cloud service choices and functionality

[Deb789]

Hello,

I am tired of external HDDs breaking and II am tired of swapping them back and forth for redundancy. Another redundant HDD just stopped working and I have finally decided to purchase some space in the cloud (along with keeping 1, but only 1, external HDD). I am looking for input from others who use cloud storage services.

I researched a lot online and I tried a couple out, but I am still not seeing exactly what I was hoping to find. Sadly, the features and FAQs at the websites seem to be geared toward people not looking for the same type of functionality, so the answers are not readily available at all.

My hope was to find one which works like my external HDD. I would want to store photos and sidecars in the same folders and files I use on my devices. I would also want to be able to search my archive by keyword. I would also hope to see the exif data and previews of each file before downloading it. Without seeing previews and/or using keyword search, it would take forever to find what I seek.

I feel like there must be an affordable cloud service which fits those criteria. They are not complicated. However, I am not finding them. Anyone with experience, please provide feedback!. Thank you!!

Details on my search so far for those who like to read more detail . . .

I have a free Dropbox account, but Dropbox has had more security breaches than most other cloud services in recent years, and the have hundreds of unanswered complaints at BBB (worse than any other I checked on BBB). Otherwise, I would gladly just upgrade to a paid account.

I tried Google. Drive is not storing photos full size. Google Photos will, and some exif is visible, but it does not use folders and subfolders. As pretty as it is to look at, and as much as I find I like that it helps prevent duplication, it makes creation of the library slow and will make keeping track of changes slower. It also will not store my sidecar files, which would be preferable.

I do not have Prime and it looks a lot like Google. Not even sure it has as much info on hand for each photo as Google. I might do the free trial of Prime, but I am not hopeful it will be helpful based on what I have read.

I do not want to be tied into Apple or Microsoft long term.

I tried Sync Vault. Customer service is great, and uploading is easy. However, I cannot see my exif online, nor can I search by keyword. Also, tiff and RAW files do not have previews available.

I looked at iDrive and Backblaze, though I do not want or need computer backup from them. I leaned toward iDrive for my needs because I could choose which files and folders to back up and I could back up directly from my external storage. I called iDrive today because the fine print on their offers and sign up page had interesting conditions attached. While the person on the phone sounded competent and helpful, what that person said on the phone does not match the fine print at their website, which makes me leery of signing up. There is no way to try the service without signing up.

I am reading (again) about Icedrive right now after ruling them out last week. I am tired of spinning my wheels looking for something which seems like it should be easier to resolve.

That was long, but my actual question is in bold further up in this question. Thank you again!

--
Deb
https://www.flickr.com/photos/flowerfly99/

 

[ahaslett]

If you are using an Apple computer than Apple photos auto upload to cloud makes sense. I use it and have done for many years.

I also use Google photos and then move some over to Apple.

Both are excellent. You can use Apple photos from a Windows pc too

I like Apple for many reasons, but I recently wanted to back up one folder to icloud and Apple started sucking every document (both of my creation and of Apple's creation) on my computer off my computer and to the cloud. It took weeks to correct the situation and try to verify it was completely corrected. And, honestly, I will probably never know if I lost some random items.

I do like Google Photos, and I will continue to use them for sharing and such, but using it for off-site storage of all my photos would require recreating my entire folder structure into Google's albums. Also, I could not store my sidecars with my photos in Google Photos. If I wanted to try new edits on old photos or even just resize the export from a RAW photo (both of which I do fairly often), I would need to start from scratch with editing. That could be a real nightmare.

My wife uses iCloud and it's a badly documented nightmare that does what Apple wants.

A

 

[Sonyshine]

I have never had a problem in years of using iCloud. You do have to learn it and understand the settings like any other software. It is utterly seamless and a joy to use once mastered.

