Google launches Google One cloud storage plans, offers 2TB for $10/month

I think you need both: external drives and cloud storage. I wouldn't rely on cloud storage alone, and I wouldn't rely on hard drives alone. I do both.

@Cogset - And it isn't just that they might fail. Natural and un-natural disasters happen. Fire, flood, earthquake, tornado, robbery. A few years back, Francis Ford Coppola's house was burglarized and the robbers took all his hard drives and backup drives. He lost 15 years of archived photos, scripts, etc.

Look at a cloud in the sky. It disappears :) It is quite easy to make your whole stuff in the cloud to disappear as well.

Keeping your possessions in your house means that you own nothing. One fire/robbery and and everything you "own" is gone.

DUDE. that's not how cloud works. for companies like Google and Amazon, data is stored and encrypted in more than one rack/location, and they take redundancy and disaster recovery pretty seriously: https://support.google.com/googlecloud/answer/6056635?hl=en

The redundancy and security of the servers used by the big cloud storage providers (Google, Amazon, etc.) is at a level no individual user can hope to duplicate.

I agree, F the cloud.

Instead let’s buy 4x 2TB drives ($600), 4-bay NAS ($500), UPS (Uninterruptable Power Suppy - $150), set those drives up in RAID 5 for a double redundancy...

Then have a house fire/burglary/natural disaster/freak accident and well it’s all gone. Whoops.

@bolt:

You don’t appear to understand cloud data. Right now I can seamlessly access all my synced files from any connected device I have. I can access my raw files, edited files, synced pictures and edit them and save them in real time.

It’s not about putting a disk in a safe. It’s about accessibility.

Hmm, the discs of my 3 TB drive are spinning. All the time. And more than one disk does not count as long as they are at the same place.
I agree with josh152. Backup is a bit more complicated than most people think.

Spinning magnetic disk is still more reliable than dissipating electric charge in solid state devices.

Agreed, but it's not clear from Google's terms of service what level of reliability they wish to provide. It's important to have 2 copies locally in addition to anything stored on Google One.

> Hmm, the discs of my 3 TB drive are spinning. All the time

That seems to be a problem. Try the following: switch them off, detach and store in a safe. Once the data is stored, they don't need to be spinning, trust me.

> And more than one disk does not count as long as they are at the same place.

It perfectly counts against failure of one disk.

@dr.nose. Do you know you are being overly pedantic to intentionally miss the point I was making? Par for the course on DPR I suppose though. Yes you can have more the one HDD. But that ruins the whole " a 2tb HDD is only $60 argument. Plus I said 1 spinning disk and/or no offsite backup. 2 HDD in your house means you really have no back up as well. Since a fire, flood, theft, drop them both while moving them around ect and they are both gone.

There is NO excuse to not have an offsite back up. Yes not even cost. Because even if cloud back up which is very cheap if you dont' use google is too much or your upload speed is too slow you can simply use a safety deposit box at your bank for dirt cheap and some archival dvds or even a HDD though than you'd need at least 2 to be safe since HDD are prone to failure and not a stable long term storage solution at all. Yes even if they are not spinning. Point is one 2tb HDD for $60 is not a replacement for cloud storage.

I am not missing the point. Of course, the more diversified backups you have, the better. That includes cloud storage. You can also use tape storage, SSD, DVD/Bluray and other types of storage, the more the better you are covered.

> Point is one 2tb HDD for $60 is not a replacement for cloud storage.

The exact opposite is also true. A cloud storage is not a replacement for HDD backup. These are different backup strategies for different cases because clouds or internet itself also do fail.

> HDD are prone to failure and not a stable long term storage solution at all

They are not prone to failure. HDDs are very reliable devices if you consider their working conditions. They work 24/7 for years. I have HDD backups since 1998 or so.

