Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Photo Storage Solution

purdnost

purdnost

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Dec 2, 2018
497
131
I have years of photos and videos on an external hard drive. Unfortunately, they just sit there and I never look at them. I would like a solution where I can access them. I’ve considered putting them all into iCloud, but I don’t really want all that space being used up on my phone, even with optimize photos turned on.

Currently, every year I dump all my photos and videos into an Apple Photos library for that year.

I like having my media backed up and synced across devices.

Smugmug converts HEIC to JPEG and Flickr doesn’t support RAW. Lightroom cloud also has similar limitations. Apple seems like my best bet, but I would probably turn off iCloud sync and just access my media through the web.

All that considered, I wondered if anyone might have any suggestions. Thanks!
 
I store my raw/Finshed tiff files on a Mac mini Server as a archive. Then another copy is posted on flicker which is where I share and/or display my work.
 
purdnost said:
I have years of photos and videos on an external hard drive. Unfortunately, they just sit there and I never look at them. I would like a solution where I can access them. I’ve considered putting them all into iCloud, but I don’t really want all that space being used up on my phone, even with optimize photos turned on.

Currently, every year I dump all my photos and videos into an Apple Photos library for that year.

I like having my media backed up and synced across devices.

Smugmug converts HEIC to JPEG and Flickr doesn’t support RAW. Lightroom cloud also has similar limitations. Apple seems like my best bet, but I would probably turn off iCloud sync and just access my media through the web.

All that considered, I wondered if anyone might have any suggestions. Thanks!
Click to expand...
You don't say what the problem is.

The images are obviously accessible to you on the hard drive...why don't you look at them? Having separate libraries for each year makes it harder, not easier, but still: there must be some problem. Is it that you want to look at them on your phone? TV? There are lots of solution for access via various means, even without the cloud, but we'd have to know what your preferences are.

Me, I make my best shots available via either the web (Flickr, Lightroom), or via Photos (shared albums in iCloud), or via Lr Mobile, or on my TV via Lr's ATV app. Or I just access them on my hard drives.
 
I’d say iCloud photos all the way. When you talk about using up space on your device, if you have the storage optimisation turned on then your device space will get managed as required. I don’t see the problem here. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
 
  • Like
Reactions: Darmok N Jalad
I don’t own a computer that I can keep the hard drive plugged into. I use an iPad Pro instead. I know I can plug the hard drive into my iPad briefly if I need to pull something off, but it’s not as convenient as a dedicated computer setup would be.

If I want to access archived media for whatever reason, it’s just a process. Although I don’t need constant access, the convenience of a cloud solution for such occasions would be nice. It would actually encourage me to view old memories more.

It would also be nice to use a service that both my wife and I can access on our devices. So, we would dump all our media into the same account we we can access each other’s old photos and videos, especially of our kids.

I also worry about relying solely on one hard drive which could fail.

I also would like a cloud service that doesn’t compress images and doesn’t convert image file types (RAW, HEIC). I also steer away from Google and Amazon because of privacy concerns.
 
I am not a fan of keeping thousands of images just because I took them. On occasion I cull through the images and keep only the special ones - they all aren't special. A picture of a pet at twenty different angles is a bit much. One image is enough.

The images I use in Lightroom are stored on OneDrive (no local storage - except for Smart Previews) - the Lightroom catalog is kept locally and synched to OneDrive.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: jwolf6589 and dimme
While not addressing all of your concerns, having your RAW files on a single drive is a *very* bad idea.

I used to have my LR library on an external SSD drive and would clone it to multiple external drives, one of them off site. As the size of my library increased I started looking for other solutions as SSD drives aren’t cheap.

I recently switched to a Synology NAS and moved my LR library to it so I don’t have to plug an external drive into my MBP when importing/editing photos. It has RAID redundancy so if one or more drives in the NAS fail I’m not screwed. Keep meaning to look into Amazon Glacier for off-site cloud backup, but haven’t done it yet. Need to.
 
Last edited:
purdnost said:
I have years of photos and videos on an external hard drive. Unfortunately, they just sit there and I never look at them. I would like a solution where I can access them. I’ve considered putting them all into iCloud, but I don’t really want all that space being used up on my phone, even with optimize photos turned on.

Currently, every year I dump all my photos and videos into an Apple Photos library for that year.

I like having my media backed up and synced across devices.

Smugmug converts HEIC to JPEG and Flickr doesn’t support RAW. Lightroom cloud also has similar limitations. Apple seems like my best bet, but I would probably turn off iCloud sync and just access my media through the web.

All that considered, I wondered if anyone might have any suggestions. Thanks!
Click to expand...

I have 6,323 photos and 882 videos dating back to 2003 on my main hard drive in a separate photos library that I access using the option key when I open photos. I like you do not want them in iCloud and wasting up valuable space on my phone so for my iPhone/ipad I have a separate photos library. Just something for you to consider.
 
First off, if these images are important to you then you should have backups, both local and offsite. Having them on one hard drive means if that drive fails your images are gone, or at best costly to retrieve.

As for your specific use case, being able to view the photos from devices other than a computer, the suggestion made by others of a NAS system would be the way to go.

Good luck what ever you decide.
 
iCloud Photos all the way. I've got a 116GB library (
1614301373774.png
).

I've used this for years now and am not looking anywhere else. OneDrive would be my second attempt if I hadn't already used iCloud Photos.