 

[IamBrad]

if you install the OneDrive application, yes you are limited to the personal folders for that user, which are are on the main OS drive

you can manually drag and and drop any folder you want from any local drive straight to the OneDrive browser interface. I've been playing around with trying to setup an automated PowerShell script that would copy any new files straight to OneDrive. PowerShell permissions can be hinky though, so I'm waiting until i get the new laptop built before I muck around any further. I'm also thinking it makes sense to incorporate zip into the process where it first compresses everything as much as possible then copies to OneDrive. I'm pretty new to RAW files so not sure if they compress much using zip utilities. Scripting aside, zipping then dragging, not a terrible manual process frankly... couple clicks and a drag

You mention HDD failures - have you considered solid state? They've got a much lower failure rate. That comes at a higher cost. I've got a 4TB SanDisk, then as I mentioned, I manually move things to OneDrive for backup purposes.

I've considered not even installing the Utility on this next build. I don't use File Explorer any longer as I prefer the OneDrive web interface now that I've grown accustomed to it. I do like how I can have my desktop sync'd, but as a habit I try to keep it as blank as possible, so I dunno /shrug

I'm locked into M365. I've been implementing/supporting it at work for about 10 years now, and I've got a Home account which gives me, my wife, and our kids, their own environment, including licenses for all the apps and 1Tb of storage each.

 

[Timothy Langner]

That was a. lot of super helpful information. Thank you!! I might just end up going with an upgraded NAS. The cloud is looking more and more attractive these days, though. Just one more subscription. Even though I am using an Apple computer right now, I looked at OneDrive when I read your answer. I think MS and Apple work pretty well together these days. It looks super nice, but the maximum storage is 1 Tb, about half what I need as of today. And having become the family photo archiver and slideshow maker, I think I might need more than 2 Tb fairly soon.

This is the problem I have. I had a Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra mobile and it can take high quality photos and videos that require a lot of storage space.

The Samsung Gallary app backs up to OneDrive, which is fine as an idea but signing up to OneDrive only gives you 1 TB of storage space. You can increase this to 2 TB once you are a subscriber but that is still too small when you consider how powerful the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra is and how large the file sizes generated are.

One model of the S23 Ultra has 1 TB of inteneral memory. My one is 512 GB.

Even if you don't use up all your online storage this year, what about in 5 or 6 years time? Phones are getting even more powerful and no doubt file sizes will increase too. Some people are liviing longer so generating more data as time goes on.

Backing up time to a cloud provider isn't an issue for me as I have a 1 Gbps Internet package which includes 1 Gbps upload as well as 1Gbps download. I have a wired network around my house but even my mobile near my router gets very fast speeds. I went for this past speed as the package was only £30.99, including phone line and I wanted it for work too.

I take videos at music festivals and other concerts, in addition to photos. One blues duo recently, where I didn't film everything they did in their set, was still 6 GB in total and I'm not even using the highest quality video setting.

So I don't understand why Samsung don't provide a high capacity cloud system to go with their high end mobiles.

It's like the left hand not talking to the right hand.

From my current moible, previous mobiles and digital cameras, as well as scans of some of the family sides, I already easily have over 2 TB of digital files and I'm far from finishing the scanning of all the family slides.

Then there is all my non-photographic stuff, which includes music I've recorded over the years.

I can't seem to find anything that caters for this as a consumer. I have a Synology NAS as that was the best one recommended some years ago but whenever I hit a problem and I'd ask for advice onoine, I'd go no response.

I have some technical understanding but not enough to resolve the issues I experienced with that.

Now it is switched off and I only switch it on to get some photos off it as and when I need them.

Ideally I'd like everything in a cloud storage, as well as my own offline copy on various hard drives.

I'm not sure if Google is any help as I think that has limits too and I might exceed them. Google also make high end phones. There is Google Workspace but that is a business product and Google Photos isn't supported as it is a consumer product. Also there are some other things Google don't offer on the business product for legal reasons.

I like online storage as it is much easier to locate photos and share them with people. Samsung and Google have some AI editing capabilities which I use now and again and I have various apps on my phone to create GIFs or add text; merge photos etc. Also the automatic AI type labelling is good.

