I just learned about this option last night on here I uploaded everything overnight. Seems to work great as a third backup for me and as mentioned, free for prime members. I used the desktop app and it seems to be pretty straight forward. It monitors locations on your machine (that you configure) and auto synchs whenever something new is added.
A lot of people use Amazon Glacier for archival storage of large files like video, because the price per gigabyte is very low. I have about 9 terabytes of video files that will need offsite archiving at some point, and am thinking of archiving old raw photo files there as well. I don't subscribe to Amazon Prime and am curious if anyone has compared the cost of Glacier vs. Amazon Photos; I suppose if you already have Prime then Amazon Photos is a no-brainer but none of the benefits of Prime are worth it to me (except possibly this one). Glacier is really for long-term storage, for files you might only need to access once at some point many years from now, if ever. That would work for me.
cdubea wrote:
Well the other shoe has dropped. As of a couple of days ago, Synology CloudSync can no longer access my Amazon Drive to backup my photos.
Seeing as this was supposed to start on November 1, 2020, I guess I can't complain too much.
Now I have to drag and drop the files into the drive. Not catastrophic, but not anywhere near as convenient.
chris
Yep, I was all good with synching beyond the cutoff up until I had to update a password. I was already thinking about jumping off Amazon Photos as I've read that they offer the free storage in order to use your images to train/enhance their AI/facial recognition - I'm not a fan of that.
The convenience was fantastic, though - I could easily share any of my pics from my phone.
It's not the end of world, just requires more effort. I'm deciding between setting up a secondary NAS at a family member's house or just signing for Backblaze B2.
beavens wrote:
It's not the end of world, just requires more effort. I'm deciding between setting up a secondary NAS at a family member's house or just signing for Backblaze B2.
I use Carbonite (Backblaze's competitor) as my offsite backup solution for both photos and data. Also have a NAS as well. I like that Carbonite's settings offer a "back up continuously" feature (basically set and forget) so I never have to worry about new or changed files being backed up.
EB-1 wrote:
I'm not seeing that Carbomite can backup from a mapped drive of the NAS. Is that the $50/mo. or the $200/mo. plan?
EBH
You have to pay extra to backup a NAS drive. I just backup from the PC to both Carbonite and my NAS. And I'm not paying $50 bucks a month for backup, let alone 20 a month so definitely not $200.
EB-1 wrote:
I'm not seeing that Carbomite can backup from a mapped drive of the NAS. Is that the $50/mo. or the $200/mo. plan?
EBH
You have to pay extra to backup a NAS drive. I just backup from the PC to both Carbonite and my NAS. And I'm not paying $50 bucks a month for backup, let alone 20 a month so definitely not $200.
I have the Carbonite Safe Plus plan which comes to $112 annually. This gives me one PC backup which is all I need.
It seems rather ridiculous that the data has to go back to a computer to be backed up. The whole point of a NAS is to have availability, performance and independence from one particular PC. (I'm not going back 5-10 years to having 10 individual internal hard drives and a gaggle of drive letters. Then if that computer is being rebuilt I have no access from any other computers on the internal network.)
I suppose anyone with one NAS, much less two, must be a multi-million dollar business so they charge accordingly.
Yeah, I think most charge extra to backup a NAS. They know a NAS backup is going to take up massive amounts of storage space on their end, so yeah, they're going to want extra for that.
BTW, I should also mention Carbonite, like Backblaze also allows and external (USB device) to be backed up as well.
Anyway for those that don't have a NAS and want an affordable offsite (cloud) solution where you can access your files anywhere, Carbonite or Backblaze works. If you also want to backup a NAS that's where you need to consider the expense.
I use Google Backup and Sync with my Google Drive. I used to use Carbonite but prefer this. It also backs up automatically in the background and can work with external drives without paying extras. Access is easier and better than Carbonite and upload/download is way faster. It does cost of course for the drive storage.
Beni wrote:
I use Google Backup and Sync with my Google Drive. I used to use Carbonite but prefer this. It also backs up automatically in the background and can work with external drives without paying extras. Access is easier and better than Carbonite and upload/download is way faster. It does cost of course for the drive storage.
