I may have missed recent discussion(s) of this topic here, but I don't recall any for some time now. But I am considering to look for, and settle on, a good quality and secure cloud-based file storage service that I can add to my home-based hard drive set-up for what is currently about 5-6 TB of image files (from digital capture or scans of LF or MF films over the years).
What cloud-based options are Forum members using, and that I should consider? Thanks in advance for your recos...
... JMOwens (Mt. Pleasant, Wisc. USA)
"If people only knew how hard I work to gain my mastery, it wouldn't seem so wonderful at all." ...Michelangelo
IMO it depends primarily on if you'd prefer to use a company's cloud storage or to create your own. If making your own, there are a few NAS (network attached storage) options, with Synology likely being the most well known. This option is more expensive up front, as you need to by the system and storage, but then has no or minimal ongoing costs. There are tons of options if looking to pay a monthly fee to use a company's cloud storage, with Dropbox and Google Drive probably being the most common. Personally, I've used Backblaze in the past (before building my own NAS), and had good experiences with it.
I use Adobe's cloud that coms with the Creative Cloud subscription, which can always be upgraded to my needs, simple and somewhat affordable.
Amazon has cloud based storage solutions that can be pretty affordable. Especially if you don't need to access the data right away.
https://aws.amazon.com/s3/pricing/
-Joshua
Last edited by Joshua Dunn; 12-Jul-2025 at 11:10.
I generally recommend a three tiered system for critical backups. First is for regular access and for this ssds are most suitable as they have the fastest read and write speeds and need to be powered up every several years or they will leak charges and your data will be corrupted. Next tier is hdd for longer term storage. They are slow to read and write and they can be corrupted by mechanical shocks but they don’t need to be powered up every so often the way that ssds do. The final tier is off site storage. However you choose to manage that, whether it’s a cloud service or just a bunch of disks in a storage unit is up to you. This tier is in case of catastrophe such as flooding or your house burning to the ground.
I know of at least a couple of cloud services that ended, albeit with a warning that they were going to. And Adobe is wont to change their pricing without warning. So I would consider an additional means for long-term storage just in case.
I currently use a Synology NAS for much of my storage. I don't have backups setup yet but by using the NAS I do get protection in case one drive (out of the four that I have setup) fails. I have been recently thinking about setting up backups in the cloud. With the Hyper Backup program on the Synology, I can setup backups to various cloud providers. Below is the current list:Originally Posted by JMO
- Synology C2 Storage
- Dropbox
- HiDrive
- Microsoft Azure
- AWS S3 Storage
- Google Drive
- JD Cloud
- Rackspace
- hicloud S3
While I haven't used it for home use, at my day job, I have used AWS S3 a bunch. It has a bunch of different storage levels for different access requirements and price points. AWS S3 Deep glacier has a current list price of about $1 per TB per month with a minimum charge for 180 days per object you write. If you need to restore from S3 Glacier, it might take 12 hours or more. The other end is the "S3 Standard" tier which is currently would cost around $23 per TB per month with access times in milliseconds. Those prices are for the N. Virginia region. One big downside with AWS is learning to setup and then manage the AWS account.
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