frjeff Loc: Mid-Michigan

I use a laptop (Windows OS) for photo post processing and organization. Use ON1.
I have been backing up photos to two on-site external hard drives and also to BackBlaze cloud.

I have recently run into significant difficulties with BackBlaze (following a fried SSD) and will not renew my annual plan with them.

Looking for alternative off-site backup suggestions (free or fee) which will be for photos only, is user friendly, etc.

Thanks for sharing…..

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

I'm sure there will be plenty of suggestions as to cloud providers, but first: why photos only? Is there nothing else important on your computer(s)? There should be.

If you do backup, you should have copies of important documents: birth/marriage certificates, deeds, insurance policies, etc. If you worry about hacking you can encrypt them. But it's always good to have an important document backed up. You might also consider things like program configuration files, which will save you some time if your computer gets destroyed and you have to load everything into a new one.

frjeff Loc: Mid-Michigan

My bad, I should have said all files (as you stated) but predominantly photos!

David Martin Loc: Cary, NC

I've been quite satisfied with IDrive.

frjeff Loc: Mid-Michigan

Just now looking at their site.

NikonGal Loc: Central Oregon

I've been happy for the last 5 years with Carbonite. Not free though.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

I'm satisfied with Carbonite.

ISOlate Loc: Maine

I’m a big fan of Synology as both an on-site and cloud storage solution. Been using them for 8 years without any issues.

NikonRocks Loc: Sydney

As an aside but importantly related to this topic - it's one thing to backup to whatever your backup destination device is, whether local or in the cloud. How many folk actually check to see whether they can actually recover their data by restoring it to another drive on their PC/laptop and checking that it all restored correctly. It may require you to purchase a spare drive at least the size of the one you are backing up and then restoring to that new device. Many people do their backups on a regular basis but have never checked to see whether the data (or image of their working drive) can be restored easily and without any grief. Sooner or later Murphy is going to catch you out if you haven't gone down that path and have clear instructions on how to go about the recovery process and have proven them to work.
Put yourself in the position where something catastrophically happened to your desktop/laptop. Worst case -it's stolen or failed beyond repair. You have to buy a new device - nothing salvageable - now what? How do you get back your system and data to how things were prior to this catastrophic event. Think of all the hours you spent over configuring the device to behave the way you wanted it to including all the apps on it. Can you remember all the steps you took?
Can your data be restored to totally different hardware? This may well be the situation you face having to buy new hardware.
All this needs to be checked out when choosing a backup app.
If you don't know how to restore your data then you are living in la-la land which will ultimately give you a lot of grief when reality kicks in..

frjeff Loc: Mid-Michigan

In my limited research of cloud backup options, it appears that all have a recovery methodology; either via download over internet and/or mailed drive containing your backed up data.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

Sorry, not going to periodically download over 65,000 files and check each one for data integrity.......
And if I sampled them, Murphy would have the one I didn't sample be "bad".
At some point one has to just trust the system.

frjeff Loc: Mid-Michigan

Agreed!

Bayou

As have I. Over a decade of use now for myself and numerous others, several successful recoveries of many files, historical versions kept indefinitely (and they work), good interface, light resource usage, good price.

IDrive...Highly recommended.

dbrugger25 Loc: Raleigh, NC

I had a recent backup of my photos, except a few of the newest ones. I also had an old backup of my other files. About three weeks ago I had a total crash of an SSD in my HP laptop. It was a total loss. I bought a new internal SSD and installed Windows 11, and Office 365.

I had a huge number of software packages installed. So many that I can't remember them all. All the ones I used frequently were by big, reputable companies and all those companies helped me download and reinstall. As the needs arise, and I need something that is still missing, the companies have all been more than kind in helping me.

I decided to buy a new laptop since my failed one was about four years old. Now, the old one is clean and working properly.

The new one is a Lenovo Yoga 16 inch with a very fast Intel processor, 32gb of ram and a one tb hard drive. The monitor colors and resolution are spectacular. I did a Spyder calibration and it fits the sRGB profile perfectly. The screen also flips 180 degrees so it can be used as a notebook. I really like it.

markngolf Loc: Bridgewater, NJ

Trust??? Not in my world!!
Sorry, Bill!
"Trust is a must!!"

Mark