Cloud Storage for Photos

[TulipsAndSunscreen]

So, I'm admittedly psycho and backing up photos via an external hard drive isn't good enough for me. I also want cloud storage. We were using Amazon Cloud but in May, they adjusted it so it now keeps a copy of your files on your hard drive which is TERRIBLY annoying because the point of cloud storage in my mind was that it wasn't on my computer. It functionally doubled the size of the files on my hard drive overnight. Despite a million people complaining about this feature on message boards, no fix has emerged (you cannot disable or selectively enable it - it's just a feature of Amazon cloud).

I can't use Carbonite, etc. because those only sync what's on your computer. I need an actual backup (e.g. I can upload to the cloud and delete off my computer). My computer is basically too full to function and I'm about to have a new baby to photograph so I clearly need to do something. Can anyone recommend a good service? It's worth it to me to pay for a service so as long as the price is reasonable that's fine. Several of the ones I've looked into appear to do the same damn thing (back up files and keep a local copy on your hard drive).

Any of our tech geniuses or photography experts got any ideas for me?

[SoonerTexan]

I wish. I've been hesitant to do cloud storage because once it's there it is a pain to move to another service

[Sheherezade]

Dropbox? That's what I use for my important files for my work.

[ladymoreta]

I use Snapfish, and I've been really happy with it. You have to manually add the photos to an album; it's not automatic. I usually do it once or twice per month. I recently saw an article comparing print quality, and Snapfish was rated as the worst, but it's seemed fine to me. I rarely order prints, though, and I mostly use Blurb or Picaboo for photo books because they have better layout options.

[SoonerTexan]

I guess the one thing to watch out for is that the service doesn't compress the photos when you upload them. Dropbox would be darn convenient. I have at least 1/2 TB of photos on an external drive right now. It's a problem

[spotty_dog]

Flickr is currently offering a free terabyte of photo storage, including full-res upload.

[TulipsAndSunscreen]

Does Dropbox compress photos? I think I might look more into that. Argh this is so annoying. Why Amazon started sucking is beyond me.

[SoonerTexan]

I don't think Dropbox compresses--I'm basing this solely on the fact that a friend sent me photos she took of us last year for a portrait session via dropbox and they seemed full size. I made a 16x20 print out of one.

[poky]

I don't think Dropbox compresses--I'm basing this solely on the fact that a friend sent me photos she took of us last year for a portrait session via dropbox and they seemed full size. I made a 16x20 print out of one.

Dropbox is not an image processing site, it's simply storage, for any kind of file; there's no way it's doing processing to reduce the quality of the image. It might do something akin to zip, gz, etc., but that won't be lossy.

[SoonerTexan]

^^Sandy is wise

What are you using to edit? Another reason I'm hesitant to do any time of online storage is Lightroom is VERY finicky when you move files around.

[Sheherezade]

Only issue with dropbox is you either have to hustle a bunch of other people to sign up to get more "Free" storage space OR you have to pay for the increased space. I have a pro account w/250 GB, but it's a business expense and I only use it for photos/programs/files/backups I use for websites. It is absolutely seamless though. Many programs are offering direct to Dropbox tie ins, too.

If you want photo storage system, maybe Flickr? It's the most "pro" one I use. They do store full size images.

[bobk]

I've been using Smugmug. It's around $50 per year for practicality unlimited storage and it doesn't compress the originals.