Is anyone aware of Backblaze data retention policies. Any file in 30 days can be marked for deletion by Backblaze

https://www.backblaze.com/remote-backup-everything.html

“Backblaze will keep versions of a file that changes for up to 30 days. However, Backblaze is not designed as an additional storage system when you run out of space. Backblaze mirrors your drive. If you delete your data, it will be deleted from Backblaze after 30 days.”

jnd: Not that I know, thanks for the explanation. Backblaze is basically a remote backup system, one of similar of its kind. They are "famous" for publishing regularly hard drive failure stats.
wklee: I am at peace with 30 days recovery of a deleted file ("undelete" as it were).

or use a google cloud service and google can give your data the toilet paper treatment , .... wipe what they wish

Online storage is by many used for remote access of files, 'safe' archiving and client usage....of course you can drag a 2TB+ drive with you

I use so called cloud storage in combination with a NAS not remotely accessible (by the internet.)

You can't buy a reliable backup solution for 60 bucks.

I'm not sure which is worse. NSA or china..

Its a reason the promoted price are low. You are not the customer, but the product.

@SimenO1

Fact is that any of the three superpowers is trying to convince you that the others are the rotten ones. So I decided to use as much software/online services from those smaller nations which at least give the impression to really care about privacy and security.

Besides the free storage options for their respective national security agencies, how fast is the Baidu cloud? For me any Chinese servers are notoriously slow loading.

I've used/setup One Drive, G Drive and Dropbox multiple times in small business settings, where people are indeed collaborating on stuff and where there isn't necessarily an IT guy on staff 24/7 to figure things out when sync fails... And One Drive was by far the biggest headache out of the three, enough so that I tell clients to look elsewhere unless they've already paid for it as part of an Office sub. The (separate) client app they have for businesses is also a pain compared to the consumer one, as is the convoluted method they use for sharing thru it.

Resilio Sync is looking better and better.

Remember that sync is not backup.
A corrupt file will only be synced to new locations and then corrupt those too.

For back up of what ever to many where ever with encryption - I do recommend https://www.duplicati.com

If you really need a synchronisation I would recommend
http://syncthing.net

One Drive to rule them all. Haha.

Actually I know several photographers with no backups including one that lost a lifetime's work. Crazy.

Having said that, I found cloud storage to be a pain when I would come back from a shoot with several hundred raw files and it would take a day or so to upload. So I scrapped it. I looked at it again recently and it estimated the initial upload would take nearly three weeks!

I now have a system that automatically backs up to an external hard drive. I have two of them and keep one at work to avoid the fire/flood situation.

@dwill23
There are many solutions to this problem. The easy and free one would be resilio:
https://www.resilio.com/individuals/

I use it and it works great. It is also available as client for most common NAS systems and across all operating systems.

I backup my entire computer on an external HDD, then I backup that HDD to 2 encrypted drives that are stored offside - one in the car, the other one at work. Since the drives are encrypted, no worries if they get lost or stolen. I rotate the encrypted drives every few weeks to refresh them. It becomes a habit and easy to keep this going.

Right, I can buy. 2 TB Drive for less than $100 and be free of Google. CraY.

If I had a fire, they would probably burn up in my "fire-proof" safe. Although I've never heard of anyone that I personally know that has had a complete loss from any disaster.

I back up my files whenever there has been a significant addition to my data. It's a very simple matter of copying one drive to another.

I have a drive for video, business, personal, vacations, and a copy of my C drive. It's not a difficult process. If I have something to backup, then I do, else I don't.

It's possible that I could lose it all. Yes. But it's pretty unlikely.

In the meantime, I'm not going to allow myself to be pushed around by fear-mongering lies that my data isn't safe unless it's not in my own hands. Ridiculous!

The only reason a person needs online data storage is for work. If you're buying cloud storage, just understand it for what it is, you're renting hard-drive space. I just can't do it. I find it as ridiculous as buying a bottle of air because I've been told it's good for me.

