Online storage

[lisae]

<p>I'm helping my son's gymnastics club with organizing and archiving thousands of photos. They currently use a photo-sharing website to upload photos from multiple photographers and store them for future promotional use. This particular photo-sharing site (I would prefer not to name it) seems to have a lot of bugs, everything from resetting privacy settings to temporarily losing albums. Although it would be very time-consuming, I'm thinking about suggesting that the gym move the photos to a more reliable website. I'm assuming they want the cost of the site to be minimal.</p>

<p>I'm assuming that with so much digital media nowadays, many schools and athletic clubs have a similar need for online photo storage. Does anyone have a recommendation for one?</p>

[walter_degroot]

<p>comsider this: what if the company goes out of business or changes management.<br>

My son was burned and lost many photos when the site wend big company and wanted big money to give him he own photos back.<br>

Consider this: buy a pair of external drives in enclosures. people seem to trust a very popular company that is NOT a hard driev manufacturer.<br>

who knows what is inside. buy a drive that has a long ( 5 year) warranty.<br>

western digital and Seagate are the leaders. I am not willing to say if a 3.5" ( desktop type) or a smaller 2.5" ( laptop type) drive is best.<br>

I do not want to knock any of the leading brands, but be sure a wd or seagate drive is inside.<br>

and is a 5 year drive. make backups to both drives. and when not in use, store them in different places.<br>

Do not leave them pout or trust them to just anyone. And avoid " backup programs"<br>

they encript or compress the files in a way that you cannot just go in and read a document or view a photo.</p>

<p>Cd's and dvd's work as well but they fade fairly quickly, I am in the process of restoring by cd data collection<br>

and with then re-burn it to new dvd's. If someone needs or wants copies or info, burn a cd or dvd and give them that.</p>

[Spearhead]

<p>Try SmugMug. They've been around for years and aren't going anywhere.<br>

<br />Alternatively, pay for web hosting. It's not that expensive but you do have to organize everything yourself.</p>

[bebu_lamar]

<p>I hear a lot about online storage but I feel it's too slow. I have a 35/35 mbps internet connection but it's still much slower than a typical USB hard drive, solid state drive etc.. I can make several copies and keep copies at my home, others home, at work etc...</p>

[goldbergbarry]

<p>Nonsense. Online storage is great and is here to stay. Just stay with one of the big names. Plus all of them offer ways to backup your photos.<br>

And of course it is slower than having a local hard drive. Would you expect it to be faster? If you need a way for multiple people to upload and view photos, online storage is the only way to go.<br>

<br />The big names are Smugmug, Zenfolio (my fav) and Flickr (a bit outdated but still very popular). My recommendation is to go with with Smugmug or Zenfolio.</p>

<p> </p>

[Spearhead]

<blockquote>

<p>I can make several copies and keep copies at my home, others home, at work etc...</p>

</blockquote>

<p> <br>

If you read the post, you will see that the intention is to have multiple photographers uploading and sharing from there. How do you recommend they do that with your home-based solution?</p>

[lisae]

<p>Thanks for all of the comments. In the past, the gym had a part-time media person. She set up a system for multiple people to upload photos and access photos. After she left, the gym began tightening security over images, but I expect they will always have a handful of people with access to the galleries. That is their main requirement, along with the ability to keep the galleries hidden. </p>

<p>I hadn't thought about web hosting. They have a website, so I assume they have a web host. Perhaps they can get storage through the host. I'm also going to ask about backup storage. I assume they have it.</p>

<p>I'm waiting for a call back and I'll pass on the recommendations.</p>

[walter_degroot]

<p>someone I talk to had a super site concerning old mamiya rf cameras, there was a lot of information<br>

Undortunately AOL suddenly killed al these sites with little notice..<br>

this man lost most of his site.<br>

so keep a local backup EVEN if you have to buy a external hard drive with your own money.<br>

it is ok to be a little paranoid about saving data.<br>

I just found out i am working without a backup copy of my c: drive.<br>

that worries me.</p>

 

[q.g._de_bakker]

Online storage is a way to get user information, build profiles, sell those on for advertising. If you want online storage, why not set up use an old fashioned FTP-site and share the login with only those who need it.<br>And if you read the privacy statement of quite a few of storage providers, their intent is not (!) to respect your privacy, but instead use the data you store with them for anything they want. People agree to that, simply by using those providers, mainly because they do not read those statements, and because, being carried away by the hype, don't care, find 'being there too' more important.

[lisae]

<p>Q.G.: the FTP protocol sounds familiar to me. I think they may have done that a couple of years ago, when I first began taking photos for my son's team. My husband is the techie in the family so he would upload the photos. I'll ask him about it. Thanks for the reminder.</p>

[Spearhead]

<p>ftp is painful, you can't see what is being shared, make choices among a range of photos, etc. etc. It's totally old school and not the way any photo sharing site should be set up.</p>

[q.g._de_bakker]

True. It works like a HD on the net (i'm sorry, i should have said: 'in the cloud') using a rather rudimentary file browser to view the content. But it works.<br>You can see what is being shared, by the way. You just have to click on each file before it is shown as it is.<br><br>Next step up would be a 'regular', but private (passwords and all that) website, with a CMS system behind it that offers templates for image galleries and uploads. I'm not 'up with' what's available in CMSs, but that should be possible.