best cloud backup solution for lightroom

Just to update on this post, Lightroom have a 1TB cloud storage that syncs with Lightroom desktop now. It's not a backup as such but might be useful for anyone wanting cloud storage. I never used revel, but perhaps creative cloud 1TB is an alternative?

Great topic and thread. I'd like to share my current personal setup with you.

I am a professional designer with years of photography experience; 27+ years. A majority of my photography is for personal use. I use an iMac 27" with a Promise Technology 18TB Pegasus2 R6 Thunderbolt 2 RAID Storage Array. This RAID provide redundant backup so if a harddrive fails it will alert me and I simply swap out the bad drive with a new one. I always have two extra harddrives on hand in case multiple drives fail. Then I also have a yearly subscription to an online cloud backup service called CrashPlan. CrashPlan provides unlimited backup! What is so great about CrashPlan is it allows you to selectively back up folders and files from your primary PC harddrive and from an external harddrive. When using a service like this speed is always the number one concern. I have a 150Mbps Internet fiber optic connection so I get 150 up and down. Also the Promise Technology 18TB Pegasus2 R6 Thunderbolt 2 RAID Storage Array provides Thunderbolt 2 connections to my iMac. Initially backing up all of my 2TB+ of photos takes a few days but once it is completed all new photos will be intermittently backed up in minutes or hours.

I don't fully trust cloud backup services that is why the local RAID drive is critical.  I've used an external RAID for over 16 years and have never lost my images. My first RAID was a 24TB Netgear solution and now I am with Promise because they are Thunderbolt 2 compatible.

You put a lot of time shooting all of your photos over many many years. It's worth the investment for this setup.

Hi John,

I only take family photos really and used Adobe Revel for storage and sharing, but they closed it last year. As a heads up, In the closure notice they said that cloud storage would come to Lightroom CC some point.

It kind of is at the moment with Lightroom Mobile and Web (to which you can upload hi res and RAWs) but (A) It isn't guaranteed as a backup and (B) means  working in a totally non-standard way in Lightroom Desktop. Therefore not really recommended, although it's my workflow as I'm looking for a Revel type solution.

When/If it does appear in Lightroom it will be interesting to see how it is implemented across all of the platforms.

I'm looking into cloud storage as well. Though a physical copy needs to be on the computer, Onedrive, Dropbox, idrive , Google drive etc will sync them to the cloud, so every change you make to a file will be reflected in a copy that sits in the cloud. If your hard drive fails, you still have your copy in the cloud, is my understanding. Though it is still prudent to backup regularly to a removable hard drive, NAS and such, it seems this may be a good second safety net.

I've heard too many horror stories of people paying Carbonite, Crashplan, Backblaze for years, only to find their files were gone when they needed to retrieve them.

So I'm curious, as well, to hear from people who use cloud storage, and if so, what is your preferred way? (google drive, one drive etc)

Thanks for coming back to me guys.

So dj, when you say 'Lightroom does not allow photos to be stored in the cloud' does this mean that I couldn't use any kind of functionality through Lightroom if I was using the cloud but could do a straight backup of all the original images from my HD (and catalogue files, presets etc, or not??).  Will check out the WD Myclound info on here.

I have to say 'Just shoot me', I am starting to wonder about whether I should just have a third portable HD and keep this offsite.  I suppose I could back up the main drive on this once a week / month although that still means once a week (or month) all three drives will be in the same place but I'd have to be very unlucky for something to happen that wiped all these out on that particular day.

Glad you have all of your old images from your phones Jeff - I lost a huge amount of family images in a computer crash about 8 years ago - no backups back then so pretty galling!   Carbonite looks interesting and relatively inexpensive - will check this out further.   I've just done a complete reinstall of my computer which is so much easier than it used to be now that a lot of the programs are cloud based.  This gives me a clean sheet to start my new digital workflow on.

Hi John, I use Carbonite. I tell it the drive  and/or folders to back up and it does it seemlessly in the background. I have a 4TB "art drive" and it backs up any new files (raw or Jpeg) using bandwidth when I'm not using it. I leave my system running most of the time and it keep all the files updated. Plus I turn it lose on my "C" drive so all my files in Documents and downloads and web creation folders... Lets just say if I touch something during the day, it backs it up.

I do not at this time do the higher tier which backs up the system files for rebuilding the OS. I'm of a mind that with all that I'm backing up I don't mind a clean install every few years. It helps to clear out the cobwebs.  I've found I can reload my system in a day with most all important programs.

But I also like that Carbonite will back up my phone as well. I've been using this for 3 phones now and even though the old phones are no longer connected, all the images are still there. So I have videos and images taken with these phones from years ago. After my dad passed, I found I had videos of him from way back 6-10 years ago, very cool and comforting for me.

It's not free but little in life is... I hope this helps.

Jeff Folger

http://www.vistaphotography.com

LR really doesn't contain any Cloud system, or even on site system, for auto backups of your image files. That is totally up to you.

I personally don't trust any Cloud based system and don't really see the need to use them for extra copies of my files. YMMV.

I have multiple computers at home that I use for redundant copies of all my files and multiple external drives for the same thing.

If you really want to create copies of your images on a cloud based system I don't see one better then any other.

I was thinking (and this is where I would love your advise) of purchasing something like the WD Mycloud mirrored 4T drive which would in effect give me two 2T onsite drives and then linking up to a cloud storage solution for an offsite copy of my backup.

I have no experience with WD MyCloud drives, but I have read a number of problems with them in this forum. Search the forum and see for yourself.

I had read somewhere that Dropbox works well with Lightroom but could someone give me an idea of how much, if any functionality can be used in LR while storing in the cloud, or is this copy purely a data backup and no more?

People do use Dropbox to share photos and the catalog file as well on two (or more) different computers. However, this is NOT cloud storage, as Lightroom does not allow photos to be stored in the cloud. You could consider Dropbox to be a cloud backup mechanism.

I personally use Carbonite as my cloud backup. I set it up to back up the entire contents of my two internal drives, which allows complete backups of all Lightroom files and photos, plus of course all other non-Lightroom documents and files are backed up as well.