Showing posts with label Picturelife. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Picturelife. Show all posts

Saturday, 1 March 2014

I’ve got 200gb of photos on Picturelife and they’re not backed up: Am I nuts?

I was evangelising Picturelife to Ben and Rafe whilst we were recording some 361 Degrees podcast episodes recently. I explained that I had just over 200gb of photos (38,000 images, 1,500 videos) and that I was absolutely delighted with the user experience.
Ben asked if I had them backed up.
I said no.
Of course not. They’re backed up on Amazon.
I pay $15/month for the 300gb account which includes backup ‘automatically’ — i.e. it’s taken as read. When the Picturelife team stick my data on Amazon, they’re trusting Amazon to take care of the data.
This is, surely, as secure as you can get?
Yes?
No. That was Ben and Rafe’s view. They think I should have a local copy. They don’t think I should rely on a third party company, who is relying on Amazon.
There’s a point there, I think.
Ben commented that with this particular type of data (i.e. cherished memories) I shouldn’t be taking any chances at all.
I tend to agree.
Indeed it’s rather stressful to consider the possibility of losing the data entirely.
So what do I do?
I’ve put a note on the Picturelife support forums to ask for clarity. I’ve asked if they’d consider offering a ‘backup’ option. I’d happily pay. In fact my demand for this is nigh-on inelastic. I need it.
What do you think? Am I nuts? Or can I rely on Picturelife-and/or-Amazon to always be there for me?

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Friday, 28 February 2014

Picturelife update: I’ve now moved everything to my own S3 bucket

The overwhelming view is yes. Yes I am nuts, especially when we’re talking about irreplaceable photo (and video) memories.
I engaged the Picturelife customer support team about the possibility of them offering a dual backup option where my data is stored in their huge Amazon bucket and also ‘backed up’ or duplicated via another bucket or service.
It’s something they’ve said they’re going to look into. This is good news. I don’t want to have to manage my own 300gb photo data store myself, but I do want to ensure I’ve taken the right approach for protection. I really don’t subscribe to the view that I need to have the data physically located in my house, on my own computer. Absolutely not. I want it managed by someone who knows what they’re doing.
But yes, dear reader, I recognise I have been flying by the seat of my pants depending on Picturelife alone. I don’t even think the team at Picturelife would like to be responsible — exclusively — for my data.
So I’ve moved everything to my own Amazon S3 bucket that Picturelife is still interfacing with. Here’s the status:
I’m not sure what happened to those 2 outstanding files. I’ll sort them out shortly.
So I now have direct control of the data. And I can get it downloaded and backed up.
I still remain a Picturelife user and I’m hopeful they’ll implement an addition to the service shortly to guarantee backup.
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