters count as 3, and so on.

When hosting companies say they offer unlimited hosting it is just a play on words, used to mislead if you like the end customer, there are limits as indicated above.

EDIT: also check the terms of use of any hosting you may use as most have similar restrictions.

Bluehost for example have restrictions, two notable ones being:

1. You can not use your hosting for operating a file sharing site
2. You may not use your hosting account as a backup solution
 
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That was my first thought when I read that suggestion.
 
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