I do have a MacBook Pro but although I love Macs and OS X, I was never a fan of iOS, having had a couple of iPod Touches. I much prefer the Android OS, which is why I don't have an iPhone.

I am now dabbling in anlogue photography once more and that will generate some digital files too in due course. All this would be great backed up online, as well as my own offline copy.

Doing this means if I have a failed hard drive or fire, I have a copy elsewhere. I don't solely want it online though as if something happened to my account, I might lose my only copy. Hence prfering it in both places.

 

[Deb789]

That was a. lot of super helpful information. Thank you!! I might just end up going with an upgraded NAS. The cloud is looking more and more attractive these days, though. Just one more subscription. Even though I am using an Apple computer right now, I looked at OneDrive when I read your answer. I think MS and Apple work pretty well together these days. It looks super nice, but the maximum storage is 1 Tb, about half what I need as of today. And having become the family photo archiver and slideshow maker, I think I might need more than 2 Tb fairly soon.

This is the problem I have. I had a Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra mobile and it can take high quality photos and videos that require a lot of storage space.

The Samsung Gallary app backs up to OneDrive, which is fine as an idea but signing up to OneDrive only gives you 1 TB of storage space. You can increase this to 2 TB once you are a subscriber but that is still too small when you consider how powerful the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra is and how large the file sizes generated are.

One model of the S23 Ultra has 1 TB of inteneral memory. My one is 512 GB.

Even if you don't use up all your online storage this year, what about in 5 or 6 years time? Phones are getting even more powerful and no doubt file sizes will increase too. Some people are liviing longer so generating more data as time goes on.

Backing up time to a cloud provider isn't an issue for me as I have a 1 Gbps Internet package which includes 1 Gbps upload as well as 1Gbps download. I have a wired network around my house but even my mobile near my router gets very fast speeds. I went for this past speed as the package was only £30.99, including phone line and I wanted it for work too.

I take videos at music festivals and other concerts, in addition to photos. One blues duo recently, where I didn't film everything they did in their set, was still 6 GB in total and I'm not even using the highest quality video setting.

So I don't understand why Samsung don't provide a high capacity cloud system to go with their high end mobiles.

It's like the left hand not talking to the right hand.

From my current moible, previous mobiles and digital cameras, as well as scans of some of the family sides, I already easily have over 2 TB of digital files and I'm far from finishing the scanning of all the family slides.

Then there is all my non-photographic stuff, which includes music I've recorded over the years.

I can't seem to find anything that caters for this as a consumer. I have a Synology NAS as that was the best one recommended some years ago but whenever I hit a problem and I'd ask for advice onoine, I'd go no response.

I have some technical understanding but not enough to resolve the issues I experienced with that.

Now it is switched off and I only switch it on to get some photos off it as and when I need them.

Ideally I'd like everything in a cloud storage, as well as my own offline copy on various hard drives.

I'm not sure if Google is any help as I think that has limits too and I might exceed them. Google also make high end phones. There is Google Workspace but that is a business product and Google Photos isn't supported as it is a consumer product. Also there are some other things Google don't offer on the business product for legal reasons.

I like online storage as it is much easier to locate photos and share them with people. Samsung and Google have some AI editing capabilities which I use now and again and I have various apps on my phone to create GIFs or add text; merge photos etc. Also the automatic AI type labelling is good.

I do have a MacBook Pro but although I love Macs and OS X, I was never a fan of iOS, having had a couple of iPod Touches. I much prefer the Android OS, which is why I don't have an iPhone.

I am now dabbling in anlogue photography once more and that will generate some digital files too in due course. All this would be great backed up online, as well as my own offline copy.

Doing this means if I have a failed hard drive or fire, I have a copy elsewhere. I don't solely want it online though as if something happened to my account, I might lose my only copy. Hence prfering it in both places.

