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I don't use image hosting but some folks do and I don't know if this is of any interest to ST's members.
I spotted it while reading a kite forum. 
Quote:- < < < < < < < < < Most of you that have sites with Fotopic will probably have noticed, but for those that haven't - fotopic took all their servers off line a few days back.
It looks like they have finally folded - but (as is the fotopic way) they are saying nothing as yet.
Joel Rowbottom set up Fotopic - and ran it with good results - but sold it on a few years ago (he's about to launch pikfu.com a new hosting site)
After he sold it the new owners ran it on 'auto-pilot' - no promotion, no updates, just relying on word of mouth and brand loyalty.
Joel has offered to try and help sort whatever has gone wrong at fotopic on a consultancy basis - but they are not even telling him what the problem is.
Joel has said that if he can open any sort of dialog with the current owners, then his aim will be to find a way for those that have work on fotopic that they need to retrieve to do so - so even he is not talking about getting it fully back up.
As we know they had a serious 'out' a while ago, but did eventually come back - looks like it might be more 'terminal' this time
Looking on a fotopic users forum there people that have potentially lost thousands of pics (I would insert some smart-arsed comment about backing up here - but I'm not as good at backing-up as I should be ) > > > > > > > > > >Unquote
Lumix LX5.
Canon 350 D.+ 18-55 Kit lens + Tamron 70-300 macro. + Canon 50mm f1.8 + Manfrotto tripod, in bag.
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Man - the old backup topic again. Every time I hear about one of these disasters, I do a backup of my own stuff. I really need an automated, semi-automated, or at least a regular solution...
What is everybody using here for backups? How often do you do it?
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Thanks for the heads up NT73...
This is one topic I've been interested in a for a while now and I'll be the first to admit that I don't have a foolproof plan in place. Currently I'm only relying on local backups to a separate external HDD via Apple's Time Machine. I'm painfully aware that in event of a fire or theft, my photos would disappear as well. To circumvent that, I also replicate to two portable hard drives which I keep off site, and periodically cycle. Admittedly, these are not cycled as often as I would like but at least I have something.
What would be great would be to have something additional online as well that would replicate a more regular basis. So far I haven't found anything which is affordable yet flexible enough for my liking.
One interesting one I found mentioned a lot is Crashplan ( http://www.crashplan.com). They have paid plans which backup online, but if you're wanting to go the free route, they can backup to a peer (a friend or relative perhaps) as well.
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shuttertalk Wrote:To circumvent that, I also replicate to two portable hard drives which I keep off site, and periodically cycle. Admittedly, these are not cycled as often as I would like but at least I have something. Yeah - that's my scheme too. I figure that limits my exposure to the last few months work. Let's see,,,what would that be this year? My Italy and Iceland trips? Not good enough - I need a proper backup plan.
One solution that I am evaluating is Carbonite. They offer unlimited online backups fully encrypted and secure for $55 / year. That doesn't pay for the time I spend backing up in a year, so its very tempting. I suppose it depends how usable the included software is and what performance is like.
They offer a free trial run. I'm thinking of setting it up pre-Italy - I'll let you know what I think.
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There are a few similar to Carbonite, such as Mozy, Backblaze and Crashplan. I'm not sure which one is the best but do check their T&Cs. Some don't allow backing up of external drives - only local disk. And they get more expensive depending on how many PCs you want to back up.
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Good advice. Thanks Jules.
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Found some reviews here:
http://gigaom.com/apple/mozy-vs-carbonit...smackdown/
http://gigaom.com/apple/backblaze-vs-cra...n-round-2/
http://www.macworld.com/article/142606/2...ackup.html
The last one has a nice summary table.
Some interesting points regarding external drives:
- Mozy "forgets" about external drives if you detach them
- Carbonite refuses to backup external drives
- Backblaze will backup external drives, but if it doesn't see it for 30 days it will schedule it for deletion
- Crashplan will backup external drives, and is smart enough to know the drive is unavailable
By the way, I'm currently using dropbox and sugarsync to back up my documents for my home and work PCs, but I don't have enough space on their plans to cover my photos as well. Their pricing structure is a bit prohibitive for photos.
