Best online storage for Photo collection [Archive]

Rockstead

Jan 5th, 2009, 04:03 PM

Can anyone please recommend the best place to store my photos online, I would even be willing to pay for a service if it were necessary.

I've got about 20gigs of photos on my HD, and recently backed it up to a different HD, I am terrified I'll lose the photos.

I would like to start storing them online, where is the best place to do this that doesn't tie me in to having develop them with that particular site?

I also want an option where I would able to download the collection back down in the least painful way it the same original size that is was uploaded in and I need it to keep the same date on the timestamp of the file as that is what tells me when the picture was taken.

Does a service like this exist?

ah_long

Jan 5th, 2009, 04:12 PM

Apple's Mobile Me..

it's not free though, it offers online disk storage and gallery..
and a bunch of other options..

it will show EXIF info and you'll be able to retain full image size and quality

burnt_toast

Jan 5th, 2009, 04:15 PM

from the sticky

Online Photo Album Free/Paid

Google Picasa - http://picasaweb.google.ca/ (free 1GB)

Flickr - http://www.flickr.com/ (free limit?)

PBase - http://www.pbase.com/

Smug Mug - http://www.smugmug.com/

Zen Folio - http://www.zenfolio.com/

Blackmajik

Jan 5th, 2009, 04:20 PM

I've been on Zenfolio for a few months and love it. There is different tier accounts so it isn't free but has a trial period. I've checked out the download options and found this:

Zenfolio Downloader

Zenfolio Downloader is a free tool making it easy to download back original full size files previously uploaded to your Zenfolio account.

Not sure how efficient and ease of use it is but seems like it is automatic.

Rockstead

Jan 7th, 2009, 03:38 PM

from the sticky

Thanks I saw that but I was looking for opinions from people on what I should use given my needs, it would be cool if I could do it for free but I somehow doubt someone could provide a service that good for free.

SENSEI

Jan 7th, 2009, 04:12 PM

I would like to start storing them online, where is the best place to do this that doesn't tie me in to having develop them with that particular site?

I also want an option where I would able to download the collection back down in the least painful way it the same original size that is was uploaded in and I need it to keep the same date on the timestamp of the file as that is what tells me when the picture was taken.

Does a service like this exist?

I use SMUGMUG.

You pay a yearly fee, but there are no printing minimums.
No limit to the amount you can hold.
There is a new pay service to back up and store ANY file (smugvault).

When you need to get photos back you can order a backup of full galleries on DVD or you can use a program called Album Fetcher. It will allow you to logon and download galleries at a time instead of saving picture by picture.

The higher paid tier service allows you to customize pages and use custom URLS. You can even upload videos for display.

I've used Zenfolio, Pbase, Sony/Kodak Vault, Snapfish, Flickr....Smugmug gets my nod.

Existing users have a referral code to save you some money. We also get a discount for the next year as well. PM if you're interested.

Sgt_Strider

Jan 8th, 2009, 02:10 AM

Thanks I saw that but I was looking for opinions from people on what I should use given my needs, it would be cool if I could do it for free but I somehow doubt someone could provide a service that good for free.

You're not going to get much if you want to go down the free route. Picasa and Flickr both have free accounts, but they have pretty crappy storage limitations. Flickr is probably your best bet. It's cheap and gives you unlimited storage. I've been using it for the past two years and when I last resigned, I paid the price when our dollar was slightly above parity. Now it'll cost you closer to $30 CAD/year, but it's still not bad. That's under $3/month!

Sgt_Strider

Jan 8th, 2009, 02:11 AM

I use SMUGMUG.

You pay a yearly fee, but there are no printing minimums.
No limit to the amount you can hold.
There is a new pay service to back up and store ANY file (smugvault).

When you need to get photos back you can order a backup of full galleries on DVD or you can use a program called Album Fetcher. It will allow you to logon and download galleries at a time instead of saving picture by picture.

The higher paid tier service allows you to customize pages and use custom URLS. You can even upload videos for display.

I've used Zenfolio, Pbase, Sony/Kodak Vault, Snapfish, Flickr....Smugmug gets my nod.

Existing users have a referral code to save you some money. We also get a discount for the next year as well. PM if you're interested.

The discount is only like $5 right?

SENSEI

Jan 8th, 2009, 09:38 AM

The discount is only like $5 right?

Yup, you save $5. That will bring the cost down to $35US/year. (Reg price $39.95US/year)

But when you consider that Flickr runs you $30/year, I feel Smugmug gives you much more for the money.

Then you can still go out and refer other people to save yourself $10/year per person. I haven't been paying at all for the past 2 years from referrals.

