What is best place to back up files in the cloud (pics and documents)?

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Pergamum

Ordinary Guy (TM)
Hello,

I am looking for a way to safeguard my files and pics in case my laptop goes kaput.

What is the best place to be able to upload a lot of photographs and files?
 
If it was just photo storage then Google Photos would be the way to go, but for photos and files Dropbox is very good.

It depends if you're looking for free online storage. If so, Dropbox only gives you 2GB free before you are required to upgrade and pay on a monthly basis. You can boost this by referring others to Dropbox and get an extra 500MB, per person, for everyone who signs up via your referral link, up to a maximum of 16GB.

Aside from Dropbox, there are other free options including...
One Drive - 5GB Free
iCloud - 5GB Free
Amazon Drive - 5GB Free
Box - 10GB Free
Google Drive - 15GB Free
 
If it was just photo storage then Google Photos would be the way to go, but for photos and files Dropbox is very good.

It depends if you're looking for free online storage. If so, Dropbox only gives you 2GB free before you are required to upgrade and pay on a monthly basis. You can boost this by referring others to Dropbox and get an extra 500MB, per person, for everyone who signs up via your referral link, up to a maximum of 16GB.

Aside from Dropbox, there are other free options including...
One Drive - 5GB Free
iCloud - 5GB Free
Amazon Drive - 5GB Free
Box - 10GB Free
Google Drive - 15GB Free
Thanks. Which one do you think is best?
 
I've used Dropbox extensively, and it was essential as I worked through the medical and legal struggles of the end-of-life period for my parents. Tons of information followed me across devises and locations so they were on hand at doctor visits, hospital stays, probate, etc. I used my phone to scan bills and documents which I saved into Dropbox.

Dropbox folders can exist within a native Windows file system making its use intuitive.

I pay a monthly fee and keep all my creative work in it including a website.
 
You are wise to do this. Computers have a limited life.

I use both Dropbox and One Drive. I'm a little obsessive about not loosing my files. I pay a yearly fee for both. Either would be fine. I prefer the functionality of One Drive, but either is good.
 
Ok, I will get Dropbox.

If I forget to pay one month or something if I go off the grid in the village, will all my docs disappear?
 
Essentially you would be returning to the Free Dropbox, so if you are over the maximum storage, I would guess that your access would be restricted until you make the necessary payment to upgrade again.
 
They would block you from accessing your files, but they wouldn't be deleted. It would take a LONG time of no-payment for that to happen.

It bugs me (and others) that Dropbox won't give you file size, and some other functional issues they've been criticized for, but for a smaller amount of files (under 250 gigs), you probably won't notice so much.
 
Use your own cloud service.

I use a NAS and it replaces Dropbox, Google, iCloud, and Lightroom.

I can access my files anywhere in the world from all devices.

And best of all, I don’t pay anyone and I can get my data off of the internet with a flick of a switch.


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I typically use Google. I don't have a lot on there. Most if it was for student teaching. I typically use something external. I have a few USBs and 3 TB hard drive (mostly for Xbox since those games are increasing exponentially in size any more).
 
I have 125GB of data on my cloud provider. I've used Dropbox, SkyDrive/OneDrive (the name changed while I was using it), and Google Drive in that order, and currently use Google Drive. OneDrive was my least favorite, but at one point was by far the cheapest. Dropbox and Google Drive I'm largely indifferent between but went for Google as its cost is a little better (and I've been able to find deals to re-up the storage), it has a better web client, integrates well with Google Docs/Sheets, and the desktop version isn't as buggy.
 
While you are backing all that stuff to the cloud, I recommend a routine local HDD back up of everything.

The other thing I do, which I find very useful, is to get a few 256 GB flash drives (around $30-$50 a piece these days), and sync "working files" from a computer to them using free MS SyncToy. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=15155 I rotate a backup to each so I have a daily backup; set the SyncToy to add from my computer to the flash drive and never overwrite.

I carry one of the flash drives in my briefcase. One is at my office in a desk drawer, and one is at home. If my computer dies or is stolen, I can plug the flash drive into any Windows computer and have all my active files. 256 GB is quite a lot for documents and photos. When it gets full I back it up to the aforementioned HDD storage drive and delete old stuff.

I used Dropbox back in 2010 until they changed their terms of service stating they could read whatever I stored there. Not very good for confidential docs, so I've dropped Dropbox except for the occasional large file share I need to do. I've heard that they have dropped their snooping policy, but I see no need to store things remotely with such inexpensive memory available.
 
Ok, so I got Dropbox.

But, when I upload files it only uploads the files that are NOT inside of a folder. If I want to upload a folder I have to open it and copy and paste the files inside of it. But I have like 60 folders. I want to just copy and paste my C drive into Dropbox, so that all my folders upload, is there any easy way to do that?
 
You should copy your entire parent folder over (e.g. "Photos") and it will copy all the subfolders and photos. I do it regularly. You do not have to open each folder and copy the files inside.

Likely Dropbox is just building the file structure first and then copying the files. Depending on your connection and how large and how many the files, that can take a while.

At our house it took a couple of days to upload and sync several hundred GB. If you open Dropbox from the task bar you can see its progress (syncing x of y files).
 
Why not just back-up to an external drive? In the long run, it would be cheaper.

Because backup drives fail. If you are really serious about backups then you'd have some form of RAID, which wouldn't be cheaper and even those sometimes have irrecoverable failures. Cloud backups are both the safe and economical options.
 
I know I'm late to this discussion but I use a few:

I pay for Office 365 for Home (it's actually a discounted military appreciation price). It gives me and 4 other family members an Office 365 account so we can each install all the MS Office products. Each account also gets 1 TB of cloud space on OneDrive which is very much like Dropbox. OneDrive also has the benefit of making your login similar across any machines.

I have a Network Attached Storage Device at home. It has about 1.8 TB of information on it (mostly videos). I back that up using Backblaze. Backblaze is very inexpensive and you pay a fraction of a penny per GB per month stored.

Amazon Web Services has a new tier of service for storage called Glacier Deep Archive which is $0.00099 per GB-month. The storage is very durable but you'd need to have a bit of knowledge to use S3 as a storage class. Nice thing about AWS is that they have Regions in many countries.
 
I'm late, too, but I chose iDrive as a dual back-up and storage solution. What I like is that you can back up all your devices (PCs, iphones, Androids, etc.) and then access any of the files on any of them on, well, any of them. iDrive also maintains file structure better than Dropbox (at least that has been my experience - I haven't delved too deeply into the inner workings of Dropbox). This article is a little out of date, but it compares iDrive and Dropbox (which I also use, but only the free version - I pay for iDrive). iDrive also allows for simultaneous back-up to the cloud and an external device.
 
Use your own cloud service.

I use a NAS and it replaces Dropbox, Google, iCloud, and Lightroom.

I can access my files anywhere in the world from all devices.

And best of all, I don’t pay anyone and I can get my data off of the internet with a flick of a switch.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
My friend just had his house burn down. He lost everything in his house. If that happens and you have dropbox, google drive ... any cloud storage, you won't lose any of it. He lost all of his photos ... documents and all else. Yeah, he knows about backups ... but people never plan on their house burning down.
 
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