# Any one using Amazon Cloud for backup?



## drob (Apr 15, 2015)

Any one using Amazon Cloud for RAW file back up? It seems like an excellent price per year with no limit to the amount of storage. Wondering what others think?? Thanks in advance.


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## Maximilian (Apr 15, 2015)

> Any one using Amazon Cloud for backup?


Short answer: Nope!
Long answer: Nope, because I - personally - don't like the thought giving private data to a third party, not knowing what they will do with it, no matter what their terms and conditions and company policy say. 
Especially when they are located in a country outside the EU where the protection of privacy is handled... let's call it ... "different" when you are not a citizen of that country. 

But I can understand that others like the convenience of this business model.


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## expatinasia (Apr 15, 2015)

Maximilian said:


> Nope, because I - personally - don't like the thought giving private data to a third party, not knowing what they will do with it, no matter what their terms and conditions and company policy say.



Precisely. If something is important to you, then take care of it yourself.

I trust nothing to the cloud but have TBs of external HDs. For super important stuff I back up to external HDs that are kept in many places, including different countries around the world.


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## mackguyver (Apr 15, 2015)

It's free for Prime members and having just paid $100+ to renew, it's something I'm strongly considering using as an additional back up service.


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## Luds34 (Apr 15, 2015)

I am, and only because it is "free" (already being a prime member).

I have my own backups on external drives but I liked the idea of having something offsite, in case the house burned down sort of thing. I've always dreamed about keeping offsite hard drives in a safety deposit box or something but the realities of a busy life and that I've been saying I'm going to do that for years now has sunk in. So throwing stuff up in the cloud as a last resort backup made sense.

As to the Amazon cloud, if it were not "free" I would never use it. It is the most basic interface with zero flexibility. It was a completely manual process and probably took me a good month or two to get everything up there (Under 1 TB to upload). I'd select a handful of folders at a time, roughly ~1000 to ~2000 photos and let it go. 6, 10 hours later, if I sat down at the computer, or was walking by, I'd add more. One of the constraints that made it extra slow, was that after each photo was uploaded, there was like a 5 second pause (assuming it was being processed server side) before it would take the next photo. Added a decent amount of overhead time wise. I briefly looked into if they had an API or something and was going to write my own little service that would sync and backup for me on my own. I did not have much luck.

I'm sure if I ever need to retrieve the whole collection it will be a huge pain, probably taking a month to pull down over time. But it does feel good to know that an extra backup does exist.

All in all it was a bit of a pain but I'm glad I did it. Now every month or two I just need to remember to upload the lastest photos. If I wasn't cheap and just a humble amateur I'd use something better for sure. I find it a bit ironic as I've been spending thousands on gear each year the past few years, subscribe to Adobe cloud thing, but won't spend 5 to 10 bucks a month for a good backup service. :


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## Hector1970 (Apr 15, 2015)

There are only two types of hard drives.
Those that have failed and those that will fail.
The cloud is a reasonable option .
Printing your best work in a book is the best way to keep it for your future.
You should especially do this for family pictures.
This is the only work that will be remembered when you shuffle off this mortal coil.


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## mrzero (Apr 15, 2015)

Not yet, but I will be uploading sometime soon. I already pay for the Prime membership, so I might as well take full advantage. I, too, have backups on multiple external hard drives, some at home and one at the office, but I like the idea of a cloud backup in case of theft, failure, or natural disaster.


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## Mt Spokane Photography (Apr 15, 2015)

My Internet is far too slow. I just added a 16TB NAS to the 12 TB one I have. I am now using one NAS for a backup.


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## HMC (Apr 15, 2015)

We use a 12TB NAS with nightly incremental backup to a local hard disk and continuous backup to the cloud using CrashPlan. We have used CrashPlan (www.code42.com) for a couple of years and it requires no maintenance, just works in the background. Simple to set up. It'll take a few months (!!) depending on connection speed and amount of data to get everything uploaded at first, but you don't need to do it manually, it just does it. Everything is encrypted BEFORE it leaves your system using 128-bit encryption. We're in an earthquake zone, so worst case we have to assume that local storage (even printed books) will be destroyed. So far we've not had an earthquake or had to recover files from CrashPlan, but when we do, I'll let you know how it goes - if I survive.


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## Psyclone (Apr 15, 2015)

Yes, I use Amazon Cloud but as a tertiary backup. It comes with my Prime membership, and that makes the price right for me.

I have gigs of photos stored with them, and it works adequately as tertiary backup for my needs.

I would not use any cloud service as the main copy, or even a primary backup. More like a backup in case my other backups fail.

I'm not overly concerned with the privacy implications because my photos are often published online elsewhere.


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## drob (Apr 16, 2015)

Hey, thanks all. It is a slow process up front but I feel the price is right, so why not. I do have physical back up drives but, that too, is a time consuming process. As far as security goes with the cloud...I'm actually okay with storing my photos online. I'm more worried about credit card, bank, and insurance type breaches. Thanks again.


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