Online Backup - Picasa

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TheTyke

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Hi

Folks I've had a bit of a look round the forums and I can't quite find what I am looking for.

I've always been nervous about losing my family photographs so over time I've backed them up on every form of media going.

The result is a bit of a mess! I've not lost any but I've got duplicates of duplicates, CD's, DVD's and hard drives.

I have been told by the wife that she would actually like to see some of these pictures at some point in her life without having to spend hours going through files on the computer.

I have decided to tidy everything up and Picasa seems to be able to assist me in this.

Once I have got everything sorted I would like to be able to back up the images to online storage as well as having it on hard drives.

The main reason is I don't want the images lost in a fire or stolen with the computer.

From what I can see of Picasa it allows you to upload to your web albums and then keep them synced.

The price for storage is $20 for 80GB.

I would also be able to give access to family and friends to view.

I have looked at Carbonite and Mozy, but I wanted to tie the back up with an image file manager.

Also my uploads are not counted as part of my fibre broadband allowance.

So I would appreciate your opinions if Picasa is the right option to go for?
 
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Firstly, I don't use picasa but have been in a similar situation to yourself and have considered online backup. Currently i'm giving zenfolio.com a go on their two week trial. Seems ok so far as I can upload and keep them private if i want, unlimited storage, can order prints, etc.
However, Picasa might be a better option for you if you're using their PC app and want the convenience.
 
I have backed up around 40gb of old JPGs upto Picasa with no problems at all. Before I uploaded though I spent quite a lot of time sorting into monthly/year folders etc.

For the small amount of cash google want, you'll struggle to get that amount of online storage elsewhere. Plus, as its photo's you've got the luxury of the Picasa tool to organise etc on the PC, then as you say you can view Picasa albums from a variety of devices. (phones, pc's, htpc's, Apple Tv's etc etc)

Certainly a great option for JPGs.


But as I now use RAW and the filesizes are upto 10 time larger I no longer use Picasa since moving to a dSLR. (other local backups in play now, extra drives etc)

(although I must get round to creating jpg copies out of LR and upload them!) :nono:

Hope this helps.
 
I use picassa as an image viewer and for bits of online back-up (mainly to allow access to friends/family).

Personally I haven't found the software to be all that stable (running on Vista which may be a significant part of the problem) and can take a while to think about things. I may be wrong but I think that it downloads local copies of your web albums as well so you can end up with 2 copies of the same picture on your PC (this could just be the way that I'm using it for individual uploads rather than properly syncing folders).

The thing that annoys me about online storage (in picassa and flickr, and probably others) is that it won't let you upload a folder of photos containing sub-folders and keep your structure. For instance I've got all my photos in folders arranged by year, then month, then event but I've never worked out a successful way of replicating this on an online service. Instead each of my 'event' folders will be an album which gets displayed on the main homepage creating lots of clutter and making it harder to find the photos that I want.

I'm only using the free online services, but if I was paying I would want it to work in the way I want it to - wishful thinking most probably.
 
Never had any real problems with Picasa on Windows 7.

I've had no problems regarding duplicate copies on the PC. You just have your locally organised photos in picasa (i create my own month/year directories), then click sync-to-web and it uploads a version to picasaweb. Never seen a duplicate anywhere?

Picasaweb also keeps your structure intact that you used on the local version (folders). So you see the folders online the same as you have locally.

Thumbs up as a basic tool for me. And to have upto 80gb for just $20 per year is top value and peace of mind.
 
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If you've got bt internet, then you're entitled to a free pro Flickr account, which lets you upload and store ultd original size files (jpeg only). I do it and it works great.
 
Thanks for all the comments.

I think I'll backup my images to Picasa online and utilise a free 2gb to back up my other files.

I know I can't go RAW but the main thing is the images of my family are safe.
 
A good compare app is a must for duplicates beyond compare 2 is great for me I was in your situation but finally started to sort everything first by year then by month, it would be good if there was one that matches images though?
 
lawrenceots said:
If you've got bt internet, then you're entitled to a free pro Flickr account, which lets you upload and store ultd original size files (jpeg only). I do it and it works great.
Click to expand...

how do you get the free pro account??
 
I've you've got a BT internet account then when you sign up to Flickr using that email address then it gives you a pro account automatically - that was my experience anyway.
 
Bear in mind that on line back ups rely on the server not crashing and losing data, as recently happened to the cloud system run by Amazon, where people and businesses lost data/files permanently.

Hard drives now are large and cheap, buy several and keep copies with friends for off site protection.
 
ahh good point, think ill have to back up online (cloud) and ext harddrive now
 
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