It does sound very much like we are dealing with the same or very similar issues! You might want to check out pcloud as a service. I am going to post an update with a follow up technical question in this thread shortly, where I will provide some detail what I have learned so far in my research. It's amazing how little discussion there is online about comparing services in terms of user-friendliness for creatives who shoot in RAW or produce higher quality music and/or video.

 

[Deb789]

Hello all! Thank you to everyone who added input to this discussion. I have been emailing services and researching this topic to death, so I thought I would share some of what I learned so far.

Also, I have a technical question I am hoping someone here can answer. If you think I should start a new thread with this question, please let me know. The new question: One company I contacted said that they compress files very slightly, but return them to full size upon download. I requested and received clarification that it is just previews which are slightly compressed. That conversation highlighted for me that I do not really understand how previews occur. What is the typical process used when generating previews? I assume it is like a photo of a photo, but I am curious now if there is a simple explanation of the technical process.

Here is an update on my decision progress for anyone following this and also struggling with these choices.

I really, really like Sync.com. They are secure, stable and their customer service are top notch (if a little slow to reply sometimes, as in up to a week waiting). They do not compress files at all. The downside, is once I started playing around a little with their service, I found myself quite frustrated that, so far, they do not provide online previews of files larger than 25 mb. They, like most or all others, also do not have a keyword search function, which can make it difficult to locate specific photos for downloading for projects. I have not completely given up on them yet.

Dropbox, with its horrible reputation for customer service and history of breaches, works seamlessly in terms of being able to search archives online and preview any size file online. They do compress files by breaking them into sections for moving purposes. My understanding is that is a non-destructive process. (If not, please let me know.) I have to keep reminding myself that the computer sees my photos as a long string of numbers, which would be easy to break apart and put back. They are not oil paintings or actual negatives, lol. To note: without a paid account, there is no email or phone support for Dropbox. You are required to use their chat feature, which does not allow space for more than a couple of sentences.

iDrive does not compress files at all and they have a good reputation for security. They have a ton of complaints online about unexpected and huge overage charges, which is just scary. They do seem to have good phone support, which is rare. I haven't confirmed whether they allow online previews of larger files.

Icedrive does not compress files but also does not have a preview available for files over 25 mb. Customer service was responsive and helpful. They seem much like Sync to me.

Pcloud does allow previews of larger photos, as well as videos and music(!). They have a very good reputation for security and customer service. Customer support was responsive and were able to clarify for me that, while videos and large files might not have full quality previews online, the files themselves are kept in the original size and format.

Mega has a good reputation in general, though they have had a recent security thing come up which may or may not be fully resolved. They do allow online previews of any size photo.

Anyway, I now know that, along with full size undamaged files in storage and transit, a nearly crucial component of online RAW photo storage is online previews. Could I make my previews of a sort or index my photos in a document of some sort instead? Yes, but it would not nearly be as efficient.

--
Deb
https://www.flickr.com/photos/flowerfly99/

 

[Timothy Langner]

Hello all! Thank you to everyone who added input to this discussion. I have been emailing services and researching this topic to death, so I thought I would share some of what I learned so far.

Also, I have a technical question I am hoping someone here can answer. If you think I should start a new thread with this question, please let me know. The new question: One company I contacted said that they compress files very slightly, but return them to full size upon download. I requested and received clarification that it is just previews which are slightly compressed. That conversation highlighted for me that I do not really understand how previews occur. What is the typical process used when generating previews? I assume it is like a photo of a photo, but I am curious now if there is a simple explanation of the technical process.

Here is an update on my decision progress for anyone following this and also struggling with these choices.

I really, really like Sync.com. They are secure, stable and their customer service are top notch (if a little slow to reply sometimes, as in up to a week waiting). They do not compress files at all. The downside, is once I started playing around a little with their service, I found myself quite frustrated that, so far, they do not provide online previews of files larger than 25 mb. They, like most or all others, also do not have a keyword search function, which can make it difficult to locate specific photos for downloading for projects. I have not completely given up on them yet.

