(NON FINANCIAL) Retirement plans/ dreams/ discussion.

Bravepants

Nebulous2 said:

cfw1994 said:

michaels said:

My understanding is up to now high definition (lower than most cameras take) storage was not included the 15gb free storage but from June all new photos will taken (whatever resolution) will form part of the 15gb that will thus very quickly be used up.

I use Microsoft office family licence (about £40 pa) that gives 4TB of included storage (and office as a bonus).  Makes me feel much more comfortable should there be a fire or it failure (lightening strike etc).

I think that is about right - as the link I attached explained it:

• Any photos and videos uploaded from 1 June 2021, plus previously-uploaded high res photos and videos, will be subject to a 15GB free storage limit. Anything you upload to Google Photos from 1 June counts towards this limit, no matter what resolution. Google Docs created or edited from 1 June, plus Gmail messages and other files stored in Google Drive, all also count towards the limit.

I thought Microsoft was around £80pa for the family option, each being allowed 1TB? So it suggests here.

I currently have around 90,000 pictures filling almost 500GB currently....which is a lot to manage, & perhaps a lot more than most people.   
With high capacity come higher chances of problems, and more importance on being able to 'search on the metadata' associated with the pictures.
I have also experienced so much trouble with OneDrive over recent years (I don't want to be forced to upgrade my MacOS, & recently it decided to stop working entirely!) that I've pinned my flag to Google Photos.    I'm sure MS will work for many just fine. 
Also find Google works exceptionally well in how I can manage albums or search for things ("white car", "caving", etc, etc!).  Naturally the flip sides is that Google knows more about my life than anyone in the family, & even myself....but that's the modern price I pay 

I have the family version of MS and thought I was limited to 1 terabyte. I wondered about that when I saw his post. It may be possible to start a different profile with a different email address and nominate yourself as a family member to get another terabyte. 

I’m a hoarder with about 400 GB of photos, but with a new camera as a retirement present, and having taken over 2000 photos in the last month, I really need to start deleting some after uploading. If I don’t my storage requirement will quickly become a problem. 

Google phones do some clever stuff with photos, and they had an exemption to the storage limit, but that has now gone for new purchases. 

I have been using Carbonite Backup (it used to be Mozy), and I pay about £120 per year for unlimited storage. I only have about 300GB, so I am investigating swapping to Microsoft 365, which is £40 cheaper per year. If you definitely need more than 1TB then perhaps something like Carbonite would be useful to you.

My data and backup regime are that I have a small Gigabyte Brix computer sat under the TV that has an internal 1TB solid-state drive. This is a shared drive that is accessible from other computers on our network, and is used for all sorts of stuff, not just photos - it's basically my and my partner's "My Documents" folders. The computer runs WIndows 10 with the Carbonite client and backup up performed on a continuous basis to the Carbonite servers. I have also attached a second 1TB USB SSD (yes I also watch "Line of Duty") drive and use some free backup software to create a local backup, synchronized nightly. I have friends who also have a separate drive in their garden sheds, again attached to their network, so they have local offsite storage in case the house burns down!

The digital age has brought great convenience, however, any peace of mind is shattered by the increase in paranoia about data loss!

cfw1994

MallyGirl said:

OH uses Lightroom for cataloging photos. Every now and then he realises that he is behind and goes and tags a load. Ancient slides are being scanned in very slowly - an activity for a winter day.

Definitely a winter job....where does your OH store the pictures?

The June Google change forced my hand to do something now to move all our pics up (previously I had just popped albums of shots up...soon they will have ALL my data!)
Thing I like with Google is how *it* creates metadata.  If I want to find that photo I took of a Trabant, I search for ‘Trabant’; the kids on a climbing wall when they were small: search ‘climbing wall’....etc.  It does the hard work of ‘tagging automagically!
It also takes the photos as they are taken.   I still move them later to my own storage, in folders I manage myself: if Google has an unlikely wobble, I may lose the metadata and albums I curated, but the pics are still there.

@Bravepants - Quite like the idea of a local backup tucked outside in a secure shed, mind you....& yes, after a career spent protecting data, I am well aware how challenging that is

ggmf

I save all my important ‘master’ documents, spreadsheets, documents, photo’s etc.  in a user directory on my PC. After I have updated any of the documents or added new photos, I have a small batch file that copies the files that have been updated to the ‘sync’ directories on my PC for my MS Office (One drive – 1TB)  and BT Cloud Storage (1TB) accounts. So effectively I have 4 copies of each document, 2 copies local and 2 copies in the clouds. I also take a backup of any local files in my user directory on my PC to my external usb drive every week or so, where the older versions of spreadsheets or documents are saved for 2 years.

cfw1994

Just take care that those copies won’t all be deleted by the batch file, should something go awry with your local master
This is taking the  a detailed rathole....hope/dreams/aspirations - to be able to see all my pictures into my dotage and pass on the metadata in my will 🤪👍

bluenose1

Cfw1994 -  according to google if backed up to high quality before 1st June 21wont be included in 15gb limit.
so I assume if I do this I am ok? 