@Focus Shift Shooting
That's a childish approach to data storage and probably comes from a person not much involved in the IT world. If you have a photography business or care about your images you should really reconsider your data storage. Storing data on just a single hard drive is insane and a automated backup process really helps to keep your last backup recent.
Also proper data managment is far more than just safety. It is about easy access from multiple devices, data consistency across devices and file history managment. For many people this can be achieved with a NAS or with dedicated software (like resilio). Please think about your data a bit, and if you have clients it is your job to ensure, that buggy software, encryption viruses and hardware failure will never impact your business

@panther fan
There is no need to personal insults about my maturity just to try to get your point across. Additionally, you assume; I worked rotating shifts in IT for years. Third, you need to polish your reading comprehension, because I said I have a backup drives for pictures, video, personal, business, etc.
Finally, I couldn't care less about most of the stuff you wrote about. I access, work, and distribute my files from my home not from wherever I'm at, and I don't need to nor do I want to be responsible for my files just because I have a smartphone or a tablet. It's just not important to me, although it is clearly important to you and that's fine. We're all different, and I don't need to be a clone of what you are, do, think, etc.

My business is fine and it has been and it will be. I know of no one that has lost all of their data when they had a backup onsite. I don't need all of my data on other people's computers. I do just fine with my own onsite backup. Always have.

.....aaaaaaannnd, there's the fact of the matter... You don't access your data from anywhere other than at home. Well duh, of course you don't need the cloud. It's not so pointless to those of us who need to access our data from multiple devices and multiple locations, though. In fact it's downright essential in many different conditions. I love having cloud storage as an option.

I've lost data despite having a backup - both drives ended up being dead despite being stored separately. One backup might not be enough.

Secondly cloud storage is being able to pull any photo I want from anywhere through any of my devices, so this isn't the same usage as a hard drive.

I don't know why people are thinking of this as backup. If you just want cloud backup there are many cheaper and easier solutions, including some that do unlimited storage for the same price or less than this $10. This is a live, usable copy, for use on the road or between separate computers. Therefore it costs a bit more.

Set it and forget it cloud backups are great, I've been using them for about 10 years now and the no maintenance, no hassle, all my files are always backed up and ready to retrieve nature of these cheap solutions are not something I would live without again. Trying to remember to manually copy stuff or burn DVDs is for the birds. (However, Google Drive is not a backup solution. It is just another type of storage like a hard drive.)

(2/2)
Essentially you try to shield yourself against hardware failure, but as I wrote above that is not the most common cause of data loss. How do you manage file history for example? Let’s say a program or even worse an encryption virus screws up some old project folder, unnoticed by you this change will be written on the backup within a week. Now your file, which is technically still there is lost forever. The scary part is that you can still use all your encrypted files, while the Virus is working, because it remounts them. So, the file can look perfectly healthy until the virus pulls the plug. And that is not some edge case. I have seen large companies affected by this.
With an incremental backup with file history management that cannot happen for example. If you don’t need multiple devices with consistent data, that is great and makes it easier for you. But that still doesn’t mean that a NAS or another form of data management is not recommended for you.

Hyper111: What if the cloud company gets bankerupt? Or if they have poor security and get hacked? Or if your user lisence allows them to exploit your content without compensation? Of if the user lisence are changed to something unacceptable to you, lets say demanding 10$/GB of data downloaded back to you. Or of some gouverment takes down the service in your country due to legal issues?

Dont fool yourself to think that big data cloud companies offers risc free storage or backup.

Everything about the cloud is easy to replicate except for geographical redundancy. Building two 30TB storage systems is not terribly expensive. But then paying for the space and bandwith to keep one running in another time zone adds up really fast. Not to mention the cost of having a tech occasionally travel for maintenance.

"But then paying for the space and bandwith to keep one running in another time zone"
Why do you need to run your second NAS in another time zone? If a disaster wipes out a whole time zone you have other problems ;)

The math doesn't change much if it is across town, though. I don't need that kind of protection for my personal data, but I take care of corporate data for a living. Most businesses don't want a local or even regional disaster to end their company.

