200 GB photo storage

ballyblack wrote: »

I use Google photos and I find their high quality free setting just fine.

Why don't you try a small batch and see for yourself?

If that was addressed to me, the issue would be that there is a point at which enlargements (perhaps of a section) would be noticeable whereas they wouldn't be with no compression. Or blow ups say on a large TV screen (which you might not have now but maybe on your 20k 60inch OLED TV in 20 years time, it would). Future proofing = keep the original.

Plus, I am storing RAW photos as well (might also apply to the OP if they have 200GB), which I have no idea how GP would cope with but I'm sure it wouldn't be good or if it left them alone then 15GB wont cut it.

RumRat wrote: »

If you didn't take your photos above 16MP then there is no reduction. So for the vast majority of 'Snaps' the quality is fine. Blow up to 24" pics should be OK.
Obviously for Professional or enthusiast pictures it probably won't be enough. But, for us mere mortals It's fine.

OK thanks thats a lot better, the impression from earlier posts was it was to all photos. Even so, just had a check of my RAWs are they are around 20Mb and thats quite an old camera I'd guess the newer version would be closer to 30Mb now. Nothing fancy either.

My digital photos are stored on 2 external 5tb drives 1 external 500gb drive on my NAS on my website storage and on dropbox.

Never have enough back-ups!

I am thinking at some point to back them all up to CD as well but that will take a lot of CDs and a lot of time .

AnotherJoe wrote: »

OK thanks thats a lot better, the impression from earlier posts was it was to all photos. Even so, just had a check of my RAWs are they are around 20Mb and thats quite an old camera I'd guess the newer version would be closer to 30Mb now. Nothing fancy either.

Actually, all photos are compressed when using the "high quality" setting. You can prove this by uploading a photo then downloading it again and comparing the file size in bytes. The 16MP thing just means the size in pixels (the resolution) is limited to 16MP. The quality is still being reduced.

Google's compression is very good so you probably wouldn't notice the difference now but like you said earlier, in 20 years time with a very high definition display the differences may become apparent.

takman wrote: »

It's unlimited because they are increasing their data centers storage capacity's each year to be ahead of demand.

So the data centers capacity may not be unlimited but you will never be able to fill it up because they are forever increasing it.

I think you find out how unlimited something is when you test their limits.

They tend to advertise unlimited not expecting anyone to get near using too much but align this to am "acceptable use" policy.