christopher.karper

If RAW formats start to become unsupported, I would expect to see some standardization in "RAW" formats take place... There will probably be a converter available for you.

Take a look at Adobe's Digital Negative Format (DNG)...

I think you'd be horrified at what most companies consider "extensive".

I bet with most hosts, you'd be lucky to have your data even backed up, much less mirrored or in some kind of recoverable RAID configuration.

I'm sure there are plenty of smaller companies out there who do a great job, but they can't approach the scale that amazon has put together with S3.

As I said, I'm not against either idea, just saying what the difference is.

It's really a question of balance. If you're going to load up tons of images, and the flash isn't properly written, it can take forever to load your flash even over broadband. However, the one thing a Flash site can definitely offer you is protection.

It's *much* more difficult to steal images from someone's site if it's all stored in flash templates.

I don't know if that's a concern for you, but there it is. :-)

The difference with S3 vs. a standard web host is the reliability and scalability. S3 is hosted using Amazon's extensive internal architecture and hardware, which means your data is as close as possible to perfectly protected.

If you're just looking to back up files, it's probably a lot more trouble than it's worth, since you could just burn 2 DVD copies and keep one at a friends house for much less...

But, if it makes you happy, then there's certainly nothing wrong with it in my opinion.