mlj Loc: Anderson, SC

I am thinking about subscribing to a cloud service as a back-up. Do these services back-up RAW files?

joe west Loc: Taylor, Michigan

if there a service they should backup anything, the only differents between raw and reg. shots is the size,
raw files are 25 meg each

selmslie Loc: Fernandina Beach, FL, USA

If you want to use it for backup you will be spending a lot of money. 100 gigabytes will cost you between $50 and $200 per year.

On the other hand, a 1 terrabyte external drive (10 times as much storage) will cost just over $100 once and that drive will last at least 5 years. You can easily afford to replace it regularly with a newer model.

The Cloud is not a viable backup option. However, if you want to share your photos and can limit yourself to under about 5 gigabytes, you can get that for free from several vendors.

It is not likely that you or your grandchildren will outlive jpeg or tiff formats (and probably not any of the major RAW formats either). But I can't say the same for Google, Microsoft or any other current Cloud vendor.

tramsey Loc: Texas

I use Carbonite. the price has gone up a little now. I think it's $59.00 a year. It back your computer up automatically. You put something new on your computer and it's backed up. You don't have to think about it. When it first came out several years ago it would slow your computer down, noticeably, not any more. That is not a problem. It doesn't make any difference how many gigabytes or terabytes or whatever comes next bytes you put on it, it costs the same $59.00 a year. The only down side to it is the first time you back up your computer it takes a looooong time. Two years ago when I went with it I had two 500 gigabytes external hard drives that were nearly full and an terabyte internal hard drive that was nearly full, It took a day and a half to back it up, 36 hours. A business friend told me about it and said that when he backed it up the first time it took an entire weekend. I don't know how much data he is storing. He has several restaurants in Deep South Texas and this is where he does it all: menus, employees and all their information, phone numbers, salaries, programs to write their checks, keep track of inventory, everything is on there. The whole enchilada. I would suppose that something like that costs a little more than what I get it for. But it is safe, never need to worry about it. I've had it two years. My computer crashed and was able to restore everything with a click.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

If the cloud provider goes out of business, you're out of luck.

tramsey Loc: Texas

I don't think there is much chance of that with Carbonite.
But anything is possible maybe not porbable but possible.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

Too big to fail? :D

tramsey Loc: Texas

Sure ...that's right just ask well Fargo, Bank of America and what's that other one that we own? I forget.

saichiez Loc: Beautiful Central Oregon

Somebody mentioned Carbonite to me a couple of days ago. Can anyone tell me the proper spelling. The search result on Yahoo gives me a link that is "not in service" on the Internet.?????

Dan821 Loc: Traveling........

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

Maybe they could give us a group discount. :)

gwong1 Loc: Tampa, FL

Jerry, Great idea, can you work on that on behalf of UHH members? Gary

4ellen4 Loc: GTA--Ontario

I have read somewhere maybe even here at Hedgehog that a problem with on-line storage is that sometimes web-pages are no longer for whatever reason so maybe an external hard drive would be the best option

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

Way ahead of you. If we get 1,000 to join at the same time, they will give us a 10% discount. :D

MagicFad Loc: Clermont, FL

The only problem I can see with a "cloud" type storage is that they compress your files. That may not be too cool for photos.