How do you keep your photos backed up?

unwashed potato!

unwashed potato!

unwashed potato!

Soldato
Joined
12 Feb 2006
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Location
Surrey
I currently use Google photos and pay for Google storage. This worked for years and was perfect to get full resolution back up pretty much instantly, without thought required, as well as the search ability of Google photos, automatically know who is in each photo etc. It made for super easy work to find a photo I want from 5 years ago.

The trouble is now I have a kid, and I'm filling up my storage with videos.

I could upgrade to higher storage with Google one, but it's a never ending battle that'll only get worse so prefer to look for a better solution.

So I wondered what others on here do? How do you keep your photos/videos backed up and safe?

The thing I'm keen on is keeping the Google photos use, but perhaps go to the lower resolution option, and also, whatveer other option I use, I'd like to keep it automated and not required manual input if that's possible
 
Technically i need to make a new google drive account dedicated for phone backups


I have about 3 different google drive accounts but they are mostly full

i name the accounts something like


somethingomethingcloudstore1


somethingsomethingcloudstore2

somethingsomethingcloudstore3
 
I have a pretty basic 4 bay NAS, 2 drives of which are WD Reds in RAID-1, holding all my photos and other important stuff. That entire volume is then automatically backed up once a week to Amazon Glacier - costs £2.70/TB/month, although I'd have to wait up to 48 hours for free retrieval.
I also occasioanlly copy the contents of that RAID-1 to an external drive that sits ina cupboard at my in-laws house. I'd like to change that to an automated backup to their NAS at some point.

The big drawback with this of course is regularly copying photos from our phones and cameras to the NAS - it can become a time-consuming job if you let it slide.
 
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unwashed potato! said:
this is my concern. i really dont want a job trying to back up all my photos, but i don't want to be paying £70 every year, and then in a few years £120 every year, and then £200. it's only a growing expense
Click to expand...
I've looked at automated options but then I end up backing up pictures from whatsapp groups and random pictures of a bug I wanted to show a friend or my kid's scratched knee...

SwipeWipe has helped me filter out that stuff, and I'm looking at ways of only backing up photos that I've favourited (I'm on iPhone).
 
DJMK4 said:
Technically i need to make a new google drive account dedicated for phone backups


I have about 3 different google drive accounts but they are mostly full

i name the accounts something like


somethingomethingcloudstore1


somethingsomethingcloudstore2

somethingsomethingcloudstore3
Click to expand...
wouldn't this cause an issue with the ability to search photos? you've had to keep swapping accocunts?
 
unwashed potato! said:
wouldn't this cause an issue with the ability to search photos? you've had to keep swapping accocunts?
Click to expand...


Generally i only use one account for phone stuff


although what i mean is i have multiple drive accounts mainly the other ones are used for personal stuff, for knowledge base work stuff and training material



Im probably going to sign up to a single 1tb cloud storage account soon , maybe onedrive 1tb. would be easier .
 
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Phone --- Resilio Sync ----> NAS ----> local external backup
-----------------------------------------> cloud 'hot' storage
-----------------------------------------> cloud 'glacier' storage


I use ExifTool to organise images into YYYY/MM-YYYY/* directories, that just runs on a cronjob a couple of times a day on the NAS.

Hetzner storage box as hot storage and Scaleway Glacier for cold storage.
 
I use SMBSync on Android to run a couple of jobs and copy files from my phone to a RAID1 array on TrueNAS over WiFi. Probably not the cleanest way to do things but it's worked pretty well for the last 6/7 years but I probably should review it and make a few adjustments.

Bi-weekly scheduled - Job 1 moves any video files out of the 'Camera' folder and into a separate 'Videos' folder on the phone
Monthly scheduled - Job 2 copies any remaining pictures from 'Camera' to the NAS. I manually update the remote folder location at the start of each year... 2023, 2024, 2025 etc
Manual - I run a manual job to move files from the 'Videos' folder on the phone to the NAS, deleting them from the phone and saving space.

The rest of my backup routine is awful though and I keep meaning to put something better in place. For the last few years it's just been a manual copy job to a bunch of hard drives which sit in a cupboard. Ideally I want a separate TrueNAS box in another part of the house and set up automatic replication jobs between them, along with periodic external backups which will be kept offsite and rotated. For super critical stuff (kids photos etc) I'll do an annual burn to BDR to keep offsite. I bought a BD writer and stack of discs years ago but haven't actually used them yet.

Not really a fan of cloud tbh but I keep some other important stuff tucked away on a webhost somewhere as well, encrypted before it gets sent up there.
 
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Back up to Google Photos just now with 2TB extra storage.

Main ones are copied to computer too, which backs up to a few other drives.
 
I use print, stick in album, put on shelf.

However we only save meaningful photographs but at least my daughter will have a chronology of hers, our relatives and friends and our lives in hardcopy to peruse or do as she wants with.

I do have some folders of winter mountain walks largely not printed though.
 
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Azza said:
Phone --- Resilio Sync ----> NAS ----> local external backup
-----------------------------------------> cloud 'hot' storage
-----------------------------------------> cloud 'glacier' storage


I use ExifTool to organise images into YYYY/MM-YYYY/* directories, that just runs on a cronjob a couple of times a day on the NAS.

Hetzner storage box as hot storage and Scaleway Glacier for cold storage.
Click to expand...

What's "hot storage" and "glacier storage"?
 
iamgigglz said:
I have a pretty basic 4 bay NAS, 2 drives of which are WD Reds in RAID-1, holding all my photos and other important stuff. That entire volume is then automatically backed up once a week to Amazon Glacier - costs £2.70/TB/month, although I'd have to wait up to 48 hours for free retrieval.
I also occasioanlly copy the contents of that RAID-1 to an external drive that sits ina cupboard at my in-laws house. I'd like to change that to an automated backup to their NAS at some point.

The big drawback with this of course is regularly copying photos from our phones and cameras to the NAS - it can become a time-consuming job if you let it slide.
Click to expand...
Why is it time consuming. Just automate it, all the phones on my house backup photos and videos every night to the NAS, then once a month I backup that to an external drive.
 
I built an Unraid server for media and file storage - a lot of the file storage is DSLR RAW files as my wife and I enjoy landscape photography. I originally had offsite external HDDs as backup, then a second, better Unraid server, relegating the first to onsite backup duties. I also have a HexOS licence waiting in the wings and will probably use this in addition to the others as soon as I can either a) justify building another machine; b) repurpose the onsite backup when it comes out of beta or c) build a new machine as soon as it's out of beta. I need to teach myself how to set up scheduled backups.
 
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