Cloud Syncing Important Files - Flickr

Being cheap, I can’t bring myself to subscribe to a premium cloud sync solution such as Dropbox.  So I’ve been looking for synced backup for a few key areas.

Stuff that must be backed up and synced

• Music collection
• Books (PDFs)
• Documents
• Family photos and videos

Music Collection

Is currently backed up on SkyDrive, since I have a Windows Phone, and adding an extra 20Gb to give me total of 45Gb only cost me £6 per year. However, it makes no sense to physically store my music online when my copy of “Muse - The 2nd Law” is the same as everybody else’s. So for the future I will be looking at a paid for “music match” type of service. When I’ve decided which one, I’ll let you know.

Books

My large collection of PDFs also sits on SkyDrive. It will likely stay there as long as I have a Windows Mobile

Documents

Again, SkyDrive for the moment though if I ever go back to Android, it’ll go back to Google Drive. My software development stuff is on my free Dropbox account.

 Photos and Videos

This is the largest collection of stuff, and will likely grow the fastest, so it is important to have a really cheap-per-gigabyte service.

I used Picasa Web for a while, but then it all got too integrated into google plus, and I couldn’t be bothered with the privacy settings and circles. I also had some storage space on google’s old price structure which is awesome, and they will honour the old price as long as I keep paying it. The problem is that it is associated with an account I’m moving away from, and it’s hassle to use one login for Picasa / Google Plus and another for everything else. So I’ll probably let the ultra cheap storage lapse.

I almost went with SkyDrive again, as the space is very well priced, but then noticed that Flickr Pro - which I’d always dismissed as being for professional photographers, was cheap, and allows unlimited photo uploads. The only restriction is that videos must be under 90 seconds long and under 500Mb each. I doubt I have many videos over those limits, but I’ll have to double check, and squirrel backups of those somewhere else.

To make Flickr a true backup solution, I’ve also purchased photoSync for $6 which automatically syncs a folder to Flickr  (unfortunately it syncs a folder two-levels down from the one you choose to sync - which is very annoying). I’m currently testing, so have yet to see how well it handles 75Gb of pictures and video.

I’m sure my online backup strategy will change over time, as improved services and lower pricing appears. I’ll keep you posted