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zoelarkinphoto
zoelarkinphoto
Participating Frequently
October 23, 2017
Question

Can I back up to cloud-based storage like Dropbox to avoid paying $$$ per year for CC Photography Plan?

  • October 23, 2017
  • 2 replies
  • 3338 views

Thank you so much for your help in advance. I know this is long, but wanted to include all relevant info as it's so annoying when someone wants help but doesn't explain exactly what their situation/ problem is. Cheers again. Zoe

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I have a subscription to Lightroom & Photoshop: Creative Cloud Photography Plan and it costs me $9.99 per month, and gives me the latest Photoshop and Lightroom, the only 2 Adobe programs I need. I'm on the whole happy with it.

But the time has come for me to go cloud-based. The changes Adobe has made recently is the perfect time to make this change. Also I hear it's faster which would be a huge bonus for me.

I've been using my subscription for 2 years for work that I don’t want to lose. My RAW files right now take up almost 1TB of space on my external hard drive (just a little My Passport plug-in drive that is permanently attached to my computer).

As the plan I have (now apparently called 'Classic') is all desktop-based, I am taking a huge risk because everything is on my computer/ext. hard drive. If there was a fire or my computer got stolen, destroyed or corrupted, I would lose all my RAW files, my jpeg exported files, my back-ups and my XMP edits as it's ALL local.

I would like to move to something cloud-based but I am cost-conscious. Of course, Adobe is pushing the Lightroom CC plan but this would be useless for me because 1) it doesn't include Photoshop, which I need and 2) it's completely irrelevant for me because I literally only ever edit at my computer, I don't use my phone (?!) for editing nor would I see any reason to use a browser.

I realize that going cloud-based would involve an upcharge, but this is where things get crazy. The plan that might work for me is Creative Cloud Photography Plan with 1TB prepaid (looking at prepaid yearly prices as this would likely be the best value).

But here's the rub. I'm almost at 1TB, so realistically I'd be going for the 2TB deal either now or in a year. Right now there is a promotion for existing customers but the deal only applies to the 1TB option. For the 2TB option that's $29.99 a month. Or $359.88 a year.

For someone new in business, going from $120 to $360 p/a (and it'll only go up) is a huge expense that I'm trying to lower without sacrificing the cloud-based aspect which will give me huge peace of mind.

So is there a way of using a service like sync.com, Google Drive, Dropbox etc etc to store between 1TB and 2TB of files? Let’s say this was more cost-effective. How would that work?

Do you create a file path in Library that points to your Dropbox folder, and just copy over the RAW files & xmp edits currently on the ext. hard drive/computer?

Or do you carry on storing the files on the ext hard drive and just manually copy them now and then?

I save my xmp files right alongside the RAWs, and the back-up (every time LR quits) is currently on the computer. But I’d get all of this moved to Dropbox. Would that be doable?

What I’m trying to do is ensure that in the event of my computer being destroyed, I’d be able to buy a new one, download Lightroom and have everything exactly as it was before, access same edits & RAW files, file structure preserved, everything up to date, nothing lost.

    This topic has been closed for replies.

    2 replies

    E
    EricBier
    Inspiring
    October 24, 2017

    If you only have one copy of your images now, I suggest making a backup that you keep at home and another one that you keep off-site.  I would do this before you do anything else.  Backing up to the cloud will take a long time, and downloading all your images, if necessary will also take so long that it may not be reasonable to depend on cloud backup if you need your images for business purposes.

    Lightroom CC lacks many features of Lightroom Classic which should be carefully studied.

    It is also important to keep multiple backups of your Lightroom Catalog.  Years ago, I finally recovered my LR Catalog from the 4th backup. 

    J
    Community Expert
    Jao vdLCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    October 24, 2017

    Very good advice Eric.

    E
    EricBier
    Inspiring
    October 24, 2017

    Jao,

    Thank you.

    And thank you for your efforts on this forum over the years.  I have benefited from your advise!

    dj_paige
    dj_paige
    Legend
    October 24, 2017

    Your explanation doesn't really make it clear if you are talking about primary storage in the cloud, or storing backups in the cloud. Yes, I see that your title says "backup" but it's not stated in your explanation.

    I use Carbonite for cloud backup. I don't remember how much I paid, but I'm sure it is under $100 a year. You may want to make sure that you can make backups from photos on an external HD, mine are on a 2nd internal HD. It is for backups only.

    You could use Dropbox or similar service as a backup. I assume you can check the prices yourself. As long as you use it as backup, and not as a way to share catalogs and photos across computers, there should be no problem. If you want to use it for your primary (not backup) storage, then there are problems.

    The advantage of using Lightroom CC (which is not Lightroom Classic CC) is that all of your primary storage is done in the cloud, and it's automatic and seamless to you, unlike Dropbox or similar service. In a way, you are paying for this integration of cloud storage and Lightroom. Lightroom CC isn't really backup, as far as  understand it, although perhaps since the data is on some cloud server, the concept of backup is performed by the cloud server (although I haven't seen that explicitly stated anywhere).

    zoelarkinphoto
    zoelarkinphotoAuthor
    Participating Frequently
    October 24, 2017

    Hmmm, I'm not sure whether this is primary storage in the Cloud or storing back-ups in the Cloud.

    I know absolutely nothing about storing/backing up to the Cloud or any kind, as I am a luddite that to this day saves every piece of data I own on my computer's hard drive or the external hard drive attached to it. That's about to change right now. Looking for suggestions that might work for me.

    From what you're saying and from describing the systems you have in place, it seems that Dropbox can be used as a backup, not for primary storage. So I would just figure out a way of copying all the RAW files, edits and back-up files to Dropbox seamlessly.

    I am still on the fence about whether the convenience cost would be worth it. The more I research this, it seems that it probably is a worthwhile price to pay for the convenience of never having to worry about where the files are, especially if the computer/ ext hard drive was corrupted/ destroyed or the Dropbox-type service was hacked.

    Thanks for your input.

    J
    Community Expert
    Jao vdLCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    October 24, 2017

    Look into services such as carbonite or backblaze. They are much cheaper than dropbox (and 1TB on creative cloud) and automatically back up your files and are typically unlimited in storage. dropbox only syncs a folder on your drive.

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