I was also thinking of maybe uploading all photos to Flickr, SmugMug or Picasa web albums, but I think they're more of a portfolio site rather than a true backup. i.e. if you actually lose your drive it might be hard to get all the photos back from the site.
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After some additional research, it would appear that CrashPlan offers the best combination of features and lack of restrictions. A couple of things they offer that others do not are:
1. Family plan pricing - backup up to 10 computers for the price of 2
2. Seeding - the initial monster backup of everything before starting incremental backups. For a fee, they will ship a TB hard drive to you, which you fill with your data and ship back. A bit pricy, but saves that first horrible upload of your entire dataset via the internet (that could take many days to complete).
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Awesome Toad - let us know how you go... I might try them out as well. They have a 30 day free trial...
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They will only mail the seeding drive within the USA - but I live very close to the border and there is a friendly package receiving and mailing facility just across the line, so that is still an option.
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I read more on fotopic, and even the folk who have paid good money have lost out. I suppose if a company goes bust then 'thats it folks' as Bugs Bunny says.
Wether other companies are financially sound, who knows? Picassa is part of Google so maybe they seem the safe bet.
I don't back up on line. I have two ext drives and the imac with 300 and an acer laptop with 350 GB. I suppose something will soon be invented to improve reliability. Thats progress, assuming digital photography continues.
But I am getting cynical in my old age, and believe something will supercede photography, to continue making money for the big companies.
Lumix LX5.
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NT73 Wrote:I don't back up on line. I have two ext drives and the imac with 300 and an acer laptop with 350 GB. Yes - I have a similar system right now, but my concern is burglary or fire where the backup hardware gets taken out at the same time as the primary...
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I have a Drobo for my back-up as well as a hard drive n my actual computer and then off site back-up of jpegs on DVD.
Canon stuff.
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Toad Wrote:NT73 Wrote:I don't back up on line. I have two ext drives and the imac with 300 and an acer laptop with 350 GB. Yes - I have a similar system right now, but my concern is burglary or fire where the backup hardware gets taken out at the same time as the primary... Nothing is 100% safe. And really, truly, how much of a burden would it be if you lost all your photos but kept your wife and children. I mean, it is for most of us a hobby and memories. Your main drive is in your head.  I am thinking of the unlucky folk in Japan as I write this.
Not only photos by the way. I have paper records from the 60's. (Sad aren't I)  But it is only for fun and comparisons.
Lumix LX5.
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I hear what you are saying, but in a perfect world, I would keep my wife and children and not have to worry about my photos because they were backup up elsewhere - certainly worth $50 / year.
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A perfect world would be nice.
As would be a perfect back up system. Fireproof, waterproof, burglarproof and childproof.  Meanwhile back in the bunker.
Lumix LX5.
Canon 350 D.+ 18-55 Kit lens + Tamron 70-300 macro. + Canon 50mm f1.8 + Manfrotto tripod, in bag.
(This post was last modified: Apr 6, 2011, 18:28 by canonkid.)
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A bunker for data storage might not be too bad actually... unless maybe it got flooded.
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Ok so I've signed up for a trial of Crashplan. So far it looks good - pretty easy to configure your backups and there's plenty of options of backing up too. I like how you can configure it to backup online, and also to a local external drive or another computer as well.
So far I've been running it for 2 days and it's done 9.6 GB. Not too flash - it estimates that it'll take about 35 days to back up my 640 GB to their server. Hmm....
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That's why I am planning to do the "seed" startup with the supplied hard drive. Unfortunately, that's only available in the USA. Fortunately, I only live a few miles away so I can pickup the shipment and mail it back from across the line. I'm still slightly on the edge about this - so please provide a mini review when you get a moment.
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Ok no worries - I might make another post since this one has gone well and truly off the rails
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