Off-site storage?

[Severian]

As my photo collection grows in size, exponentially since the acquisition of my D50 last year, I'm giving more thought to backing up my digital files to off-site storage. I currently mirror my pictures on two separate hard drives, but don't want to just keep burning files to DVD only.

I've only cursorily used Flickr, pics.bbzzdd, etc, so bear with my ignorance here, please. Is it possible, to use something like Flickr or Smugmug to store my photos, which would then be retrievable in their original size, not just shrunk down to 1024 or whatever they display at on the page?

I'm only interested in storing JPEG at this point, I don't shoot enough RAW for it to be unmanageable with DVDR archiving yet. But I would like to get my photos back in pristine form in the event of a fire or other catastrophe. I have no problem paying the $25/year to Flickr if I could actually do this, but from what I've read in their TOS, there's no guarantee this is possible.

Would I be better off using a data backup service like Carbonite, rather than a photo hosting service?

Thanks for any input.

 

[jamesbond007]

I use to do off-site backups to a friend's server over the past few years. (just dropped them in via FTP or portable harddisk) He lived about 25 miles out of town, so backups weren't bad. However, he recently moved about 5 blocks away from me, so I haven't been doing that anymore. If I get hit by a tornado, he will likely see damage too.

I've heard of other photographers putting files onto tapes or harddisks and storing them in safe deposit boxes at their bank. That's pretty secure and not a bad way to do it, IMHO.

I am also a Flickr member, but I believe they put that disclaimer in their TOS simply because they have to for legal reasons. (hacking, natural disasters, etc) I feel pretty confident that the photos I put up are going to be there for a VERY long time, thus, I would feel fairly confident in using Flickr as an off-site backup. The only crappy part is that when you go to retrieve the original files, the filenames are not preserved. Additionally, I believe the file size limit is still 10MB, which sucks with today's increasing size of CMOS sensors and resolutions.

For what it's worth, I currently have several RAID1 arrays lined up with very large disks. Each array has two drives of equal size and one of the 2 disks is inside a hot-swap bay in the server in case $hit hits the fan and I need to grab my files ASAP.

~Travis

 

[Severian]

Can anyone confirm that photos uploaded to Flickr are retrievable later at their original resolution and filesize? I guess that would summarize my query succinctly....

The problem I have with storing a hard drive in a safety deposit box is that the portfolio doesn't get updated in real time, you'd have to go and get the HDD and plug it in every so often. Inevitably the drive will fail, just like the DVDs will. I already have seven hard drives in my system, including the external USB drive that is my main photo mirror.

 

[randomlinh]

if you are a pro user, you have the full image available to retrieve. however, there's no easy way to get them. There are 3rd party tools, but that's no guarantee that they'll be available in the future. Although, I doubt it'd be an issue. Plus you can still just order a DVD with all your photo's worst case scenario.

While more expensive, I currently use mozy to do my remote off site backup (documents and photos). Flickr I consider my "share with friends and family" first, then secondary it's a "oh shit!" backup.

 

[troytime]

i have two 1tb external drives

i keep one at work, one here
about once a week (or month, or whenever i need to update) i take the one from work and swap it with the one i had at home.
that way there's always 3 hard drives with my data
my PC version, my external, and my external at work

i keep my PCs data (not all, just important stuff) synced with the externals with GoodSync

i scored my externals for 130 bucks a piece, so total investment was 230 bucks

compare that with the thousands it'll cost to recover a failed hard drive