High-quality and express-quality photos and videos backed up before 1 June 2021 won’t count toward your Google Account storage.

Original quality photos and videos will continue to count towards your Google Account storage. Learn more about photo and video backup options.

https://support.google.com/photos/answer/10100180?hl=en-GB

Nebulous2

bluenose1 said:

Cfw1994 -  according to google if backed up to high quality before 1st June 21wont be included in 15gb limit.
so I assume if I do this I am ok? 

High-quality and express-quality photos and videos backed up before 1 June 2021 won’t count toward your Google Account storage.

Original quality photos and videos will continue to count towards your Google Account storage. Learn more about photo and video backup options.

https://support.google.com/photos/answer/10100180?hl=en-GB

As I understand it - high quality compresses them and is effectively a reduction in quality. A bit of smoke and mirrors in the description from google. It should be fine if that reduction is acceptable to you. 

MallyGirl

cfw1994 said:

MallyGirl said:

OH uses Lightroom for cataloging photos. Every now and then he realises that he is behind and goes and tags a load. Ancient slides are being scanned in very slowly - an activity for a winter day.

Definitely a winter job....where does your OH store the pictures?

Pictures are stored locally and then backed up to Amazon photos as we get unlimited photo storage as part of Amazon Prime

Amateurretiree

Our retirement dream- well we are already retired, me at 55 DH at 61. We spend 3 or 4 days a week childminding our beautiful granddaughter and have a wonderful time planning adventures. We will continue to do school runs well into the future I would imagine.
We have always enjoyed our Florida holidays( have visited many other places in the USA and Canada as well, NYC also a big favourite.)

Our one big dream is to take our granddaughter and her mummy and daddy on an all expense paid luxury Disneyworld holiday, the little one is currently Princess obsessed. This is not likely to happen until 2023 now, but we want to do it ASAP while the hips and knees are still up to it!

It’s likely to cost us around 30 000 in total, but the memories will be priceless I hope!

cfw1994

bluenose1 said:

Cfw1994 -  according to google if backed up to high quality before 1st June 21wont be included in 15gb limit.
so I assume if I do this I am ok? 

High-quality and express-quality photos and videos backed up before 1 June 2021 won’t count toward your Google Account storage.

Original quality photos and videos will continue to count towards your Google Account storage. Learn more about photo and video backup options.

https://support.google.com/photos/answer/10100180?hl=en-GB

Yes: that's why I'm moving them all this week (I'm away cycling LEJoG from next!) as a 'free' backup before considering the future (which right now I imagine will involve me paying for Google)

MallyGirl said:

cfw1994 said:

MallyGirl said:

OH uses Lightroom for cataloging photos. Every now and then he realises that he is behind and goes and tags a load. Ancient slides are being scanned in very slowly - an activity for a winter day.

Definitely a winter job....where does your OH store the pictures?

Pictures are stored locally and then backed up to Amazon photos as we get unlimited photo storage as part of Amazon Prime

Ahhh: maybe you can answer something for me that Amazon haven't so far, despite a couple of attempts!
We also have Prime, but I've never used the storage: if you lob a bunch of folders and each has pictures.....can Prime do any 'smart searching' with them - things like face recognition ('find all pictures with this person', 'kite flying', 'blue cars') or is it 'just' storage?    (thx!)

Nebulous2 said:

bluenose1 said:

Cfw1994 -  according to google if backed up to high quality before 1st June 21wont be included in 15gb limit.
so I assume if I do this I am ok? 

High-quality and express-quality photos and videos backed up before 1 June 2021 won’t count toward your Google Account storage.

Original quality photos and videos will continue to count towards your Google Account storage. Learn more about photo and video backup options.

https://support.google.com/photos/answer/10100180?hl=en-GB

As I understand it - high quality compresses them and is effectively a reduction in quality. A bit of smoke and mirrors in the description from google. It should be fine if that reduction is acceptable to you. 

Well: yes & no - high quality includes photo and video storage for photos up to 16 megapixels and videos up to 1080p resolution (the maximum resolutions for average smartphone users in 2015).   
Pretty well covers all mine to date (been digital from 2000.  My latest iphone (12 Pro - an end of work gift to myself!) has a 12MP sensor, so should still hold true.  Not sure what I'd need to hit some reduction.

Oh, on Disney & US trips: @Amateurretiree, you said "It’s likely to cost us around 30 000 in total, but the memories will be priceless I hope".   I am certain those memories will be worth every penny!     We did a BIG family US trip back in 2012 - 4-days blitzing NY, 2 in DC, over to Salt Lake City for a 19-day drive around the western states: memories we still talk about!   We did wait until ours were teenagers (14/16), before A-Levels, but had done a smaller EuroDisney holiday with them years before: all great holidays!!

sheslookinhot

Is there a photography thread for future discussions of a photographic nature ?