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On Tue, 2011-04-19 at 13:27 +0100, Gordon Henderson wrote: > On Tue, 19 Apr 2011, Neil Winchurst wrote: > > > raymond.knowles@xxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote: > >> Hi Neil, > >> > >> I would advise against it, largely on the basis > >> of lack of control. > >> > >> All it needs is someone to create a > >> trivial court case, then serve a > >> witness summons on her > >> storage provider, and they would have to release > >> the > >> photos. > >> > >> So stick with good old DVDs and USB sticks, if > >> necessary stored at several > >> addresses, then you retain > >> control and the photos remain out of the hands > >> of others. > > [snippage] > > > Well, lots of answers and lots to consider. Perhaps this one above is the > > simplest and safest. It was changing to a new computer that caused the > > question. Thanks for all the suggestions and ideas. > > I think Ray's being a bit overly paranoid here - really, they're family > photos - you just want somewhere safe to keep them, and in reality, > so-what if someone gets a search warrant to get hold of the photos? If > someone was that desperate, they'd search your home too. (And why are they > searching in the first place?) > > (And USB sticks? I guess you don't have a modern camera, Ray! In the past > week, myself and family have taken several GB of photos and videos on the > holiday we've just been on! - 6 digital cameras, 4 phones in active use, 2 > digital video cameras - mine being the oldest at a mere 5MP, and with a > 2.5 year old in the group, it made for plenty of photo opportunity!) > > What did we do before digital? Well... We'd carefully store slides, > negatives, prints, etc. in nice secure containers, and they would last > years, decades, even over a century if stored properly - I have some old > family B&W photos from the early 1900's... (Which I must digitize before > the paper eventually degrades!) > > However, the number of prints was considerably smaller back then - due > mostly to cost - and storage was relatively bukly - I look at a box of 36 > slides and look at a camera SD card... > > Anyway, I think online is good - and there are plenty of options now - but > do be prepared to pay for it - http://www.dropbox.com/ isn't that > expensive, neither is Amazon S3, and there are others (e.g. > https://www.strongspace.com/ who allow rsync) UK based - e.g.: > http://www.livedrive.com/ and so on. > > (And these are for general data storage, not just photos - anything > digital on your computer) > > I manage an online backup service for a few clients too, but while disk > space is cheap, the facilities to run it aren't - unless you're doing it > in really big & bulk way - so (as Simon suggested), your average VPS type > of server might not be a good start... > > So what might be the best way? > > I reckon that with the co-operation of a friend (or 2) then you could get > a good system in-place. Everyone has 2 removable drives of sufficient > capacity, and one is at home and one with a trusted friend (but you'll > want to use whole-disk encryption, anyway). So on a daily basis, rsync > your live data to the backup, using various tricks to maintain several > days worth of storage (cp -al), then once a week, you swap your "live" > disk with that held by the friend and carry on. > > Every 3 years (or whenever you run out of space!) buy new, bigger drives > and carry on. At this point, I'd wipe and give-away the old ones. They > really won't last forever, so no point putting them into archive. You'll > also be keeping up with technology - today, it's USB2 - possible USB3 - > but eSATA is starting to appear on more motherboards, who knows what's > next ... > > I wouldn't want to host a server at a friends house - even if you were > doing it for them. You'd be using electricity for no good reason, and > potentially have hassles with bandwidth, lack of static IP addresses and > so-on. > > If you do want online backup (really meaning backup, as in using it as a > write mostly medium), then possibly "clubbing together" with a few friends > and a friendly hosting co. might just work - build a reliable server > that's light on resources, but heavy on disk, bearing in-mind that data > centres are moving towards charging for power... Then you can store what > you like using whatever tools you're familiar with.... > > And oddly enough, a friend of mine tried to get an online backup service > going a few years back (aimed at photographers, but it would store > anything) - but it never really got off the ground - I think punters > didn't understand the concept and really wanted a photo-sharing type of > service, rather than something you pay money for with no "tangible" > benefits. > > Gordon > In terms of online storage, SpiderOak (https://spideroak.com/) also looks good (and cheap) There are a wide range of different Linux client applications (as well as proprietary OS, phones, iPad etc). You can back up and share specific folders (unlike Dropbox where everything has to be put into a local Dropbox folder) For the (more or less) paranoid, privacy seems pretty good too - everything online is encrypted so even Spideroak can't read it (zero knowlege). Phil -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/listfaq