Hi, I’ve read some similar threads about it but I would like to get a fresh opinion about your preferred cloud for storing years of photos & videos. I am currently using an iPhone and a Windows laptop (not intending to buy a MacBook prospectively).
Up till now, I’ve been saving my files on Google Drive (multiple accounts), I’m considering to switch to iCloud permanently. Do you have any better recommendations?
photos: Once a year I print 3 photo books, and keep 1 at my house, 1 at my families house, 1 at an extended families house. The photo book is also one of my cheesy holiday/bithday gifts. So its both a backup strategy and a way to keep my pictures forever. The thought of having to keep digital photos safe for years/decades makes me sick. I know how to keep books dry though.
Long term? Certainly not cloud.
Hard drives that get rotated, and LTO, in 3 different locations
Cloud storage is the only true defence against bitrot.
This is what I do.
Burn them to bd-r. Create ECC files for the bd-rs using dvdisaster so I can repair the disc should anything bad happen. Backup the bd-r contents and ECC files to tape (or another bd-r or a HDD but I have tape from working in IT). Store the same in Amazon Glacier Deep Archive where I hope never to go to retrieve anything.
- Phones themselves which periodically get purged.
- iCloud / Amazon / Google Photos (all 3) / plus some on Flickr.
- Then onto Photos library on Thunderbolt SSD, adding scans and older photos there.
- Backed up to Synology NAS (Raid) nightly
- Backed up to Backblaze constantly
- A backup HD once every 6 months.
I have some gaps in step 3 for older videos because of file sizes.
Before : copy from the phone/camera to computer and make a copy on an USB hard drive, photos are not something that change a lot so it was enough for me.
Now : I have a Synology NAS with an app that sync my smartphone in wifi, or I copy the photos from my camera to the NAS folder and I have a backup on an USB hard drive attached to the NAS. I don’t like the commercial clouds.