bikerguy

We store all of our files on three external hard drives. One is always attached to the computer. The second and third hard drives are swapped once a month and the new data copied using SyncToy. The second or third drive not being used is kept in a bank safe deposit box. I have no problem with photos being in the cloud, however, financial data, no. Therefore we do not use the cloud. If you are an Amazon Prime user you get free unlimited photo storage.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

My "best shots" are in the associated directories with all my other shots.

SuperflyTNT Loc: Manassas VA

If you’re an Adobe subscriber one of the benefits is a nice professional looking website that’s easy to set up. I’m not sure if there are limits because I just started mine.

fetzler Loc: North West PA

I store mine in box in the back seat of my 1931 Ford Model A. HI HI

Others have good suggestions.

BigDaddy Loc: Pittsburgh, PA

Backup needs to be on an external drives and probably two. One should be disconnected when not in use to protect it from electrical mishaps, like power surges from your electric service, including lightening strikes and so on. Off site storage is needed if you are worried about terrorist attacks on your house, fire, explosions and so on. For this you need a off site/cloud storage.

For "free" unlimited offline photo storage, the best I found is Amazon, but you need Amazon Prime for "free" unlimited storage. If you have the Amazon Fire stick, or whatever it's called on your TV, everything stored on Amazon drive can be shown as a slideshow, or individually, just like slides used to be shown "in the day". For this, I resize my photos to 16x9 ratio (1920x1080) so I really don't use it as backup for anything, rather just to make all my favorite photo's available just like a TV station.

Of course to do this you need Amazon Prime, and also a Firestick. I have a few thousand photo's on Amazon Drive and add a few everyday. It's interface is quick and easy to use. You set up folders for files, like, family, pets, birds trip to Mexico, etc etc. You can then show all pics, or specific folders in a slide show, and control everything with your Firestick controller. It's very nice way to go.

dancingdogs Loc: Florida

Hope it is a steel box!

Strodav Loc: Houston, Tx

Regarding storing your stuff on cloud based services. Except for the backup services, cloud based services are there to allow you to share your photos with the world. You never know when the "free" services will start charging, or pay for services will raise their prices, or sell the service to some other provider, or just discontinue the service. Nothing wrong with using cloud based services, but, IMHO, you should have your own physical backups.

dancingdogs Loc: Florida

I use Smug mug and am very happy with it and terms of service. If I have a problem customer support is quick in responding. The price is increasing soon, but not by much. I also find Shutterfly an easy site to use. I like to make photo books. Just wait for the specials and watch the cost and of shipping- sometimes that negates the coupon offer. I find that aspect of Shutterfly irritating- it is a little sneaky. As I said I like Smug Mug.

frankraney Loc: Clovis, Ca.

You already know flikr, its cheap, pay it.

Amazon, $10/mo, unlimited uploads and easy.

If you use adobe for editing, they have a free site your you.

Google free and easy.

All can be open to public or private. All can also be password shared by album or single photos.

d_sokoll

I have created a FREE website.

https://bestnaturewildlife.shutterfly.com/

Create your own.

I am 75 years old and find it easy to use.

Dngallagher Loc: Wilmington De.

FWIW - The same slideshow can be accomplished using Flickr & a ROKU device, Firestick or most streaming devices that have a Flickr app to get connected.

grcolts

Flickr is owned by SmugMug now. And, SmugMug is a great place to host, sell your images online too. Flickr has the advantages of being active in various groups whereas SmugMug is mainly for your storage of images.
Here is my SmugMug site if you wish to see how I set it up...
https://garyrichards.smugmug.com/
GQR

zgirl Loc: TN

I am happy with SmugMug.

A word of caution regarding free storage. There was a site that offered free or quite affordable storage a few years back. The site changed their terms of service and started charging quite a significant amount ($400.00) a year to allow photos linked to a 3rd party website. If one chose not to pay what numerous customers called the "ransom" the link to the photo was broken and replaced with a message to update your account.

It significantly impacted a forum I use with years of great story telling and great photos disappearing overnight.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

Sounds like they may have disabled "hot-linking", which is highly frowned upon because it uses server bandwidth without benefit of visitors to the site.
Hot-linking (in-line linking) is considered very poor form by many.

no12mo

Having a common name, I cannot keep a Facebook account active. I don't know if they allow an alias or not but I would never trust my valued photos on any form of cloud. One poster had the right idea - keep a drive with a program that is active 24/7 - then back up to an external drive and store that in a fire resistant container.

Another "danger Will Robinson" is that your main drive suddenly becomes toast. So, do clones on a regular basis. If you don't know how to do a clone, learn how to. There is software or hardware based duplicators. RAID drives are a good idea also.