BackBlaze for backup (either through B2 or their BackBlaze unlimited). Then TimeMachine or CCC (Carbon Copy Clone) it to an external drive.

I've got my entire photo library synced to my MacBook, iPad, and iPhone.
 
MacNut said:
Until you stop paying for it.
Click to expand...

Yeah. It sucks that insurance costs money. Only you can decide how much your data is worth to you. Of course, as it is your decision to stop paying, you've hopefully made other arrangements for your backup. You do of course have the original data, it's not like that goes away when you stop paying for your offsite backup.

If you are lucky enough to have someone who will let you install a remote drive at their place, keep it up and running and accessible 24/7, and and is far enough away to ensure a local disaster does not take them out as well then go for it.

Or you could of course buy multiple hard drives and store one far enough away so that a local disaster doesn't take it out. And have way to swap the drives on a regular basis, at a frequency that you are comfortable with to ensure any losses would be minimal. And unless you are transporting them yourself you'll need to pay for, and perhaps insure them, in transit.

Me, I'll pay Backblaze $60 a year for automatic offsite backup of as much data as I can throw at them.

But I understand that may be too expensive for some folks.

Good luck whatever you decide.
 
  • Like
Reactions: kallisti
Here is a somewhat morbid question, but when you die where does your data go. Does anyone have arrangements for who might get the backups.
 
MacNut said:
Here is a somewhat morbid question, but when you die where does your data go. Does anyone have arrangements for who might get the backups.
Click to expand...
I am hoping that Apple introduces something like Google has someday --- so when I die - within so many months of no activity, all my data is owned by <X> designated person.
 
I've been thinking about this as well. I have terabytes of photos, mostly in RAW, that are stored in external drives. I would prefer a cloud based storage so I can access them when I want to (there are moments when you just want to see a particular photo in the past). But I don't really see a consumer focused large could storage. If there's one, they are severely expensive as they are targeted towards enterprises. I was even thinking of using AWS, but seems overkill.

Might have to spend time culling them bit by bit sooner or later. *sigh #procrastination
 
  • Like
Reactions: catfish743
MacNut said:
Here is a somewhat morbid question, but when you die where does your data go. Does anyone have arrangements for who might get the backups.
Click to expand...
Oh, people are standing in line for my old emails to Comcast and copies of OS8.

I just love how every thread about storage gets turned into a 20 backups discussion.
 
Ray2 said:
Oh, people are standing in line for my old emails to Comcast and copies of OS8.

I just love how every thread about storage gets turned into a 20 backups discussion.
Click to expand...
I find this an odd comment. No one is talking about 20 backups.

It is poor practice to store anything you care about on a single drive. Drive failures DO happen. Without backups, everything is lost or at a minimum it is a PITA to get everything back.

Having a local backup of some form is the bare minimum anyone should be comfortable with. If for no other reason than you can get working again if a system update breaks something.

Offsite backups are an extra layer of insurance. They can be cloud based or just a clone of your drive that you keep offsite (work, safety deposit box at a bank, etc.).

I recently had a total failure of a 2019 MBP. Apple was able to fix it, but the hard drive was corrupted. Since I had a recent clone of the drive it was easy to restore from that backup once the machine was fixed. Possible I could have recovered my files on the fixed machine, but the backup made the process painless.

I *don’t* care about “old emails to Comcast or OS8”. I do care about restoring a borked system back to a recent usable state in a short amount of time. I also *really* care about my photo library. Insurance will replace all my gear if it gets destroyed in a house fire for example. No amount of money will restore my photos if I don’t have them backed up offsite. My photos matter enough to me that offsite backup in some form is mandatory.

You may not feel the same way, which is obviously fine.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Clix Pix
purdnost said:
I don’t own a computer that I can keep the hard drive plugged into. I use an iPad Pro instead. I know I can plug the hard drive into my iPad briefly if I need to pull something off, but it’s not as convenient as a dedicated computer setup would be.

If I want to access archived media for whatever reason, it’s just a process. Although I don’t need constant access, the convenience of a cloud solution for such occasions would be nice. It would actually encourage me to view old memories more.

It would also be nice to use a service that both my wife and I can access on our devices. So, we would dump all our media into the same account we we can access each other’s old photos and videos, especially of our kids.

I also worry about relying solely on one hard drive which could fail.

I also would like a cloud service that doesn’t compress images and doesn’t convert image file types (RAW, HEIC). I also steer away from Google and Amazon because of privacy concerns.
Click to expand...
Ah, sorry, didn't realize that when I responded to your question.

I'd go with the cloud then. Me, I'd use Lightroom in that situation. Keeps raw, no ads, etc, and works well. Or Photos. Photos might be a bit easier to share (although I find that kinda like sharing a toothbrush...YMMV). If you use other Apple services might be worth getting one of their new bundles.

It has downsides though. Getting stuff off can be a huge pain if you decide to switch, and there's the ongoing cost of course. And synching isn't trivial. Great when it works; bad when it doesn't. Another option might be Mylio, maybe in conjunction with Amazon S3 or other professional storage solution.

If you don't want them all there, then cull. Otherwise it's back to local storage and a hard drive or NAS. And backup of both of those. And since you use online storage, then more places to manage. But Mylio at least is rather good at that.

If you had any old Mac laying around then using that as sort of a file server solution for photo storage and serving them up can be a good solution vs a NAS. It can connect easily with the iPad and iPhones, and with Apple TV if you want to show them on that.
 
I can can connect to my nas from my phone but not sure it could be set up without a computer.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back