Need file repository for sharing large files

ksg5000 wrote:
Another alternative - large memory sticks are dirt cheap now and you can load your completed project on a stick and send one to each family member. Just a thought.

Memory sticks while they are inexpensive now days and you can get pretty darn large storage size for the money, they are not a wise choice for any permanent long term storage or archival usage.

USB memory sticks and even solid state storage like SD cards and even SSD drives can suffer catastrophic failure even when not powered up or while in use. I HAVE had USB flash drives fail, SD cards fail and SSD drives fail.

Always use at least two DIFFERENT means to back up your files for archival use.

For the OPs question of online storage, do not "depend" on any online storage vendors as either long term storage or long term access.. I have had absolutely too many of the online storage vendors either disappear, alter terms of use limiting or cutting off all third party access or even completely losing every file I ever put online.

I really got a chuckle out the personal "server" idea, that one is funny, I would highly recommend you read your Terms of service of your ISP.. Pretty much standard terms of service for personal non commercial service will often have restrictions on doing so and putting on one may and most likely will violate your terms of service agreement.. Tread lightly there..

Personally, the way I would go about this is to SHRINK your high quality photos that you want to share online, 5x7 or 8x10 size would be plenty of quality but yet shrink the file sizes drastically.

Build your slide show with the smaller files and use a GMAIL account to share. A GMAIL account comes with completely free 1 GB of online storage AND you can easily share with a hot link any documents you place there FREE.

IF someone in your family really wants the full file quality, they can ask you and you can supply the files on a flash drive..

Most likely 99% of the time absolutely nobody in your family will ever care about the difference in the photo quality between the smaller 5x7 or 8x10 file sizes let alone the full 10meg-15meg files sizes.

Yes, I have already gone through this, scanned in near 4,000 slides that my Dad took from the 1950s up through the 1970's of our family.

Scanned them all in and then reduced the file sizes to around 5x7 quality.

This allowed me to put all of the files on a 4.7 GB DVD and hand out the DVDs to my family.

No one in my family ever asked for higher quality but yet I still have the highest quality files for my own personal collection.

Keep in mind, ONCE those files leave your personal PC and are placed on a third party server on the wobbly web, you no longer have any copyrights to them (technically you are the copyright owner, but with date breaches and other ways to copy photos and files they can be reused by anyone who can access the shared files) and have no more control over what happens to those files. Anyone can steal, borrow or use them and pretty much nothing you can do to stop that.

I only place photos and documents in my GMAIL drive that I am willing to lose control of the copyrights.

All of my photos and documents are backup up via MULTIPLE external Hard drives (not SSD), I also have some archived on multiple burned DVDs. Don't trust flash drives or solid state memory alone.

Another alternative - large memory sticks are dirt cheap now and you can load your completed project on a stick and send one to each family member. Just a thought.

fj12ryder wrote:
Rough estimate of what you suggested would be in the 40-50 gig range. I can't see anyplace offering that for free. I imagine if you're wanting to put all that online, and secure storage, you're looking at a monthly/yearly fee. Also to consider, if you could find a "free" site, there would be no guarantee that your photos wouldn't be held hostage at some future date, ala PhotoBucket.

Of course you could always put them on a standalone server at your home and send out links to it. Of course the one-time cost will be there, but at least no monthly rental fee.

Good idea on the standalone server.

I used to have the "at home" server years ago. It was on a standard internet connection. I only hosted my own website for a TT rebuild, along with pics I posted here. But they established all kinds of blocks for that kind of thing. It would stop working, I would find a workaround with a port redirect or something, they would block it again and so on. I finally gave up my website.

Perhaps I should revisit that option. I like that. The extra computer is no issue, I can put something together easy enough. I'll have to check the ease of online access through my ISP.

I never have files on some cloud service only. I always have a copy on a local computer or external drive. I don't trust any of these services for the reasons mentioned here by yourself and others.

Yes, using my pics for other than my own usage is something I want to control. Nothing to hide in them, but they are mine for my use. These cloud services claim privacy, but who knows....

In addition to my fathers slides, I have a bunch of my own slides I took when my kids were babies on through to adulthood. Might be easier to just put them on a stick and give it to them.

Rough estimate of what you suggested would be in the 40-50 gig range. I can't see anyplace offering that for free. I imagine if you're wanting to put all that online, and secure storage, you're looking at a monthly/yearly fee. Also to consider, if you could find a "free" site, there would be no guarantee that your photos wouldn't be held hostage at some future date, ala PhotoBucket.

Of course you could always put them on a standalone server at your home and send out links to it. Of course the one-time cost will be there, but at least no monthly rental fee.

And be extra aware that none of these online services is safely archival. The companies go out of business and/or just drop the service giving users a few days at best to save their material. Yahoo groups is the latest example but there are lots more. So back up everything on a hard drive.

That being said I use Pbase at $23/yr and designed for images. Folders can be password protected and once you figure it out it is easy to use.

Be aware that when you upload your pictures to any commercial storage area, you are granting the server full access and rights to all you pictures, and permission to use them or share for any reason they desire. In your case, you might want to consider renting space on a private web server. Internet storage space is NOT a free benefit, and is provided by some companies, to benefit their profit motives.