" It might not mean that Google is actually directly looking at your pictures"
It means exactly that, how do you think google get's the vast data that is needed to train neural networks.
A definit indication, that google scans your content is the fact that it will delete all nude content on your google drive, even if it's private or you have all the licenses for it. So it is no option for boudoir photography anyway ;)

The EULA is standard boiler plate stuff.

You are not granting them permission to use your stuff at will, you are agreeing (in legalise) that they can move the files around servers, across their networks, and display that data to you in different places and different ways.

The license continues after you cease the service, not because of anything under hand (and I do hate Google personally), but in many jurisdiction, Google cannot simply delete your data even when you terminate your account, only you may delete your data. They have a care of duty to your data regardless of the status of your account. This actually applies to any company that holds your file data, whether it's photos on Google, or your accounts on QuickBooks.

The concept of a care of duty towards data was tested in court in the mid 1990s (want to say 96) between a webhosting company and a zoo. The hosting company lost and went broke.

@IR1234
I will just leave that here:
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/9kgwnp/porn-on-google-drive-error

https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=&sl=auto&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.heise.de%2Fnewsticker%2Fmeldung%2FGoogle-loescht-Pornos-aus-dem-Drive-Speicher-4004556.html

Yes, you can say "this is something different" but it just shows you how much control you give up with google's cloud, and that google can f*** you over without notice

Oh I see, thanks for the link and info. As a Android user I was aware of Google, but the other side (Apple) is not that different plus I hate Apple business practices (see Louis Rossmann on youtube).

Hmm... Does anyone else here have a Google Drive folder full of other people's images for inspiration purposes, categorized by location and with other reference material for adventure / vacation / trip etc planning? No? Just me then. Oops.

smctacumar , im a big fan of louis rossmanns you tube work ..... great work there exposing apples near psychotic anticonsumer and anti right to fix mentality and bullying

as well as the theft literally of billions of dollars from consumers by these practices

i consider entrusting your data to a consumer data mining outfit like google is the height of idiocy .... they can take delete deny or erase what they wish , and just try and call to complain or obtain redress ...llololololo

Being a googler, your "Google 2" prediction is kind of funny, but only a googler swe would get it.

What happens if you have a fire? Or your house gets robbed? Or flooded? No one needs off site backups till they do...

An addotional harddrive does not come close to online storage when ones goal is backing up data. Just think about the fact, that cloud storage providers have their own backup strategy to backup your data in the cloud.

Furthermore a backup which is physically dislocated from the original files has serious advantages. An additional harddrive in the same household does not give you any additional data security in case of a fire or burglary to name just one example.

1TB free online storage? Who are these providers you are talking about? I am clearly with the wrong ones ;)

So all I gotta do is pay $900 to get free storage?

@ cosinaphile - Kinda like saying I don't need house (or car) insurance cause it's expensive. And you may never need it. But what if you do?

And as I said above, what happens if a tornado strikes and destroys the town (including your house or apartment). Then what? I'm not saying you have to use Google's service. I'm not. But I think some people think that the worst can't happen to them and for some, it does (a tornado, a fire, etc, and they lose everything because they didn't take the proper steps to be prepared for such disasters.

OK, but when all you have (your off-site backup drive, your backup drive in your house) is lost, the cloud could save you in those instances. That was my point. I'm not saying for people to give up their backup strategies and go with the cloud only, but add it as a level of protection against natural disasters that could wipe out an entire area (city, etc).

I would think most people would see the investment first as minimal ($10 per month for many people... so $120 per year). How much are your photos worth? For those who have pictures of their children or loved ones, there is no price you can place on those photos. It also comes down to the risk. If you want to risk it and use your current strategy to save $120 per year, that's fine. That's your choice. But $120 is pretty darn cheap insurance knowing that even if your town is obliterated, you photos are backed up elsewhere and you can recover them.

If you see online storage as a waste of money, that's fine. You're entitled to my opinion, as is anyone else. But this is one extra layer of backup that some people don't always think of when developing their backup strategies.