Backing up to the cloud: Since upload speeds are limited to megabits and not gigabits, it seems like it would take an inordinate amount of time to backup several thousand photos to the...

gvarner Loc: Central Oregon Coast

Since upload speeds are limited to megabits and not gigabits, it seems like it would take an inordinate amount of time to backup several thousand photos to the cloud. What experiences do you all have in doing this and do different services provide different results? Thanks for your input. Right now I'm thinking of using Carbonite.

brucewells Loc: Central Kentucky

gvarner wrote:

Since upload speeds are limited to megabits and not gigabits, it seems like it would take an inordinate amount of time to backup several thousand photos to the cloud. What experiences do you all have in doing this and do different services provide different results? Thanks for your input. Right now I'm thinking of using Carbonite.

Should you subscribe and get the process flowing, the first backup is gonna take days/weeks/months to complete. No choice but to let it run 24 hours a day. Or, the service may allow you to send a hard drive of your data to them to copy over to their servers, and once that is done, you can start your backups.

After the initial backup (or seeding using the hard drive), the process takes very little time and runs in the background on your PC. I use CrashPlan and I never know when it's backing up. It just doesn't take many resources from my PC. The client software installed on my PC runs all the time, looking for stuff to send to the cloud backup. The data gets compressed during the backup, so the sent file is always smaller than what's on your system.

I currently send 1.4Tb of data and over 600,000 files. I get a secure feeling by having all my data stored somewhere safe in case the house gets blown away or burned.

Dave327 Loc: Duluth, GA. USA

Yes, it takes some time. Start in the early evening thru the night. Should be done by the morning.

Mark Sturtevant Loc: Grand Blanc, MI

Correct on the first backup. I don't know how other cloud systems manage themselves, but for the one I use (iDrive) you can then 'uncheck' the source folders and files that are already backed up, which tells the program to not back them up again. You also need to check the new folders and files from the source list to tell the program that you want to back them them up. I periodically go through and uncheck old items and check new items.

Bmarsh Loc: Bellaire, MI

Much better in my opinion to use a hard-drive dock that plugs into USB and copy your pics to it. Would cost you one-time about $100 for the dock and the drive. Another $80 would get you a second drive that you can swap for backup. I'm not a Windows user but someone here can probably mention a good copy program.

Advantages:
1) you are not relying on some company to stay in business. (I don't use a cloud for anything)
2). You can swap the drives and store one away from your house.
3) restore is just a copy in the other direction.
4) faster and more reliable.
5) you are in control of the whole process.

Steve Perry Loc: Sylvania, Ohio

Here's what I do:

First, I have a local copy of all my files on a desktop raid array. Second, I have a copy of all those files that is kept off site at another location. Third, I use backblaze cloud backup (unlimited, reasonable price fairly quick) for cloud storage. It takes a LONG time to upload though, but the sooner you start, the sooner it's done (in fact, I've been using it a couple months now and still have a lot of files to go - but 1.6TB is already there). As mentioned above, these types of systems don't really seem to slow down the computer of use any resources, and once it's done, it's not that hard to keep it up to date.

Steve DeMott Loc: St. Louis, Missouri (Oakville area)

gvarner wrote:

Since upload speeds are limited to megabits and not gigabits, it seems like it would take an inordinate amount of time to backup several thousand photos to the cloud. What experiences do you all have in doing this and do different services provide different results? Thanks for your input. Right now I'm thinking of using Carbonite.

It takes to long to upload and to long to down load, plus I don't trust storing my data to the cloud wherever that my be.
I have two 4TB external hard drives that connect to my computer thru USB 3.0. One is located in a security box at my bank the other is hooked up to my computer. I use Acronis to backup my drives nightly and mirror my system disk when needed.
https://www.acronis.com/en-us/personal/computer-backup/
I trade the hard drives out usually once a month or more often depending on my computer usage. If the system crashes or I lose a drive I have a current backup. Worst case I'll only lose a couple of weeks of data.

gvarner Loc: Central Oregon Coast

Bmarsh wrote:

Much better in my opinion to use a hard-drive dock... (show quote)

I think that's what I'm going to do, rely on a series of external drives. I already have put all my original photo files on an external drive and add more by folder as I go, then copy the folder to my PC's HD to work on with Elements. I use Elements to backup the Catalogue to another external drive. I'm also concerned about iCloud services, hacking, and long term service.

rafikiphoto Loc: Spain

gvarner wrote:

Since upload speeds are limited to megabits and not gigabits, it seems like it would take an inordinate amount of time to backup several thousand photos to the cloud. What experiences do you all have in doing this and do different services provide different results? Thanks for your input. Right now I'm thinking of using Carbonite.

