I'm wondering how my fellow ozbargainers store photos?
I have Dropbox, but unfortunately I don't have enough space for everything I take a picture of. I use my andriod mobile mostly and my ipad to access my photos. So can anyone recommend what I can use?
I'd also add having a app would be great.
Being able to upload direct from my mobile would be great
Being able to sort and categorise my photos is essential.
You need to read the terms and conditions of free photo hosting.
They may state that they own and are allowed to sell, distribute or use those photo's as they wish. You never know where the photo's may end up.
For example, Snapchat. The 'private' photo app. Do you honestly think Instragram aka Facebook offered 3 billion dollars just for the app? No.
They wanted those photo's on those servers. Be careful.
I pay for Amazon S3 so that I have control over my data. Not cost effective unless you are storing a lot.
Maybe consider google drive? I know it has great auto uploading functionality from android (with the photos/drive app, at least on 4.4 anyway). It comes with 15gb to start, not sure how much you need or if you can get more or what. Just an option.
I signed up to Google+ and that allows me to upload as many pics and videoa as I want. You can upload from PC, MAc, Android and iphone.
Yes, this is unlimited but be careful. Although the uploads ARE unlimited, this is only at LESS THAN the resolution that your camera is capable of.
Full size is the default setting. This setting uploads your photos & videos with their original image resolutions (up to 50 MB for photos or 1080p for videos) and count against your Google Drive storage quota, which is shown when you touch this setting. If you run out of Google Drive storage quota we'll automatically start storing photos at standard size. If you start approaching the free storage limit, you'll see a Google+ notification. If you run out of storage we'll automatically switch to storing photos at standard size.
Standard size photos are great for sharing on the web. If you choose this setting, your photos will be resized so that the longest edge of the photo does not exceed 2048 pixels. You can store an unlimited number of standard size photos on Google+.
So not truly unlimited…just be wary of that.
This is taken from https://support.google.com/plus/answer/1304820?hl=en
SkyDrive offers 7Gb, and extra is very inexpensive. The integration with windows 7 (via app) and 8 puts it over the top of the other "drive" services.
Another option depending on your needs is to stick with a free service (dtopbox, SkyDrive, google etc) and use Crashplan unlimited backup. By integrating your free drive with your pc/mac, then moving the pics to another folder via the pc, they will remain in the cloud (accessible on the phone via the crashplan app) as well as being truly backed up. Note the "sync drive" services don't backup, they sync. So if you lose them from your phone, the next sync will remove them from the cloud drive. Crashplan does not sync, it is a true backup service.
Copy.com gives heaps of free storage!
- 15GB free when you create your account
- 5GB more if you signed up via someone else's referral link (see my ad in the classifieds for a referral link that will get you the extra 5GB: https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/127470 )
- 5GB more if you get someone else to join via your own referral link (which it gives you after you sign up)
So that's 20GB initially, plus an unlimited number of 5GB bonuses for each person you sign up thereafter. While it's not as much as the 1TB from flickr, it also doesn't claim ownership of your photos :)
It's an awesome deal, get yourself an account now: https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/127470
My own account is now well over 100GB, and I'm working on getting my wife's up there as well - she's only got 45GB at the moment.
EDIT: ah bugger, my previous comment was removed for having a referral link in it. So I've linked to my pre-existing classified ad instead. Find my wife's referral link in there, it will get you the bonus 5GB.)
Oh yeah one more thing: Copy.com also has mobile phone apps that can automatically upload any photos you take on that device into a specific folder in your Copy.com account, just like Dropbox does. I use the Android version and it works great for me.
Also, full disclosure: I too get a 5GB bonus if you sign up via my link. Win-win :)
Sounds like you're happy with DropBox so maybe keep using it, but use it more efficiently? I use LightRoom to automatically copy all photos flagged as 'five stars' (ie my 'keepers') to Dropbox. I also keep a backup of my LightRoom catalogue on DropBox. Then all our current photos that I haven't processed/put into my LightRoom library live on DropBox. This way I can also easily live with the free storage I have there (currently just under 18GB via referrals and particpating in their various competitions - just do a google search and you'll find a number of ways of bumping up the default amount). When things start getting tight I know it's way past time I started sorting through our images!
Oh, for backup I regularly copy my library onto a second drive and keep that at work - so if my local drive fails at home (unlikely because it's RAID5) or is stolen, I will always have my copy at work. If for some insane reason I lose both, then at least I have a copy of all my favourite images.
In short, my advice to you is to use Flickr and the Flickr app on your phone. Here's why…
I have gone through this process exactly for photos and videos and here's where I am at. I have 107Gb Skydrive and I have been putting everything there (and I also back-up to a NAS). While Skydrive is good dollar value it tends to be slow and cumbersome. You mention taking photos with your android mobile - I handle this using the Eye-fi app which uploads my new photos and videos to Skydrive each time I hook into a wifi connection. I love this "no thinking" approach. However, it is not good for sorting and viewing (enjoying) your photos. So just this week I have taken the plunge and started using Flickr. Flickr gives 1Tb free but there are some limitations on video size which I still have to assess.
Flickr is able to batch process photos into sets, and it can also put a photo into multiple sets - this is the strength of Flickr. For example, one set is "Family and Friends" and then I created a set for each holiday trip we have been on. That means that I can choose to have some of the holidays snaps to appear in the "Family and Friends" set as well. There are also tags if needed. So the power to group the photos in different sets really makes it easy to enjoy viewing your pics. Skydrive, or Dropbox, just can't do this - they are simple file handlers.
At this stage it looks like I will keep my Skydrive till I'm fully satisfied that Flickr can handle large video files and can integrate with Eye-fi. I also use an Eye-fi SD card in my non-wifi camera. My other camera does have wifi so it can upload photos directly.
I also have Dropbox but I use that for documents only - Dropbox still rocks for the simple stuff!
Just went through the same process and reached the same conclusion
Only hassle with any change is the uploads
Telstra counted my uploads to flickr against my quota for the month
Maybe upload in batches?
I found PicBackMan for windows quite useful
I suggest renting a VPS / dedicated server, and then use BitTorrent Sync to give you Dropbox-like functions.
Amazon S3 gives you this without having to set it up, much more reliable and (typically) much cheaper for lots of storage.
I'm currently paying 19 Euro / month for 1TB of storage on a dedicated server. Last time I did the maths, Amazon's more expensive.
A VPS / dedicated server allows me to do much more than storing files.
OTOH, you're correct that Amazon S3 is much more reliable.
Depending on your access requirements, Glacier is much cheaper than this. Point is for someone who isn't interested in a server I think this will just create more problems for them.
I haven't tried it, but Flickr gives you 1TB storage.