Photo Backup Options

I use flickr to upload pictures. They have a free account or $24.95 for a year subscription. I know a lot of people like photobucket, and smugmug but have not used them personally. You could also use a USB stick to back up your pictures. Also apple is suppose to have their new icloud storage starting soon, (October). I think you get 5GB free and can buy more storage if needed.

I use flickr.com as well. I have a personal account and a family account (with different privacy settings). You will definitely want to pay for your account, rather than using the free option, if your requirements are large - particularly for video. Yahoo (hosts flickr) is very up front about what you get for a free account and at each payment tier. A thumb drive is also an option.

Shutterfly. I have over 50 albums on my Shutterfly. Storage has never been an issue.

I like www.mozy.com. I transfer my pictures to my netbook, upload them to Picasa web albums,. but also back up the originals to Mozy. Super safe.

Thanks everyone! I've heard many votes for flickr and mozy. I think I'll check them both out! And perhaps I'll invest in a high capacity flash stick or two.

Thanks everyone! I've heard many votes for flickr and mozy. I think I'll check them both out! And perhaps I'll invest in a high capacity flash stick or two.

Nicholas, Which solution to use for photo backup may depend to some extent on your specific situation. You stated that you'd be "taking quite a few pictures", so my first question is whether you shoot only JPEG files, or RAW files as well. The file sizes are considerably larger with RAW files, so of course you'll need much larger storage capacity. As the MacBook Air uses solid-state Memory, there's not a lot of room for large files. However, it can certainly be used for interim storage while uploading to a photo sharing site. Regarding photo storage / sharing sites, I use SmugMug and I've been really pleased with the quality of the site and the customer service. Anytime I've had any issues (which have been few), they've responded to E-mails within a few hours. As I recall, the cost for a basic membership is about $40 a year, which I feel is very reasonable especially as there's no limit on file storage. One point to note however is that I believe you'd need to pay for a higher level membership to store videos. If you're planning to share videos, you could also use a Blog, as that's normally allowed and free. Have a look at TravelPod for one example. One caveat regarding use of ANY of the photo sharing websites. If you're uploading huge numbers of photos, this could be a time consuming process depending on the speed of the Internet connections you have available. Even with a fast connection here, a 10 MB image takes awhile to upload. If you could provide a few details on what type of photos you'll be shooting, I'll try to offer a few suggestions for storage. Cheers!

I don't know how many gigabytes of images you plan to back up, but unless you have access to a really fast Internet connection and/or have lots of time, uploading a huge batch of files onto cloud-based storage could be tedious. Another option would be to back up onto USB flash drives. 16GB drives are around $20 on Amazon, and 32GB about $40. If you need more space, reconsider the external hard drive idea. There are ruggedized versions for reasonable prices, and they are quite compact. 500GB models are available for well under $100, and 1TB for a little more. http://tinyurl.com/3dbjpca If you are leery of a HD dying on you again, go for redundancy and buy two. Many pro photogs do this. You can never have too much backup.

I always use a portable external hard drive when I cannot burn dvd's and feel somewhat secure as long as they are also on my computer. But, if you do not have enough space to keep them on your computer as well, you might reconsider the external (Passport) and then bring along enough cards to leave your images on the cards till you get home. Or bring 2 Hard drives and back them up twice. They don't take up a lot of space. I would trust those more than a thumb drive. I always want my images in two places...

I've been a Smugmug user since 2002 and it has been a very good experience. I upload all the JPG files there each day for a backup, and then put the RAW files on a small external USB hard drive as another backup (other than on my laptop). Has worked great for me so far.

Thanks again for all the suggestions. I shoot large file JPEGs. Internet speed may be a factor if using online backup. Are there any portable hard drives others can recommend? The one that suddenly stopped working on me was a WD Passport, so I'm hesitant to give it another crack.

Nicholas- I have had more than my fair share of WD drives go toes-up (true, it's anecdotal evidence, but once bitten, twice shy - I understand your reluctance). However, I have been quite pleased with the reliability of Seagate external drives. I have hauled mine to and from work many times w/o problems. This might be a good option: http://tinyurl.com/3f967ot