I use Carbonite. I have 4.4TB stored there at the moment. I have a fast internet connection which gives me 10 Mbs/sec upload and it took a month uploading 24 hours a day. Now it just ticks over mirroring my home system. I also have all that, twice, on external hard disks here. Ultra careful I am! Carbonite is OK, their support is good. Their cost is reasonable. The main downside is that anything deleted on the home system is only retained by them for 30 days. It could take much longer than that to discover you accidentally deleted an important file.

brucewells Loc: Central Kentucky

gvarner wrote:

I think that's what I'm going to do, rely on a series of external drives. I already have put all my original photo files on an external drive and add more by folder as I go, then copy the folder to my PC's HD to work on with Elements. I use Elements to backup the Catalogue to another external drive. I'm also concerned about iCloud services, hacking, and long term service.

Perhaps I should have mentioned that I use two 4Tb hard drives here at home. One is the 'primary' backup drive (G:\). At 5:00 PM every day, my local backup software kicks off and backs up G:\ to the other 4Tb drive (H:\). So at that point, I have 3 copies of all my data (not just image files).

As stated earlier, CrashPlan runs all the time and backs up the G:\ drive to CrashPlan Central. (Do some research on Code 42, the creators of CrashPlan. They started as a centralized accounting firm. Very professional people.)

The sole reason I subscribe to CrashPlan is for off-site backup. How much data do you think got lost in Houston the last few days due to flooding?

jmvaugh Loc: Albuquerque

Right now I use my desktop and a decent sized external drive for backup. First backup takes days running 7/24 (which I had to change the power save options on my desktop because the first thing it puts to sleep is the USB ports so the backing up stops). I use MS OneDrive mostly for downloading and transfers between my desktop and laptop and iPhone. I'm old school so I'm not comfortable storing personal, medical, or financial info in the cloud, but photographs - if hackers want to steal my photos of flowers, birds or my dog, so be it. I've got copies on two physical drives. I'm going to expand my external backup drive very soon. Being old school, I probably shoot a hundred photos and keep three or four, so I'm not downloading that many yet. If I'm faced with a disaster or evacuation I'll just grab my family, the dog, my firearms, the external drive and my laptop and head for the hills.

Cwilson341 Loc: Central Florida

gvarner wrote:

Since upload speeds are limited to megabits and not gigabits, it seems like it would take an inordinate amount of time to backup several thousand photos to the cloud. What experiences do you all have in doing this and do different services provide different results? Thanks for your input. Right now I'm thinking of using Carbonite.

It can take a few days to get everything uploaded to Carbonite but once it is there the updates happen without you really noticing. I've been with Carbonite for over a year and had no trouble with it at all.

johneccles Loc: Leyland UK

Bmarsh wrote:

Much better in my opinion to use a hard-drive dock... (show quote)

I agree with all five of these advantages, I have three external hard drives, a WD MyCloud which is an NAS device to which I can access from anywhere, I also use Google Photos for storage (because its free).

mborn Loc: Massachusetts

brucewells wrote:

Should you subscribe and get the process flowing, ... (show quote)

Good answer and once the initial back-up is done then the back-up of new data doesn't take a long time. My Backblaze is running in the background all the time

Notorious T.O.D. Loc: Harrisburg, North Carolina

No wonder my internet stops working several times a day with all you people dumping all this data to the cloud... LOL. I love this term cloud...35 years ago we called it a data center. But cloud sounds so much more sexy!!!

Best,
Todd Ferguson