Cloud Storage for Family Pics and Videos?

dan76n on 05/01/2022 - 08:48
Last edited 05/01/2022 - 11:53 by 1 other user

Hi all.

I’ve been using Google photos free 15gb for all my pics and videos for a while now but am at about 90% of the free 15gb and have just purchased a GoPro so I need to look at my best long term options for storing photos and videos.

Do I just stick with Google and pay for more data? If I do this I’m obviously setting myself up for annual fees for the foreseeable future (as with any cloud storage I guess).
I’ve also read that YouTube is good for storing videos as you can just make them private but how likely are YouTube to not eventually delete or incur fees for privately uploaded videos?

Can anyone suggest the best value and safest option for this?

Internet Google

Comments

  • JimmyF on 05/01/2022 - 09:18
    +3

    Do I just stick with google and pay for more data? If I do this I’m obviously setting myself up for annual fees for the foreseeable future (as with any cloud storage I guess).

    You are correct, what ever online storage provider you select will charge you a 'fee'. 100gb from google is $25/year, which is a lot of photos BTW!

    Also look past the yearly costs and look at the ease of use. I would rather pay $25/yr for say google photos that is seamless, than $20/yr for something that requires lots of work from my side.

    I’ve also read that YouTube is good for storing videos as you can just make them private but how likely are YouTube to not eventually delete or incur fees for privately uploaded videos?

    I've got old videos in youtube from way back that are private and still there 10+ years later, no fees. So this could be an option for you I guess.

    Can anyone suggest the best value and safest option for this?

    Buy a storage plan for all your photos, and move the large gopro videos to a offline medium like a HDD (2 copies at least). Videos take up huge amounts of space, so unless you NEED them online, store them offline, as you'll end up paying huge storage fees for videos you rarely look at.

    I upload all my photos and phone videos etc, but 4k footage from the drone etc, is stored offline as it just takes up huge amounts of space.

    • dan76n on 05/01/2022 - 09:26

      Also look past the yearly costs and look at the ease of use. I would rather pay $25/yr for say google photos that is seamless, than $20/yr for something that requires lots of work from my side.

      Yes this is a very valid point. I really don’t want to be stuffing around for the sake of saving a few extra dollars.

      • Hybroid on 05/01/2022 - 09:41

        Well GoPro has their own storage subscription if that's your primary use and may work for you.

  • o53djz7qTPY4der on 05/01/2022 - 10:42
    +1

    O365 that includes 1tb OD.

    • bdl on 05/01/2022 - 10:48
      +8

      Translation: Office 365 - that includes 1tb OneDrive

      • dan76n on 05/01/2022 - 13:11

        So for the $100 per year do we get all the office applications for our MacBook?

        • bdl on 06/01/2022 - 00:58

          here you go, you can see inclusions about half way down page under the heading "Premium value included": https://www.microsoft.com/en-au/microsoft-365/p/microsoft-36…

          6tb of storage (1tb per person/account) included

          I usually wait for it to go on sale on ebay. Don't buy from overseas sellers if you have an Australian Microsoft account, safer to use Australian codes. From memory if you set up auto billing on annual term, you get a bonus month free ( and you can then disable the auto billing :) )

  • jsb on 05/01/2022 - 10:53
    +1

    It may not be the ozbargain way, but I follow 3-2-1 backup strategy for such important stuff. I have office 365 subscription shared with a friend. Costs around $50 per year (if shared). All phones in house are setup to upload all photos and videos to one drive. Also have google one ($25/year). Phones are again configured to upload all photos and videos to google photos as well. I have a NAS in RAID 1, which is also used for Plex and synced with my desktop's onedrive folder.

    All in all 2 local backups, 2 online backups.
    Cost: $50/year + $25 per year + one-time setup of NAS(did 4 years go for $600, may need maintenance from time to time)
    Benefits:
    1. 4 automated backups and ransomware protection
    2. Good connectivity with plex across all tv's and we love to see past videos on big screen.
    3. Random photo gallery screensavers on TVs (as a big photo frame using an app linked to onedrive) when nothing else is playing. You will be surprised how amazing it is to see old memories pop up.
    4. The same setup is used for all important scanned documents which are easily accessible anywhere and whenever you need with proper 2 factor authentication.
    5. Most importantly, peace of mind

    • Chandler on 05/01/2022 - 11:25
      +1

      3-2-1-1-0 is the new strategy. The 3-2-1 that you know and love plus:

      • 1 air-gapped backup (no risk of hacking/ransomware/etc)
      • 0 errors with your backups

      I've seen a few tales of woe of people who setup good backup systems but never tested them. Tried to restore some data from the backup and found they couldn't. One discovered that the backup job had been silently failing after some time. One found that the backup ended up being corrupted. Check your backups people!