Best of all Smugmug has free trial period. In that time you get FULL usage of their $39.95 standard package. No limitations and no crippling of account. Might as well try it out and see if it's for you.

skule123

Jan 8th, 2009, 10:54 AM

dealerschmealer

Jan 12th, 2009, 01:47 PM

Don't forget most (I think extreme?) rogers internet customers get a pro FLICKR account for free

rubberband

Jan 12th, 2009, 01:57 PM

Gotta say, the smugmug gallery setup is pretty tempting. I think they have some 50% off your first year deal if you use the promo code "flickr" (subtle).

http://www.smugmug.com/price/flee-flickr.mg

I'm on flickr right now, personally.

Dammit.. I didn't see that when I signed up before. Argh!

Anyhow, Smugmug gets my vote. Fantastic service, and really a joy to use and navigate, customize and control.

My stuff is here --> http://matthyw.smugmug.com

All I can say is that not including uploading everything, the customization and setup took all of 2 days. From scratch. Couldn't have been easier!

Sgt_Strider

Jan 12th, 2009, 10:23 PM

Yup, you save $5. That will bring the cost down to $35US/year. (Reg price $39.95US/year)

But when you consider that Flickr runs you $30/year, I feel Smugmug gives you much more for the money.

Then you can still go out and refer other people to save yourself $10/year per person. I haven't been paying at all for the past 2 years from referrals.

Best of all Smugmug has free trial period. In that time you get FULL usage of their $39.95 standard package. No limitations and no crippling of account. Might as well try it out and see if it's for you.

Flickr didn't cost me $30. It cost slightly less than $25 at the buy I paid for my subscription. Our dollar was worth a lot then than now.

Shinjieva01

Jan 12th, 2009, 10:40 PM

yesman

Jan 15th, 2009, 12:10 AM

Don't forget most (I think extreme?) rogers internet customers get a pro FLICKR account for free

+1 for flickr, if you have a friend that is on rogers just ask them for an email sub-account, this will get you flickr pro for free.

Persian-Rice

Jan 15th, 2009, 01:38 PM

your own domain and web service. just an idea.
+1 for flickr though, I dont use it, but I browse all the time. great site.

Rockstead

Jan 15th, 2009, 02:20 PM

+1 for Smugmug - love the UI, the full range of customization options, the ability to disable right click (a big plus for professionals wanting to protect their photos), the professional look and the option to have your own domain name... definitely worth the price

I use Flickr too but only when I feel lazy and just want to quickly upload a couple of photos to share with family/friends =p

I'm not a professional but sounds like smugsmug might be the best one, I just need it for family photos that i want to protect as well I want to be able to re-download easily in the full original size, how does the smugsmug feature work as compared to flickr for downloading what you have already stored? does it maintain the original size on flickr and is there a batch option to download the entire contents back to your drive?

And let's say for whatever reason something happens and I don't renew on either flickr or smugsmug, will the both protect my photos? if so, for how long?

Neb

Jan 15th, 2009, 08:25 PM

our company use a hosting company www.bluehost.com 6.95/ month includin domain registration.. 300gb storage.. and tons of bandwidth a month. Might worth making your own site/storage.

napoleon1769

Jan 16th, 2009, 09:27 PM

So you guys have no qualms about sharing all your private pictures ONLINE? What happens if you get hacked and all your intimate pictures and movies are exposed?

Shinjieva01

Jan 16th, 2009, 09:34 PM

edit: ignore wut i said originally... read the question wrong =p

if i have really "intimate" (however you wunt to define that) pictures obviously i wudnt risk putting them online

Sgt_Strider

Jan 16th, 2009, 10:38 PM

So you guys have no qualms about sharing all your private pictures ONLINE? What happens if you get hacked and all your intimate pictures and movies are exposed?

I don't think anyone here is thinking about putting intimate pictures online.

burnt_toast

Jan 17th, 2009, 01:41 AM

So you guys have no qualms about sharing all your private pictures ONLINE? What happens if you get hacked and all your intimate pictures and movies are exposed?

unless you're an attention wh012e... i dont think anyone here on this forum will post intimate pictures online... i keep mine underneath the matress... :cheesygri

Blackmajik

Jan 17th, 2009, 01:47 AM

So you guys have no qualms about sharing all your private pictures ONLINE? What happens if you get hacked and all your intimate pictures and movies are exposed?

Where did that come from? :lol:

napoleon1769

Jan 17th, 2009, 05:57 PM

Well I was reading that some of you are using this as a primary backup of your photos. Don't you want to backup everything?

Shinjieva01

Jan 17th, 2009, 06:26 PM

Well I was reading that some of you are using this as a primary backup of your photos. Don't you want to backup everything?

when i need to back my stuff up, i never do it online (its too risky even for my NON-intimate pictures =p )... thats wut my external hard drive and blank dvds are for =)

NuggyBuggy

Jan 17th, 2009, 07:57 PM

If you had a free Flickr account from Rogers, what would happen if you dropped their service ? Would Flickr give you the chance to re-sign ?

