Where do I store all my photos?

As parents, we have snapped more than our fair share of family photos. Technology has changed over the years, and I have found myself backing up to CDs and then DVDs and now bringing these all back onto Hard Drives again. It all works well until a hardware failure or a CD/DVD gets scratched. So you back up onto multiple Disks, USB drives, etc. 

Then mother nature hurls a curve ball, floods cyclones, and your precious and family photos are all gone. The sad reality is that nothing is foolproof. You can make as many backups as you want, but if they are all stored in one place, it just takes one random act of god or bad luck, and everything is lost. To truly ensure things are kept safe, we should store them in at least two places and, if they are precious, three different locations.

So where does that leave you, well ideally essential files like family photos need to be stored safely at home and preferably in another secure location. Let's be honest: a USB drive in a desk drawer also has the issue of getting lost, damaged or, most commonly, forgetting to download your photos. Or if you are like me and have multiple USB drives and find it hard to remember which one has what data on it. But it offers a quick recovery if you have remembered to back up your data and can find the right USB drive, unless a flood happens.

So, you also need somewhere to store your files securely offsite, preferably with regular automatic syncing of your phone or laptop. 

Many people started using Google Drive because it offered "free" storage. However, you were then at the mercy of Google, which has a habit of killing off products without much warning or starting to charge for previously "free" services and leaving many in a bind.

I have been using an open-source product called Nextcloud, which I host on my servers offsite. However, not everyone has the skills or time to host their own platform. Well, I have decided to open our tried and true platform to others, providing another option for people to back up their photos, etc. providing a few more options based on products and systems I have used for years personally. Unfortunately, it is not free, but I am trying to keep the costs reasonable. As such, I am offering a seven-day free trial so you can go and see if it works for you before you commit to paying for anything. 

Visit our signup page to learn more and sign up for a free trial.

If you have any questions or would like to discuss advice, please don't hesitate to contact us. Just click the chat icon below.