      • jsb on 05/01/2022 - 11:52
        +1

        Thanks for the update.
        This strategy although good, requires a lot of work. For an average home user. automated backup of 3-2-1 (my one is actually 4-2-2 :) ) is more than enough in my opinion.
        I rely on onedrive's ransomware protection (if the need arises) https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/ransomware-detect…

        With my strategy, backups are also 1 to 1 and not encrypted or incremental. So, I don't foresee them failing if need to recover anything as each individual file is accessible from my desktop/onedrive or NAS. (Onedrive also supports versioning)

        The way I have setup my NAS backup, could be considered as offline as well because:
        1. Cloud access is disabled.
        2. In the local network there is only read-only access.
        3. I manually run custom powershell script to mount NAS in write mode and run my backup script (using freefilesync). its just one way file synchronisation. Any deleted stuff do not get deleted from NAS.

        After local backup is complete (which is super quick), I just run my unmount PS script to remove write access. All TV's and other devices always have only read-only access to NAS
        I think its sufficiently good enough for a home user and I am happy to help if anyone needs more info on setting up.

        • Chandler on 05/01/2022 - 12:10

          Yeah, does require more work. I actually sort of follow it already - one of my 3-2-1 copies is a USB HDD that is left unplugged unless backing up, so effectively? air-gapped.

          Yeah, using a cloud service like OneDrive does give you some extra protection like that ransomware protection, versioning, recycle bin, etc. But you are also relying on OneDrive not stuffing it up (which, to be fair is far less likely than you stuffing it up yourself, especially if you're DIYing it).

          Good idea with the NAS setup. Only potential gap I can see there is if the NAS itself is accessible from outside your network (Cloud access disabled does not equal inaccessible from the internet), or if another device on your network is compromised and someone could try to hack your NAS through it. Unlikely event, however (I would hope).

          Yeah, pretty good for a home user IMO!

    • Chandler on 05/01/2022 - 12:02

      Google Photos is mighty convenient, but I'm keen to get my data away from Google.

      At present, I use Google Photos and Syncthing.

      Google Photos gives me a cloud copy that I can easily access and share.
      Syncthing gives me a second copy so that I don't need to worry about losing/breaking/wiping my phone.

      The added advantage of Syncthing is that it is literally a copy of the original file. Google Photos doesn't seem to modify any photos uploaded under "Original Quality", but that may not always be the case.

      Long term, I'll probably end up moving to a NAS/server and using that to store my second copy and then running a backup either on a VPS or service like Backblaze. But I need to do more research and spend some money there first.

  • Noblejoker on 05/01/2022 - 12:00
    +1

    Just stick with a Google One plan at $25 / yr
    Also get Google Opinion Rewards app on your phone
    Most users will get more than $25 in cash rewards p.a. therefore paying for the subscription
    I also recommend a back-up option
    Occasionally download all photos (incrementally maybe) and add to a disk or server etc.
    Even if you aren't as dilligent on back-up as strategies above always have at least 2, with one local

    • JimmyF on 05/01/2022 - 12:40
      +1

      Most users will get more than $25 in cash rewards p.a. therefore paying for the subscription

      Agree!! Just make sure you set the Google One subscription to use your google credit as the first option when it goes to renew! Otherwise it will slug your credit card instead like mine did one year :/

    • dan76n on 05/01/2022 - 13:01

      Also get Google Opinion Rewards(surveys.google.com) app on your phone
      Most users will get more than $25 in cash rewards p.a. therefore paying for the subscription.

      Yeah I use that but that’s most of my Strava account paid for :-)

      So Google isn't safe to have without a backup elsewhere?

      • Noblejoker on 06/01/2022 - 13:15

        I think Google Photos is easy and convenient but NOTHING is safe to have stored in one location only
        Download the photos occasionally and store them offline
        If you don't take lots of photos just set a calendar reminder every 3 months or something or do it after a big event (e.g. a wedding)

        • BigLeviathan on 27/01/2022 - 04:13

          How would you normally do a backup from Google photos?

          As for me, I setup a backup album based on year and month and use takeout.google.com and backup that album.

          I wonder whether there is an easier and automated way doing it since Google decouple their Google Photos and Google drive feature

  • OZB Al on 06/01/2022 - 08:34

    I've found Smugmug to be the best way of sharing photos and videos with the family, worth every cent.

    • Noblejoker on 06/01/2022 - 13:17

      This is a good service but $100 p.a. is not the OzB way :(

    • T-man on 08/01/2022 - 07:39

      Yahoo Photo used to be good with unlimited storage until they sold to this Smugmug, I deleted my account and moved to my own backup server.

    • BigLeviathan on 27/01/2022 - 04:19

      Excuse my ignorance, I'm paying Google YouTube Argentina premium subscription already, I suspect Google one is targetted for extra space to store photos and Google Drive?

      So, I would need two subscriptions if I wanted ad-free YouTube and extra space to store photos and files?

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