One of the things you will be doing, while you travel, is taking pictures and shooting videos. Maybe for your own memories or showing off to people that just stay home when you get back. But if you travel you move a lot and things might break or get lost. And in some cases, they get stolen. It would be a shame to lose all those pictures and videos. And that’s where online storage comes into play.
There are a few things you can do to prevent your precious digital memories from getting lost. One of the things you could do is create a backup on a USB stick or your laptop. But these usually are not 100% safe. They can still be stolen or broken.
The safest way to prevent the loss of your digital memories is to store them online. There are several ways to do this and they all have pros and cons. We have been using different online storage for our digital content and we never lost a single video or photo.
In this article, I am going to tell you a few options for online storage. Not only for videos and photos, but also for other stuff that might come in handy while you are traveling.
What should you store online?
It’s totally up to you. You can store your pictures, videos, and documents online, but a lot of people don’t feel good about storing sensitive data online, which I get.
We store not only our photos and videos online, but also certain documents. Copies of our passports travel documents, copies of our insurance cards, marriage certificate, and much more. We do this to avoid problems if we got robbed or get into trouble and we need to prove who we are and how we are related.
Another type of storage we use is planning. Normally we don’t plan ahead for two weeks tops. But when we want to do a road trip, some planning could be an idea. We use Google MyMaps to create routes of the possible road trips we can make and save them online. This way we can look into them whenever we want.
If we need to remember important information, like a phone number, flight number, or whatever, we write it down in online storage. This way both of us can access it and if a mobile device stops working, we can access the information on a different device.
NAS
While it’s not really an online service, a NAS (Network Attached Storage) is a small computer that stands inside your house or some other location. You can reach it via the internet, which is great for uploading your files.
A NAS has a few disks and an operating system like Windows or Linux. You access it via a web browser and from here you can set up everything you need. You can set it up to stream movies or download torrents. But we use it for backing up our photos and videos.
When we traveled in 2016 – 2018 we sold our house. So the NAS had to move. We plugged it in at my parent’s place and it didn’t matter where we were, we always had access to the NAS.
The downside is that it’s not really fast. So uploading the files to the NAS could take some time. After a while, I figured out that you can connect your Google Drive account to the NAS. Uploading to Google Drive is way faster and after uploading it there, the NAS could take its own time to download it from Google. No need for me to wait for it.
The upside is that it doesn’t cost a monthly fee. But you do need to pay for the device. The most common brand for a NAS is Synology. They have created some great and solid NAS systems. Most of the devices come without disks, so the prices you see are without storage.
These disks can be expensive, but they give you a lot of storage. 4TB (terabyte) is more than enough to start with and Seagate has some pretty good disks.
So basically, you host your own storage. It sounds awesome, but it has a few drawbacks. One of them is a pretty simple one: loss of internet. If the location has problems with the Internet and it goes down, you don’t have access to the NAS anymore. You rely on the people in that location.
The same thing applies to a power outage. If you have the NAS at home and there is nobody that can check the internet or electricity, you might have a big problem.
And what about a fire? If your house burns down, the NAS won’t survive and you might lose all your backups.
Yes, a NAS is a low-cost solution, but it can raise a lot of problems if you don’t have a solid internet connection at home or when electricity might be a problem.
Online backups
There are many online backups available and all with different prices, pros, and cons. It’s impossible to review them all and write them here without boring too much. Therefore, here are the top 5 online backups that you could use.
Google Drive
Maybe one of the most known without people knowing they have it (?!). When you have a Gmail account you automatically have access to Google Drive, the online storage of Google.
Google Drive is great because it’s easily accessible through a laptop, tablet, or mobile device. Uploading a document to Google Drive is so easy and fast, everyone can do it.
It gives you 15GB for free, which sounds much, but if you realize that photos are between 6 and 12 MB each your 15GB is full before you know it. Especially since people take videos more than photos these days.
If you want/need more space you can buy it for a relativity small amount per month. It depends on your location, rules, and whatnot, but we (The Netherlands) pay 10 Euros per month for 2TB, which is 120 Euros per year. Doesn’t sound too bad.
There is also a possibility for 100 GB and 200 GB extra space. If you pay per year instead of per month, you get a discount.
