Quick Flickr question

[Shooter1]

I've just signed up for a Flickr pro account.

I want to upload all the photos I have on my hard drive to Flickr. I'll create sets and mark them as private.

Is this a good way to back up my photos and how secure will they be?

Thanks

[stevegreen]

They will be secure as long as Flickr exists as far as I know and if they are marked as private then only contacts you add as family will be able to see them.

[paulwIre]

If you want to backup your photos and have them secure - buy an external hard disk and back up your photos on to that. Then it's totally safe and only you have access.

[allymac123]

Originally Posted by paulwIre

If you want to backup your photos and have them secure - buy an external hard disk and back up your photos on to that. Then it's totally safe and only you have access.

Not totally safe but then neither would flickr be. Hard disk's can fail. I'd recommend buying a HD and Backing up to DVD.

Flickr isn't a bad idea but if you had to use the photo's from there it would surely take ages to download every single one as you would have to do each file individually.

[Chunder]

Originally Posted by allymac123

I'd recommend buying a HD and Backing up to DVD.

... but DVD's aren't particularly good for archival purposes, and degrade over time, plus in a good number of years you may struggle to find a DVD player!

So, you could back up to multiple HDDs (regularly, to keep everything "fresh"), periodically duplicate everything onto some form of arachival optical media, upload to Flickr, and perhaps also invest in an online data vault.

I'd suggest that this is a bit of overkill for general folks, though Flickr should be fine...

[Shooter1]

Thanks for the replies.

I think I'll upload to Flickr and also archive to DVD.

[tryingtimes]

Ideally we would all have a storage solution with failure protection. RAID 5 and 6 are great for this as you can have total protection against one disk failure, but still get to use 3/4 of the storage you've bought.
It comes at a price though - approx £350 plus the HDDs. Infrant have a great reputation, but there are lots about.

Cheaper is a RAID mirroring system where the data is stored on 2 disks simultaneously. Obviously it's pricey on disks, but it's cheaper to buy the units. There are a few about from companies such as QNAP, Thecus, etc.

Personally I know I need something like this, but the money always puts me off.
I've got 2TB of data all sat on seperate HDDs and if any one fails, I'd be gutted (the only think I keep duplicates of is work).

[salubrious_k]

Originally Posted by Shooter1

Thanks for the replies.

I think I'll upload to Flickr and also archive to DVD.

That's what I do. Although less goes onto my Flickr account than on to DVD. My rule of thumb is that I upload anything that I wouldn't be sad to see disappear should my flat burn down (a burning flat would take out most of your conventional external backups).

And as to tryingtimes remark about cheap RAID mirrors, then I'm fairly certain that Flickr probably have all your images mirrored in multiple locations. I'm of the opinion that it would take world war III to probably knock out all the server farms containing your images in California or wherever.

[tryingtimes]

Does Flickr recompress images, or is the "original" bit-for-bit what was uploaded?

[salubrious_k]

As far as I know the original is correct bit for bit, but your limitation is 10Mb per image

[tryingtimes]

Originally Posted by salubrious_k

As far as I know the original is correct bit for bit, but your limitation is 10Mb per image

Are you limited to JPG?

[paulwIre]

Originally Posted by salubrious_k

I'm fairly certain that Flickr probably have all your images mirrored in multiple locations. I'm of the opinion that it would take world war III to probably knock out all the server farms containing your images in California or wherever.

Actually, I wouldn't be too sure about that. FlickR don't state anything about how safe the images are, or even if they are ever backed up. I would be cautious about using this as a "safe" storage area.

For their details on formats and sizes, check http://www.flickr.com/help/photos/

[salubrious_k]

I think Flickr must store stuff in a multiple redundancy capable architecture, if this was not the case then people would be losing photos and it would be very bad press for them.

Your comment did lead me to look around for some info on the interweb though, I didn't find anything relevant but I did find this interesting blog post and comment thread where people are talking about various ways to backup your whole flickr account:
http://www.postneo.com/2006/03/22/ba...with-amazon-s3