An external drive is NOT a NAS and thus is not really extra.... unless you just get the basic of basic services.
And Google Drive is limited storage space unless you "pay" for more. Carbonite gives you unlimited storage (per your plan).
But yeah, if you don't have lots of data or just need something small, Carbonite (or the like) may not be for you. Like everything it comes down to your personal want's and needs.
Andrew2 wrote:
An external drive is NOT a NAS and thus is not really extra.... unless you just get the basic of basic services.
And Google Drive is limited storage space unless you "pay" for more. Carbonite gives you unlimited storage (per your plan).
But yeah, if you don't have lots of data or just need something small, Carbonite (or the like) may not be for you. Like everything it comes down to your personal want's and needs.
I had basic service. Download (recovery) of data from carbonite was so slow when I actually had to do it that I simply gave up.
Yeah, uploads are slow, especially when uploading gigabytes of data. But once all that data is uploaded, you're good and the rest is just maintaining.
Anyway, as I said maintain two basic backup schemes.... one to my NAS and one to Carbonite. If I need to recover a backup, I get it from my much faster NAS. If something happens to the NAS, I know there's the Carbonite backup.
Since it is a “free” service that is “offered” to its customers, Amazon has to have their own perks that they get out of it on your behalf, in this case, AI image recognition training and data mining your photos. This is turned on by default, however it can be disabled by following a link provided in the Terms of Use I posted earlier. The features in question are “Image Recognition” and the “Family Vault”. I recommend disabling these.
My main concern is whether there was any ambiguous wording about image usage and rights that might give them the ability to use your work, and as far as I can tell there isn’t.
Since it is a “free” service that is “offered” to its customers, Amazon has to have their own perks that they get out of it on your behalf, in this case, AI image recognition training and data mining your photos. This is turned on by default, however it can be disabled by following a link provided in the Terms of Use I posted earlier. The features in question are “Image Recognition” and the “Family Vault”. I recommend disabling these.
My main concern is whether there was any ambiguous wording about image usage and rights that might give them the ability to use your work, and as far as I can tell there isn’t. ...Show more →
Unless you use client side encryption, there is no telling what the Amazon and their third parties will do with your data now or later. As they say, if you are not paying, then you are the product.
Andrew2 wrote:
Yeah, uploads are slow, especially when uploading gigabytes of data. But once all that data is uploaded, you're good and the rest is just maintaining.
Anyway, as I said maintain two basic backup schemes.... one to my NAS and one to Carbonite. If I need to recover a backup, I get it from my much faster NAS. If something happens to the NAS, I know there's the Carbonite backup.
Again, to each his own.
Peace 😎
The funny part is that I thought online would be my next move, but I've decided to carry differential backups in my pants and do the rest by shipments a few times per year. It will be cheaper and more reliable.
EB-1 wrote:
The funny part is that I thought online would be my next move, but I've decided to carry differential backups in my pants and do the rest by shipments a few times per year. It will be cheaper and more reliable.
EBH
I use Acronis True Image for my local backups and that works very well for me. In fact those are the backups I rely on when I need to restore files during on OS reinstall. Much faster than downloading from Carbonite.
To be honest I thought about dropping Carbonite, and still may, but I really like the set and forget feature without ever having to worry about having a backup, storage space, or drive maintenance. I can also go back 30 days for a backup.
As I said, at the end of the day one needs to weigh the pros and cons and decided what's right for them.
Andrew2 wrote:
I use Carbonite (Backblaze's competitor) as my offsite backup solution for both photos and data. Also have a NAS as well. I like that Carbonite's settings offer a "back up continuously" feature (basically set and forget) so I never have to worry about new or changed files being backed up.
I have been prime member of Amazon since the beginning, but never thought of using its photostorage.
The hard drives are so affordable. All my photos are saved in more than one drives and the drives are all safe in my safe! in my house!
I uploaded everything overnight. Seems to work great as a third backup for me and as mentioned, free for prime members. I used the desktop app and it seems to be pretty straight forward. It monitors locations on your machine (that you configure) and auto synchs whenever something new is added. 