Amazon Prime for Cloud storage

Box Brownie

Box Brownie

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Hi all

I had a look here https://www.amazon.co.uk/photos/storage for details and something that not 100% crystal clear is the purchase of extra storage!

As I read it if you are a Prime Member you can store Unlimited number of image files but if videos you are restricted to 5GB of storage. However, under "More Storage" it is inferred that you need more storage for your image files not just your videos. IMO the would not win any prizes for "Crystal Clear Terms" ~ all they have to do is state the extra storage is only needed if you wish to exceed the free 5GB limit.
 
I think I looked at this a while ago. I might be wrong but I have a feeling you get unlimited photo storage with prime but only for JPEG’s. If you want to upload raw files it counts towards the data limit. It might not be that but I have prime and I think I don’t use it for that reason. Unless they’ve changed it now or it’s not how I remember It.
 
why pay for storage monthly or what ever? beats me when you can get a a hard drive for a lot less and store more Looking it up for extrnl hard drives it works out at 1 or 2TB=£50 upwards and a one off purchase
 
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Ben johns said:
I think I looked at this a while ago. I might be wrong but I have a feeling you get unlimited photo storage with prime but only for JPEG’s. If you want to upload raw files it counts towards the data limit. It might not be that but I have prime and I think I don’t use it for that reason. Unless they’ve changed it now or it’s not how I remember It.
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This is correct, prime gives you unlimited storage for full size jpeg but raw and video count towards your 5GB limit which I think is free (not sure) for any Amazon member. I have 3TB of jpeg's stored with Amazon.
 
realspeed said:
why pay for storage monthly or what ever? beats me when you can get a a hard drive for a lot less and store more Looking it up for extrnl hard drives it works out at 1 or 2TB=£50 upwards and a one off purchase
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I do have copies of all my images but I like to have an off site backup. I used to have two hard drives with images copied on both that I swapped on a regular basis keeping one at my Mums but it's a right pain at times. Cloud storage is much easier and I have a Prime account anyway.
 
benc98 said:
I've started archiving images to the Amazon cloud and I'm pretty sure i've uploaded way more than 5gb of raw files. My impression was the 5gb limit was for video?
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Agreed, all my raw files up until last year are uploaded, which reminds me I really need to sync newer files again.
 
benc98 said:
I've started archiving images to the Amazon cloud and I'm pretty sure i've uploaded way more than 5gb of raw files. My impression was the 5gb limit was for video?
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You could be right, could you check?
 
admirable said:
You could be right, could you check?
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I've got way way more than 5gb of raw files uploaded. The only storage warning I get is that I have filled my 5gb for video uploads. I'm uploading more raw files as I type this.
 
Thanks all for the insights.....it seems when first available it was not allowed for raw files but now is ok for them.

One review about the service spoke of costs if not a Prime subscriber, that just muddies the waters!

Having said that until I decide to upgrade my connection from ADSL to FTTC uploading will be long-winded :(. One reviewer on Amazon was very negative bit possibly misguided because they said of it "it took a very long time to download 3000 photos to the cloud service.......' methinks they like me are on an ADSL service and misunderstood that they are uploading not downloading ;)
 
I totally agree about ADSL. I started to have a look at service, but found that my current upload speed made it a bit impractical. Once sorted then I'm sure it would be a useful additional backup.
 
Box Brownie said:
Thanks all for the insights.....it seems when first available it was not allowed for raw files but now is ok for them.

One review about the service spoke of costs if not a Prime subscriber, that just muddies the waters!

Having said that until I decide to upgrade my connection from ADSL to FTTC uploading will be long-winded :(. One reviewer on Amazon was very negative bit possibly misguided because they said of it "it took a very long time to download 3000 photos to the cloud service.......' methinks they like me are on an ADSL service and misunderstood that they are uploading not downloading ;)
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I have used it to store RAW & jpeg files (I didn't realise that RAW files were in the 5GB limit) and it does take a long while to upload on my fibre broadband. It seemed a good idea at first but I haven't uploaded in a while and if it was the only advantage of Prime I would probably have abandoned it by now. :)
 
Raw files don't count towards your limit, but sidecar xmp files do. Confusing eh?

I thought it was a possible reason to go sidecar-less with dng, but I never bothered.

