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Backup iPhoto Library to an Online Solution?

lieb39

lieb39

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Mar 17, 2005
284
0
Melbourne, Australia
Hello everyone,

Having a Time machine backup is all good and such - but it's all in one location, so if something like a fire were to strike at home.. Well, both copies would be gone.

So I'm looking for a solution to backup my large iPhoto library - I've searched on this forum and on Google and didn't really come up with a solution.. Anyone have any ideas? I'm aware the inital backup will take forever, but it'll be much quicker afterwards..

Price isn't an issue - but rather, if I need to retrive my data, I don't want to be paying out of the nose..

Thanks,

lieb39
 
All I can think of is MobileMe. Or burn them onto DVD's and... bury them in your yard or something. lol

How many GB's we talking here?
 
Spider Oak is a very nice application that you can download. It offers 2 gig for free, if you want more space then you have to pay.
It's great because you can use the same application to backup many computers at once, and it keeps track of the changes you made to your files as well (somewhat like time machine).
You can even share the files between computers online.
It's a very easy to use application and you can choose what you want to backup. And if you don't feel good about downloading the application you can upload directly through the website, though I'd recommend the download because it's so easy to use and fully integrated with OSX.
By now I'm using 1 gig of space and backing up my iPhoto library and my college documents and have had no problems so far!
Try taking a look at it!
 
I use time machine to back up everything that I keep on my MBA, but I use my iDisk on MobileMe to keep all of my documents / spreadsheets / models, etc. for that very reason.

If you can afford the $99 / year, then go that route, but you aren't just paying for the online storage
 
stownsend3 said:
I use time machine to back up everything that I keep on my MBA, but I use my iDisk on MobileMe to keep all of my documents / spreadsheets / models, etc. for that very reason.

If you can afford the $99 / year, then go that route, but you aren't just paying for the online storage
Click to expand...

I also have MobileMe and have had it for the past 3 years, which I also use for backing up my documents. Although, from my own personal case, my iPhoto library is 14 GB large. Every MobileMe member gets 20 GB to use for their iDisk and Mail (combined, although you can allocate the space however you want to at Me.com). Although, I have kept some movies or other things on my iDisk right now, and with my iDisk and Mail space evenly allocated at 10 GB each, I have about 7 GB left on my iDisk. So in the case of lieb39, if his iPhoto Library is as big as mine, he wouldn't be able to back up all his pictures, even if he allocated the maximum space to the iDisk. If you wanted to stick with Apple and their iDisk to back up your iPhoto Library and it is very large, you can upgrade to more storage. Here is a picture of the prices to upload (and remember, when it says add X amount, that is in addition to the $100 per month)
2a0f5h1.jpg


As a result, if you are only using the backup for your iPhoto library and you don't need the addition features that come as part of the $100 per year MobileMe, I suggest going with Mozy, where you get unlimited storage space, and it is only $4.95 per month (which is just $60 per year!).
 
Although it's more expensive, I went for a Amazon S3 account. Tons of tutorials out there on how to get it working, and how to get it auto syncing.. it works out to about $17 first month, $10 after.. but It's well worth it - I know Amazon won't be disappearing anytime soon and it's reliable. Takes a while to up about 67GBs though.. but it'll get there after a few days.

I'd love to have this same setup for myself (Setting it up for my parents, whom are in the US).. but here in Australia we have bandwidth caps.. I'm 25GBs up&down per month.

Cheers
 
Get a small external drive, put all your pictures on it and send it to a relative. You can add to it whenever you see them.
 
macbook yes said:
Get a small external drive, put all your pictures on it and send it to a relative. You can add to it whenever you see them.
Click to expand...
If the photos are in an iPhoto library and the relative is a PC user, is there any way the the relative can view the pictures? They would have my permission to view them.
 
anyone ever use the ADRIVE.COM service?
It supposedly offers 50Gb of FREE storage.
I'd like to know if anyone tried it.
 
DO NOT USE MOZY FOR iPHOTO

Mozy breaks up your backups into smaller chunks and since iPhoto creates a package of all of your files for iPhoto Mozy has a hard time putting them back together. Same thing with Aperture. I had a hell of a time getting things back from them and in the end I had to piece the entire library back together by hand. Everything else on Mozy seemed to work okay, but still pretty buggy for Mac. I actually had to go to their headquarters in Pleasant Grove, Utah to get this taken care of, luckily I only live about 10 minutes away.
 
lieb39 said:
Hello everyone,

Having a Time machine backup is all good and such - but it's all in one location, so if something like a fire were to strike at home.. Well, both copies would be gone.

So I'm looking for a solution to backup my large iPhoto library - I've searched on this forum and on Google and didn't really come up with a solution.. Anyone have any ideas? I'm aware the inital backup will take forever, but it'll be much quicker afterwards..

Price isn't an issue - but rather, if I need to retrive my data, I don't want to be paying out of the nose..

Thanks,

lieb39
Click to expand...

It is good to be thinking about this. I personally would discount much of the advice you received here. For me... a backup solution must have the following properties:

1) It must be totally automatic, with no user intervention
2) You must have two completely separate, and independent backup destinations. Independent means "one cannot be a copy of the other, because any corruption would just propagate. Ideally, the two solutions use different backup programs
3) At least one of the destinations must be off site
4) Ideally, the 2nd destination is local... for ease of recovery
5) At least one of the destinations must support versioning.

For me, a cost effective, safe, and secure solution is:

1) Use Time Machine to a local hard drive
2) Use Mozy.com or Crashplan.com for cloud based, secure, inexpensive, off-site backup

/Jim
 
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