We still use the 15 GB for documents, like digital tickets or travel information about a country, city, or tour. We don’t store any personal stuff here. It is very safe, but we just don’t do it.
Dropbox
Dropbox has been around for a long time and the fact it still exists tells us something about its strength in the online world. The usage of Dropbox has always been pretty simple, but that makes it so easy to work with.
In essence, it works the same as Google Drive. You can register for a free account, which will give you 2 GB of space. So if you want to go for free, stick with Google Drive. You can pay for more storage, which is between 9 Euros to 18 Euros per user per month.
The cheap plans have a space between 2 TB (9,99 Euros per month) up to as much as you need (18 Euros per month).
The differences between Google Drive and Dropbox aren’t that big. It’s more a matter of what you think is better for you. Some say Dropbox isn’t as safe as Google Drive. But others say the opposite.
Microsoft OneDrive
Most people I spoke to about online storage know Microsoft but have never heard of OneDrive. While you might already have it if you have a Windows computer, OneDrive isn’t used as much as Google Drive.
OneDrive has a really good implementation on Windows, but also on other platforms. You can install the application and assign a folder that will keep your OneDrive and that folder in sync.
You will need a Microsoft account, which you can create with a Google account or simply create a new Microsoft account. Then you are ready and you get 5 GB free. If you need more, you can buy extra space.
For 69 Euros per year, you get 1TB of cloud storage, Office apps (Word, Excel, etc.), and more. But it’s for one person only. And don’t worry, Office apps also work on Mac, iOS, and Android. It’s not Windows only.
pCloud
One of the more unknown online storage is pCloud. The reviews are really good and the way they protect their customers’ files is pretty good. But in the end, it’s just like the previous online storage.
pCloud has annual plans and lifetime plans. This means that you can choose a yearly payment (50 Euros per year for 500 GB or 120 Euros per year for 2 TB) or just once (very high prices, harder and more expensive to upgrade).
It also comes with applications so you can manage your local files and online files. The application will keep both in sync so you don’t have to worry about it.
iCloud
Although iCloud is an Apple product, you can use it on different platforms and you don’t have to buy an overpriced Apple phone or tablet. But it does help if you already own an Apple product.
I am not really a fan of Apple, but I’ll try to write something positive about iCloud…Try.
It works the same as the previous online storage, so no big differences there. But iCloud was created for Apple users, but now non-Apple users can use this cloud storage too.
When you register you’ll get 5GB for free, but if you need more you, and you already guessed it, can buy more. Apple is not really transparent about its prices and you need to do some digging. Their prices for iCloud are different per region.
So I am located in Europe, which is somewhere in the price category of Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. Currently in The Netherlands, but that is not mentioned in the overview. Oh, wait! There is Euro! 2TB costs 9,99 Euros per month.
Apart from the difficulty of finding the prices and the storage you get for it, iCloud works really well, even if you are not using Apple products. Yes, we all know what happened a few years ago with the iCloud accounts of celebrities, but they fixed it and you can assume it will never happen again. I bet it’s even safer now than most online storages.
Conclusion
It doesn’t really matter which online storage you use. There are many more than the 5 I just mentioned. It all comes to security, prices, amount of space, and your idea.
Is online safe? Nope, never. Hackers will always find a way to gain access. Maybe not today, but maybe tomorrow or next year. Most companies try to stay ahead and upgrade their systems accordingly. This is something you should know about your online storage before you buy it.
Then there are the devices you use. We both have a Windows laptop, Android phones, one Android tablet, and Windows desktop, and one iPad. I use Google Drive rather than the others solely because it works with 80% of devices. And that 20% is the iPad which doesn’t worry about Google Drive too much and just accepts it.
But before you buy something, ask yourself if you really need it. We need it because we shoot almost one TB per month when we travel and we don’t want to lose the footage if our bags get lost, we get robbed, things break, or any other doom scenario that exists but has not (yet) happened to us.
Whatever you store online doesn’t really matter. But do it safely! Use a zip file with a password for example. Don’t store information online that can be accessed by others.
What are your experiences with online storage and backups? What do you use or what would you never use? Let us know in the comments.
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