Also - in practice how long does it take to upload - let's say - 10 GB of data to SmugMug or Flickr ?

Sgt_Strider

Jan 17th, 2009, 08:10 PM

when i need to back my stuff up, i never do it online (its too risky even for my NON-intimate pictures =p )... thats wut my external hard drive and blank dvds are for =)

You can always put it in a private album if you don't want anyone to see your pictures. I'm not afraid of putting my pictures on Flickr or Facebook except for the intimate ones.

Shinjieva01

Jan 17th, 2009, 09:00 PM

You can always put it in a private album if you don't want anyone to see your pictures. I'm not afraid of putting my pictures on Flickr or Facebook except for the intimate ones.

personal experience. not guaranteed to keep your photos safe...
i tested this by setting up a private album on SmugMug with 100% security features turned on (i.e. password, hidden from public, hidden from google searches, disable the thumbs up/thumbs down icon)

... a day later, i looked at the stats and it showed quite a number of views on the album...

so call me paranoid or whatever... but thats why i dont use online services to backup my originals.

Sgt_Strider

Jan 17th, 2009, 09:08 PM

personal experience. not guaranteed to keep your photos safe...
i tested this by setting up a private album on SmugMug with 100% security features turned on (i.e. password, hidden from public, hidden from google searches, disable the thumbs up/thumbs down icon)

... a day later, i looked at the stats and it showed quite a number of views on the album...

so call me paranoid or whatever... but thats why i dont use online services to backup my originals.

lol, that's odd. I'm not sure what to say then. Either way, I don't upload intimate pictures online so I have nothing to be afraid of.

SENSEI

Jan 17th, 2009, 09:25 PM

Also - in practice how long does it take to upload - let's say - 10 GB of data to SmugMug or Flickr ?

This will be a function of the internet service you have and NOT the online sharing company you choose. All photo sharing sites have almost instantaneous viewing once the images have been uploaded, but the waiting to get it all up is the pain.

Another bonus for Smugmug is the endless amount of user made programs...you can upload to smugmug through a seperate program called Send to Smugmug. It will logon for you and allow you create, upload, and change settings for galleries without opening your browser. Doesn't seem to speed it up, but does save you hassle of waiting for Java to open and having to upload through the browser interface.

Sgt_Strider

Jan 17th, 2009, 09:26 PM

This will be a function of the internet service you have and NOT the online sharing company you choose. All photo sharing sites have almost instantaneous viewing once the images have been uploaded, but the waiting to get it all up is the pain.

Another bonus for Smugmug is the endless amount of user made programs...you can upload to smugmug through a seperate program called Send to Smugmug. It will logon for you and allow you create, upload, and change settings for galleries without opening your browser. Doesn't seem to speed it up, but does save you hassle of waiting for Java to open and having to upload through the browser interface.

I heard Zenfolio have the ability to allow someone to use an FTP program with it. Can Smugmug do the same?

SENSEI

Jan 17th, 2009, 11:12 PM

Unfortunately no...more for security reasons I think.:?:

But I find the batch upload and download programs more than adequate enough.

napoleon1769

Jan 18th, 2009, 07:42 AM

So of the free ones taht are listed? Which one is the best?

skanji

Jan 18th, 2009, 07:48 AM

i have 55gigs of photos all organized by folder date (2008 11 22, etc...)

will smugmug allow me to upload all folders at once, or do I have to upload folder by folder?

cheers!

SENSEI

Jan 18th, 2009, 12:00 PM

The equivalent for folders on Smugmug are galleries.

"Send to Smugmug" is a program that will allow you upload as many pictures or folders into ONE gallery at a time.

If you want to upload each folder into it's own gallery, all you'll need to do is open different instances of Send to Smugmug for each gallery you want to upload to.

The most I've actually tried was 6 galleries at a time.

If you just want to dump everything into one gallery, you can choose a whole drive and subfolders to upload at once....

NuggyBuggy

Jan 18th, 2009, 05:05 PM

Also - in practice how long does it take to upload - let's say - 10 GB of data to SmugMug or Flickr ?

This will be a function of the internet service you have and NOT the online sharing company you choose.
Not necessarily; I had communicated with another company that does online file storage and the upload/download speeds they quoted did not reflect my connectivity, indicating that they were the bottleneck. That's why I wanted to know what people are experiencing *practically*.

Sgt_Strider

Jan 18th, 2009, 06:09 PM

So of the free ones taht are listed? Which one is the best?

Don't even think about going down the free route. If you want to save money, Flickr is the best way to go. At the current exchange rate, it'll cost you about $30 CAD/year. That's only $2.50/month.

craftsman

Jan 19th, 2009, 12:06 AM

Don't even think about going down the free route. If you want to save money, Flickr is the best way to go. At the current exchange rate, it'll cost you about $30 CAD/year. That's only $2.50/month.

