Free online photo storage

bigpat

Hi,

Our family photos and videos are taking up a lot of space on my laptop and slowing it down. I was wondering if I could get some recommendations for free (or very cheap) online storage for them, based on the following requirements.

• High overall storage capacity, as we have photos and videos back to 2002. (Most are currently on CD-ROMs too but that's not so suitable with tablets, netbooks etc.) Not sure of overall size but I know videos are huge files.
• Not plannning on uploading huge new amounts regularly (at least after I get them on initially), so don't need high MONTHLY allowances.
• Don't need any fancy automatic backup of my PC. I'm happy to post the files up manually.
• Must be able to download them again in their original size/quality.
• Don't mind if the site has a lot of advertising. I'm good at ignoring that stuff so long as it doesn't completely take over the screen!
• Would like to be able to use a Windows-like folder structure, for organising stuff by year, or by event.
• Need to keep files private and not have them all over facebook or similar, but would perhaps like option to share certain folders with family and friends.
• Might be useful to have ability to store other file types too e.g. Word docs.

All suggestions welcome! Thank you.

G42

In my opinion, you'd be better off buying a USB external hard drive to use as a backup rather than relying on online storage.

Large capacity online storage, which it looks like you're going to need, is going to cost you a monthly fee whether you interact with it or not.

An external drive could be accessed by laptop, netbook or tablet.

toolmaker54

I use Snapfish to back up my photos you can upload them original size, but the only problem I have is the upload speed is not very fast from virgin downloads at 35mb and uploads at 1.2.

Snapfish will address all your bullet points but the last one as you can only store photo's. I also use Picassa and Skydrive but these are now limiting storage. Adrive will give you 50gb storage but not so good for photos as you cant view them as thumbs.

I use online storage as I can share all the old family pics, and I backed up to a HD once got the dreaded HD click, got most off but lost quite a few old digital pics

neilwoods

How much storage space are you looking at, only real advantage with online storage is being able to share it with other people and accessing it from anywhere without having to carry the data with you.

I use dropbox, only get 2gb initially, but if you manage to get others to join by referral, then you get another 500mb per person, so can get 18gb for free.