Dropbox, with its horrible reputation for customer service and history of breaches, works seamlessly in terms of being able to search archives online and preview any size file online. They do compress files by breaking them into sections for moving purposes. My understanding is that is a non-destructive process. (If not, please let me know.) I have to keep reminding myself that the computer sees my photos as a long string of numbers, which would be easy to break apart and put back. They are not oil paintings or actual negatives, lol. To note: without a paid account, there is no email or phone support for Dropbox. You are required to use their chat feature, which does not allow space for more than a couple of sentences.

iDrive does not compress files at all and they have a good reputation for security. They have a ton of complaints online about unexpected and huge overage charges, which is just scary. They do seem to have good phone support, which is rare. I haven't confirmed whether they allow online previews of larger files.

Icedrive does not compress files but also does not have a preview available for files over 25 mb. Customer service was responsive and helpful. They seem much like Sync to me.

Pcloud does allow previews of larger photos, as well as videos and music(!). They have a very good reputation for security and customer service. Customer support was responsive and were able to clarify for me that, while videos and large files might not have full quality previews online, the files themselves are kept in the original size and format.

Mega has a good reputation in general, though they have had a recent security thing come up which may or may not be fully resolved. They do allow online previews of any size photo.

Anyway, I now know that, along with full size undamaged files in storage and transit, a nearly crucial component of online RAW photo storage is online previews. Could I make my previews of a sort or index my photos in a document of some sort instead? Yes, but it would not nearly be as efficient.

Thanks for the overview. I was looking for a file this evening but it will be on one of my hard drives somewhere.

How many of these services would allow me to search by location linked to a map services such as Open Street Map or Google Maps? So I type in Carshalton, which is in South London and hope comes the photos from that area.

It's something Google can do and I believe Samsung too with their Gallery app.

 

[Timothy Langner]

I'm locked into M365. I've been implementing/supporting it at work for about 10 years now, and I've got a Home account which gives me, my wife, and our kids, their own environment, including licenses for all the apps and 1Tb of storage each.

The problem with M365 for me is that you 1 TB of storage. Once you become a member you can pay for an additional 1 TB of storage. The problem for me then becomes you can get 2 TB storage in total by paying extra.

Paying extra isn't the problem. It's the maximum 2 TB. I reckon need at least 4 TB and that is only going to grow.

It's not just photos but it's videos too.

 

[Timothy Langner]

If you are using an Apple computer than Apple photos auto upload to cloud makes sense. I use it and have done for many years.

I also use Google photos and then move some over to Apple.

Both are excellent. You can use Apple photos from a Windows pc too

I bet one can't use Apple Photos on an Android phone though. I like Apple computers and own a MacBook M3 but I'm not keen on iPhones, perferring Android.

I see however one can access iCloud via a web browser on an Android phone and a couple of questions to Google's Gemini services suggests there are some third party apps that might sync. So it might be possible to do it that way.

I see Apple offers up to 12 TB storage. Interestingly in the UK 2TB storage is £8.99. 12 TB is £54.99. 12 TB / 2 TB = 9. 8x£8.99 is £53.94 so it's more expensive per TB the more TBs you pay for. One usually expects it to be the other way round.

That is one option I have only just thought of, partly thanks to posts on there and asking Google Gemini a question and not being satisfied that the first answer was the limit of what one could do. It seems it isn't and some syncing apps might work,

Maybe 10 years or more ago, I played around with sync apps in relation to my calendar being on Apple. I eventually switched the calendar to Google.

 

[IamBrad]

its odd to me they would limit the amount of storage you can upgrade to (ie limit how much extra they can charge us)

I'm old and just a hobbyist, so I don't think I'll ever exceed the 1Tb i'm currently getting. I've got all the jpg's i've taken in the last 20 years, plus my entire mpeg library stored out there and still only using 144Gb.

Now that I'm officially getting back into photography, and will be doing RAW, maybe I'll surprise myself and start to push it