Cloud storage

[CrabbyGuy]

I have been diligent about backing up photos (and everything else) to external hard drives. However, I now want to back up to the cloud as well and am seeking advice, please.

First, free backup gets my attention and Amazon Prime's backups are interesting. They do include RAW photos. However, I wonder if a Lightroom catalog would be recognized. If not, is there a reasonable workaround?

Second, I have been using EASEUS for local backups for a while. Cloud backups through this software are limited to Google Drive, Dropbox, and One Drive. Is there an advantage to any particular cloud storage, with the exception of Amazon Drive for photos?

 

[Linwood Ferguson]

Your question is very broad. Some specific points.

Amazon Cloud Drive (free with prime) does include raw, and does work, but is not a good backup solution out of the box. A good backup solution allows versioning, organization, automation, easy restores, and offers some validation of the backups. ACD is none of these things; it is awkward to back up to (without 3rd party software, which is flakey and problem prone due to a poor API). Amazon did this to grab the mobile market, not to provide cheap backup.

Amazon Glacier is fairly cheap, pay as you go.

Backblaze (and there are many like it) offers unlimited for a fixed price, but almost all of these have some restraints on the "unlimited" aspects (e.g. unless they have changed Backblaze will not save backups of files you store offline, e.g. if you hook up a USB drive and back it up, in X days of not being seen again because you unplugged it, it purges those files). Others limit upload speed as you get more and more uploaded. There are decent choices here, but remember -- they do not make money by really giving unlimited storage to people who need a LOT of storage, they make money by giving it to people who do not need much.

Backblaze B2 (I use it) is like Glacier, but a bit cheaper and with less restrictions.

The best (most reliable, available) is Amazon S3 but it is quite expensive.

Carbonite and all the various related (like Backblaze plain (not B2)) require you to use their software. Glacier, ACD, B2 and quite a few others will let you buy a 3rd party software to use for backup. I am a big fan of that, as it means the storage vendor (and their hackable system) does not have the encryption keys to your data -- only you do. Cloudberry and Goodsync are two 3rd parties I have used and like, there are quite a few like them, that will operate on dozens of clouds.

The biggest headache for most people, beyond making a good choice, is internet upload speed. Do the math -- for some people with a large archive it may take weeks of upload time to do the initial backup. Do the math and see if it's practical (size in bytes * 15 divided by upload speed (run a speed test) gives time in seconds). [Yes, the real math is 8, but 15 or so allows for overhead, poor multi-streaming, etc.].

Check that your internet provided does not have data limits that may impact your initial upload or download.

 

[LouieSherwin]

I would also add to the list CrashPlan for Small Business. It runs painlessly in the background and offers several encryption options.

-louie

 

[pknoot]

I've used CrashPlan, Amazon, Dropbox, and Backblaze. CrashPlan uses excessive resources on your computer (slows everything else down) and is limited to smaller backup sizes; they won't tell you this, but I found out the hard way! In addition, upload speed is limited and inversely proportional to the number of users uploading at that time. Amazon is fairly fast, but the desktop app is very clunky and crashes easily; it would be OK for "store and forget" files that are not updated frequently. You cannot control versions on Amazon, so if you accidentally modify your file the backup is overwritten. Dropbox is in the same category as Amazon, but you have a choice of keeping a set of files on your system as well as in the cloud. Again no version control, but fairly fast in everyday copying. The downside is that it takes over your system at startup for a while during the preliminary sync. After years of experimenting with cloud storage I settled on Backblaze. It seems to be the most professional in features and reasonably priced. You can use it for "store and forget" as well as continuous backup. I found a magic combination with ChronoSync, a blazing fast intelligent backup program that integrates seamlessly with Backblaze.