d2b2 Loc: Catonsville, Maryland, USA

I have used SugarSync For a number of years. Yesterday, I discovered that none of my photo backup files were on their system. Within the past year, I had increased my capacity with them, because of the number of files I was building up and wanted to have backed up by a cloud system, in the future.

Now, without any warning of which I was aware, they have suddenly decided that they would no longer entertain any files larger than 300MB. Since I was doing a lot of RAW work, it was not unusual for me to have far more than 300MB in any given file.

Keep in mind that I have had my files there in that kind of size all along, for years. But what I discovered was that all of my files that were larger than 300MB had suddenly disappeared from their site! In fact, what I discovered was that all of my multiple photo files had now simply vanished from the backup system. I had paid additionally for greater capacity, but I'm now using less than 9% of what I had paid for, in advance. From previous experience, I should be using about 50% of the capacity for which I was enrolled.

So I am asking any of you in the group, who has used SugarSync? And have you had similar difficulties?

rmalarz Loc: Tempe, Arizona

I do my own backups and maintain them here. They are available to me 24/7 and I have incredible tech support. Your narrative is the reason why.
--Bob

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

I have not used Supersync, but having spent some years working with a global file system company that relied on the cloud as part of their deliverables, May I suggest that instead of these 2nd or 3rd tier cloud companies, that you consider Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Apple or other major cloud providers for your cloud storage. Not only are they much less likely to go belly up, have more reliable HW and administration, and have more geographically diverse copies of your data, your primary site is in general, more likely to be physically close to you which reduces latency and improves performance. Generally, they will provide as much storage as you’re willing to pay for.

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

In flies a guy who's all dressed up just like a Union Jack
And says, "hey, you, get your files off of my cloud!"

rgrenaderphoto Loc: Hollywood, CA

Go professional and buy Dropbox storage. I have no limits on file size, performance is excellent, and I keep my Lightroom and export folders in Dropbox, so backup is realtime. You have discovered that thrid tier cloud services are dangerous.

But you should also never, ever have all your eggs in one basket. Just like keeping everything on 1 external hard drive runs a huge risk of drive failure.

A few years ago, the HD that held my photo directories failed. I lost about a 4 Tb of date, including 2½ Tb of movies scanned from (my own) DVDs. My photographs were in Dropbox and were protected. Installing a new HD and letting everything restore overnight was simple.

Now, I have all critical files on a Drobo 5C RAID array, backed up by Dropbox, and mirrored several times per week on a Netgear NAS using Acronis True image.

The setup was not inexpensive, but far less of an expense compared to what I might loose.

rmalarz Loc: Tempe, Arizona

--Bob

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

👍👍 Right answer.

Bison Bud

With today's pricing on memory in general, be it either hard drives, SSD's, SD cards, or USB drives, I find no real need for Cloud storage and prefer to do my own "in house" backups. I think this provides the best control over my data and it is not subject to anyone else's rules, fee's, or security lapses. Good luck and good shooting to all.

NCMtnMan Loc: N. Fork New River, Ashe Co., NC

Suggest you check out iDrive. They give you a huge amount of space for small dollars. They don't care what type or size of file. They also have a free service for getting started if needed. If you have a large amount of data for the initial backup, they will send you a hard drive for you to put everything on and return to them. They will then upload it to your account for you so you don't have to spend days getting things uploaded. You can also backup multiple devices and perform sync, create system image files and several other free options. I've been using them for a couple of years and am very satisfied.

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

What happens if your house burns down, is robbed, hit by lightning, the drive is on line when a power surge occurs or you back up a corrupted or infected drive?

pendennis

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^


This!!!

a6k Loc: Detroit & Sanibel

I want to respond only to those who advocate relying upon local backup only. There are many good options for remote (AKA cloud) backup. I won't bother to advance my personal choice.

I use local backup storage and I strongly recommend it. In my case it's TimeMachine on my Mac and the built-in features in Windows 10 on my wife's PC. In both cases I use multiple backup volumes so that the loss of any 1 is not a total loss. Cost is an issue but I am switching to SDD from HDD gradually even for backup.

But I have personally experienced flood, fire, tornado and earthquake. I've also lost volumes to power failures at critical moments. I have not experienced theft and vandalism but those are certainly common. Local backup is vulnerable to all of that.

In other words, buy insurance; it's cheap. Do you not have insurance on your home and your car and perhaps your photography gear? Then doesn't it make sense to insure your photos?

Anyone who is new to this subject who wants help with the decision process for which remote backup to buy is welcome to PM me or just use a thread like this. There are many experts who will freely share their knowledge and advice.

sandiegosteve Loc: San Diego, CA

Good statement.

To add to the original poster, it is good you check it.

I do know that a backup plan is no good if you blindly trust it. Check your backups. When if you main data does go bad? How will you recover.

edrobinsonjr Loc: Boise, Idaho

I have been using IDrive for several years now.

You install it, select the folders you want backed up, set the backup schedule and that's it.

I have it set to back up daily at around 6AM. You also have the option to backup in real time along with the scheduled runs.

I pay around $60/year for 5TB.

When I purchased a new PC a couple of years ago I restored all of my files with no problems. I have also restored individual files on ocassion with just a few clicks.

Ed

DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

Archival storage is something everyone should consider. But it all depends on how much you value your stuff. And by stuff, I mean everything on your computer, not just the photos.

Level 0: no archive. Everything is on your computer's hard drive. You risk it all. You can get wiped out by a lightning strike 30 miles away, coming through the power lines. If you don't have anything you want to save on your computer, you can stop here.

Level 1: an external hard drive with a copy of everything on your hard drive. (Programs and Operating systems are easily replaced, so no need to copy them, but you should have a copy of your installation keys for the programs you use). This is a minimal archive. It can protect against accidental deletes. Line glitches can wipe out everything on your computer and your archival disk if the disk is connected to the computer.

Level 2: two or more external hard drives with a copy of everything. At least one of the hard drives is stored off-site to protect against local disasters.

Level 3: two or more external hard drives and a cloud account. The hard drives give you level 2 protection and the cloud account gives you protection against regional disasters (such as the Paradise fire, where the whole town burned, probably including everything that was in the local bank vault).

If you choose levels 1-3, consider that an essential part of archiving is maintenance. Hard drives have a finite lifetime. Copy the data to a new hard drive every couple years to protect against aging failures. This also gives you the opportunity to increase the capacity of your system since you have been taking more photos, producing more word processing documents and spreadsheets, getting more email, etc....

Local storage (the external hard drives) will be your primary archive. If you have to restore something, that is where you turn first. There are no bandwidth issues and the download time is fast. Cloud storage is secondary. It's there if all your primary archives fail. Your local hard drives are maintained by an amateur (you), and are all in close proximity to each other. Cloud storage devices are maintained by professionals, and are duplicated across countries, if not continents. Local storage is convenient. Cloud storage is safe. (Assuming you choose a reputable cloud provider).