+1

Free is only good if you don't care what happens to the photos in the next minute, next hour, or the next day. There is no reassurance that the site will exist for any length of time.

I use Zenfolio.

Sgt_Strider

Jan 19th, 2009, 01:29 AM

+1

Free is only good if you don't care what happens to the photos in the next minute, next hour, or the next day. There is no reassurance that the site will exist for any length of time.

I use Zenfolio.

Zenfolio is a good choice, but he gives the impression that he's cheap/poor. So Flickr is most likely his best bet.

napoleon1769

Jan 19th, 2009, 05:50 AM

Well I'm not going to be hosting all my pictures there only some that's why I was trying to find a good free alternative. If none exist I wouldn't mind apying ffor it.

NuggyBuggy

Jan 19th, 2009, 06:44 AM

tienm23

Jan 19th, 2009, 03:28 PM

I use mozy which is 5/mth for unlimited storage.

SENSEI

Jan 19th, 2009, 03:39 PM

This thread got me seriously interested in SmugMug until I found that it does not support storage of RAW files. For that, I'd need to pay for SmugVault, but at approximately $0.22/GB USD, and with me having about 150-200 GB of photos, that's hard to afford. I'm sure someone will ask "what are your photos worth", but I'm not a pro and every dollar counts. I looked at the Amazon S3 service which underlies SmugVault, but even that's still $0.15/GB and beyond my budget.

Is there a more affordable alternative to storing photos - including my RAW files ?

As far as I know there are no photo sharing sites that will allow you display RAW format. I'm not sure why you would want to. But as far as pure storage, you can go with an online storage site, but you lose the ability to share phots in a gallery.

With memory/storage so cheap, why would you want to have to waste time uploading your RAWS that you can't even view online? For important client paid jobs, I keep a working copy on desktop, a backup on an external drive, and 2 copies on different sets of DVD's that are kept off site. (One at my parents, one at work).

Knowing that my JPEGS are protected and stored online, the RAWS are all I need to worry about at home.

NuggyBuggy

Jan 19th, 2009, 05:57 PM

As far as I know there are no photo sharing sites that will allow you display RAW format. I'm not sure why you would want to. But as far as pure storage, you can go with an online storage site, but you lose the ability to share phots in a gallery.

With memory/storage so cheap, why would you want to have to waste time uploading your RAWS that you can't even view online? For important client paid jobs, I keep a working copy on desktop, a backup on an external drive, and 2 copies on different sets of DVD's that are kept off site. (One at my parents, one at work).

Knowing that my JPEGS are protected and stored online, the RAWS are all I need to worry about at home.
I actually do not care about photo sharing. I also don't care about viewing my RAW files online. I care about having my files backed up in a better way than I can do it myself. For the record, my files are stored on a RAID5 array and backed up to a second RAID5 array located somewhere else in my house. But if my house burns down, I'm screwed, aren't I ?

Backing up to DVDs and carrying them off-site is great, but I don't a) have the discipline or b) time to do this on a regular enough basis to ensure that I am not going to lose precious photos. If I do it once a week - which is way more often than I have the time to do - and lose a week's photos, that's still way too much.

I just want an affordable file-storage service which will let me run batch jobs to backup my files, that I can trust.

SENSEI

Jan 19th, 2009, 06:02 PM

Then a pure data back site such as Mozy sounds like it would be better for you.

If it's just to ensure redundancy in an offsite location, this is prolly your best bet.

kiz5

Jan 20th, 2009, 12:10 AM

skanji

Jan 20th, 2009, 07:36 AM

If you're looking for having your photos stored safely online, paying SmugMug, or another photo-based site is a far more expensive route to take, since you're paying for the way they display their photos as well. For straight data storage, there is definitely a far better way of going about it.

Please share...

Also, bump on the following question:
i have 55gigs of photos all organized by folder date (2008 11 22, etc...)

will smugmug allow me to upload all folders at once, or do I have to upload folder by folder?

cheers!

SENSEI

Jan 20th, 2009, 09:33 AM

Please share...

Also, bump on the following question:
i have 55gigs of photos all organized by folder date (2008 11 22, etc...)

will smugmug allow me to upload all folders at once, or do I have to upload folder by folder?

cheers!

Answer was given to you already:

The equivalent for folders on Smugmug are galleries.

"Send to Smugmug" is a program that will allow you upload as many pictures or folders into ONE gallery at a time.

If you want to upload each folder into it's own gallery, all you'll need to do is open different instances of Send to Smugmug for each gallery you want to upload to.

The most I've actually tried was 6 galleries at a time.

If you just want to dump everything into one gallery, you can choose a whole drive and subfolders to upload at once....