Flikr For Storage?

[damo]

Hi all,

I have a reasonable sized collection of digital photos, in the last few days I have consolidated all of my pics ready for storage somewhere???

I am thinking about Flikr, they offer all the storage I need for half the cost of a portable hard drive and without the up-keep and having to drag it around.

Question I am asking is anyone doing this, or simmilar and have any opinions about using Flikr as a host for my data, I would also like to hear any other cloud type storage solutions anyone may be using.

I have iCloud by virtue of owning apple products but think thier prices need to evolve a little before I take them up.

Cheers!

[MaxwellsDemon]

While flickr is a great service, it is primarily a social network, not an online storage service.

It just happens to provide some decent storage, too. If all you're looking for is storage, then you should look towards online services dedicated to that, such as Livedrive, Dropbox, ADrive, Backblaze, Carbonite, etc. Many have decent free trials and cheap plans. Plus, their staff and customer service is dedicated to security and integrity of data, not moderating group comments and collecting the week's cutest cat photos.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_online_backup_services might be helpful.

Another option to consider is just buying a domain and web storage for dirt cheap. Doesn't have to be dedicated, but you often get some of the best service and options for cheap. I used to use a private ftp server at something like $10 a year that I could encrypt, store and send literally terabytes of data.

I'm sure if you could figure some macro/scripting out you could even use a few free gmail accounts...

[damo]

Thanks, I'll check out those mentioned.

cheers for the advice. Damo.

[xanax]

For pics only I would advice picasa http://picasa.google.com/ I have been storing pics on it for the past 5 yrs...no issues.

sharing, tagging, photo effects, synching....and it's free...

[zakk9]

Be aware that any commercial internet storage can go bankrupt or may be discontinued. It happened with Digital Railroad 4 or 5 years ago, and many photographers didn't get enough time to download their images for alternative storage. If you choose online storage, you should choose two individual sites or one site plus home storage. Hard-disks are cheap, and I have multiple copies at home and in another city. Better safe than sorry

[damo]

That is a worry, I might use flikr for everything as they have unlimited storage and and maybe someone like iCloud or dropbox for my important photos.

Best of both worlds really. Thanks everyone.

[mistitikimikis]

Be aware that any commercial internet storage can go bankrupt or may be discontinued. It happened with Digital Railroad 4 or 5 years ago, and many photographers didn't get enough time to download their images for alternative storage. If you choose online storage, you should choose two individual sites or one site plus home storage. Hard-disks are cheap, and I have multiple copies at home and in another city. Better safe than sorry

Spot On!

I didn't use Flickr (Yahoo) for storage but only for showing off, BUT, as there are in the mean time various reports of deleting albums by them and without having any correction-methode all of a sudden I am not very secure about their "service" (anymore)!

I made another album in http://www.smugmug.com/ where the service on-line is stunning!

(By the way, when I have to rescue / retrieve 10 GB only photos than you are some days bussy...........)

Edited July 2, 2012 by mistitikimikis

[bobl]

If you don't mind me asking, how many photos do you have???

At 100 bucks for a 500GB drive that's a bucketload of photos - 100,000+ jpg images or even 25,000+ raw images - and a 500Gb 2.5" drive isn't exactly taxing in the "drag it around" department. Also remember that the bandwidth between you and a USB drive is fast, unlimited, free, and available to you even on a desert island - unlike Internet bandwidth the cost and availability of which you must also take into account if you're going to keep large amounts of information on "a cloud".

If, however, you're using it for both storage and social media sharing, Flickr would seem to be about as reliable and unlikely to disappear without warning. As is Picasa...

[happysanook]

If you don't mind me asking, how many photos do you have???

At 100 bucks for a 500GB drive that's a bucketload of photos - 100,000+ jpg images or even 25,000+ raw images - and a 500Gb 2.5" drive isn't exactly taxing in the "drag it around" department. Also remember that the bandwidth between you and a USB drive is fast, unlimited, free, and available to you even on a desert island - unlike Internet bandwidth the cost and availability of which you must also take into account if you're going to keep large amounts of information on "a cloud".

If, however, you're using it for both storage and social media sharing, Flickr would seem to be about as reliable and unlikely to disappear without warning. As is Picasa...

A hard drive can always be dropped, lost, stolen etc...

I like Picasa and Sugarsync. I tried both Dropbox and Sugarsync and found Sugarsync to be superior.

[mistitikimikis]

If you don't mind me asking, how many photos do you have???

At 100 bucks for a 500GB drive that's a bucketload of photos - 100,000+ jpg images or even 25,000+ raw images - and a 500Gb 2.5" drive isn't exactly taxing in the "drag it around" department. Also remember that the bandwidth between you and a USB drive is fast, unlimited, free, and available to you even on a desert island - unlike Internet bandwidth the cost and availability of which you must also take into account if you're going to keep large amounts of information on "a cloud".

If, however, you're using it for both storage and social media sharing, Flickr would seem to be about as reliable and unlikely to disappear without warning. As is Picasa...

I have around 14.000 photos in Flickr and 17.000 in SmugMug (again, SmugMug due too their (Flickr) sometimes deleting-policy due too a failure of the staff and/or when somebody doesn't obey their heavy bible of rules, which can only be translated by very experienced lawyers............)

Again, SmugMug for me is tremendous!

However, "save" updating of my photos through Internet is not a proper decision for me due too the time to get them back again, especially seeing the "quality" of my Thai-True Internet.

Edited July 3, 2012 by mistitikimikis

[jaysun]

For pics only I would advice picasa http://picasa.google.com/ I have been storing pics on it for the past 5 yrs...no issues.

sharing, tagging, photo effects, synching....and it's free...

maybe it's related to picasa now, but google drive is also a great option. use their desktop sync tool and it'll slowly push your stuff to cloud storage automagically.