21,000 photos on Amazon (460Gb), with 154Mb of sidecar files. Not all the photos are raw. Many are tiff neg scans and jpegs.

htrwrthhtrw.JPG
 
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Box Brownie said:
it took a very long time to download 3000 photos to the cloud service......
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It's very slow.

I use it as a disconnected backup and upload every 6 months. Set it up, then leave it overnight, then disconnect when it's done.
 
Though I am on an ADSL service, I might set it up and time some multi raw file uploads to see what sort of actual times I get rather than calculated numbers :)
 
No, Raw files do NOT count towards your amazon photos storage limit. How do I know? because I've got over 4tb of images stored on there.

It probably took me 2-3 weeks to get everything up there and using the app it just synscs in the background... I also backup every night to an external drive, so i've got 2 backups with one offsite.
 
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I have Amazon prime to auto backup all my lightroom import folders (which are nicely organised by year) so basically all my keeper get automatically backed up no problem. Most of the time, they are uploaded by the time I am done editing anyway. At the beginning of every year I simply deleted all the RAWs from previous years. I just download as and when needed if I need older imports.

I have >2TB of RAWs on there.

Its definitely impractical to upload all my RAWs and its also kinda unnecessary. I have got all my RAWs double backed up on external hard drives but tbh I am thinking a lot of it wasted space..... I might have to go through them and cull at some point. The images on prime storage are all my "keepers".

Cloud backup is 75% the reason I have amazon prime. I really don't care for their videos lol, music isn't bad though albeit limited for prime only users

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I use the extra 5GB storage for auto-backing up my LR catalogue with backups every week by default. Also cleaned up at the end of the year.
 
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I've been uploading to Amazon for about 5 years now and the Raw upload rules have obviously been changed to unlimited since I joined.

amazon.JPG
 
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I do have Amazon Prime but do not use the Cloud storage. Having read some of this thread, it would be of little use to me as all my stored files are either Raw or TIFF/PSD. When I produce JPEG's for web, or projection, it is only temporary so they do not need backing up. I generally rely on my 9 TByte NAS for back up.

Dave
 
Dave Canon said:
I do have Amazon Prime but do not use the Cloud storage. Having read some of this thread, it would be of little use to me as all my stored files are either Raw or TIFF/PSD. When I produce JPEG's for web, or projection, it is only temporary so they do not need backing up. I generally rely on my 9 TByte NAS for back up.

Dave
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Where do you keep your NAS?
 
Dave Canon said:
I do have Amazon Prime but do not use the Cloud storage. Having read some of this thread, it would be of little use to me as all my stored files are either Raw or TIFF/PSD. When I produce JPEG's for web, or projection, it is only temporary so they do not need backing up. I generally rely on my 9 TByte NAS for back up.

Dave
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It would be of use as you can back up your Raw, TIFF and PSD files to it.
 
I use Amazon Photos but I only upload a few of my photos so not used as backup. Raw files do not count towards the video limit. Tiff files do not upload I find. I have fast broadband but upload speed is slow.
 
admirable said:
Where do you keep your NAS?
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I keep the NAS in my computer room. I am well aware that, if the house burnt down, I would lose the PC and the NAS. I used to keep another back up at a relatives house but he died a few years ago so that option is no longer available. I keep another backup on a USB disk which is stored in a fire resistant safe. A few of my final image are stored on the camera club website, or the odd free cloud I have access to Drop Box, Microsoft and BullGuard. I manage the risk. In my view the biggest risk is a technical disk failure or a software failure which has happened several times in the past and my backups have then been valuable. I think theft is unlikely give the weight of the safe and the fact that it is bolted to a concrete floor. So a catastrophic fire is the only event not fully covered.

Dave
 
I only ask as some folk keep their NAS in an outdoor garage.
 
I don't bother. if the house burns down the files on my hard drive are least of my worries. I have keepers in Amazon drive. So if I lost the others yes I might miss the odd picture but i'd have still got 99.99% of my images I care about backed up.
 
Thanks everyone, didn't realise this existed with my Amazon Prime subscription. I've got TimeMachine, OneDrive, CCC, and a manual backup already in place, but have taken advantage of this for another offsite backup as Time Machine and CCC are onsite.
 
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