Google will store all your photos, and 1080p video for free

Always nice to have extra backups, especially free ones on a network of distributed datacenters... And I already backup my photos on a redundant RAID and a separate (slow) network storage device in another location, but those don't have automatic backup or automatic cataloging and tagging. Too bad they won't store the raw photos, though...
 
perhaps im alone here, but i feel like at some point this targeted ads/ data mining thing is going to collapse on itself when the people who pay for all this see its a huge waste of money. does anyone look at the targeted ads? if im shopping for something, i search for it. if i see a targeted ad, i make it go bye bye as quickly as possible. never that i can think of have i seen one and thought "ah, just what i was looking for!". if im not shopping actively for something, im not going to see an ad and say "hmm, i wasnt really looking for a new camera bag but what the hell?" and click on it. even when google searching ive learned to ignore the top results as they are sponsored. i guess im probably wrong and these companies have metrics that tell them this stuff is working on SOMEBODY.
 
Google wants your business and buyer beware when some thing is "Free" then you will get what you pay for. What happens to your data when they decide to stop the "free" service, also will they have access to it?
 
Josh Bass said:
perhaps im alone here, but i feel like at some point this targeted ads/ data mining thing is going to collapse on itself when the people who pay for all this see its a huge waste of money. does anyone look at the targeted ads? ....
Click to expand...

I don't remember where (and such data is not highly publicized) but I think the estimate is that it works in around 2% page views - not a lot. But ultimately it's the market to decide - evidently, if advertisers pay money for that, it works for them. If it didn't, I'd have collapsed already.
 
Yak said:
Google wants your business and buyer beware when some thing is "Free" then you will get what you pay for. What happens to your data when they decide to stop the "free" service, also will they have access to it?
Click to expand...

What "data"? You mean that you shopped for a new crock pot, or you uploaded an interview with a fire extinguisher sales executive or something? What is this "data" people are so worried about Google might see?

Don't you upload videos to youtube or vimeo? How is this any different?
 
Thomas Smet said:
Get used to it. You just described the internet in general and the future of marketing and advertising. Don't like it then you better find a rock to live under. Even my company uses marketing automation software to help pin point ads and marketing to our customers based on how they use our website.

We as a society always seem to Target the giant and forget about everybody else doing it. We criticize Wal-Mart for their employment policies and yet never criticize Target, Best Buy or any other retail store who equally pays people very little money. We target McDonalds for unhealthy fast food as if they are the only ones doing it and yet Wendys and Burger King have more calories and fat content in their food. People are getting fatter from the other fast food chains than they are from McDonalds yet we always seem to pick on McDonalds. Why do we do this? Why pick on just Google when even Apple does the same thing. What the heck do you think Siri is doing every time you tell her to search for something obscene and funny. She remembers that and Apple uses that data to make your phone smarter and to market stuff to you a bit better. You know you had an iPhone for too long when it starts auto correcting words into profanity because it and Apple knows how you usually speak to your friends.

So lets say what should really have been meant. People don't trust cloud computing and storing their personal lives on public servers. Fair enough and I completely understand. Just don't try to label Google as the only company interested in on-line analytical marketing data.
Click to expand...

+1 for an objective outlook
 
Phil vG said:
You need to go old school. You can fit all that on 1 roll of computer tape now. :)
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Actually, the tape is back. The problem is that the recorders cost a bit of cash but, if one can rent those, the tapes will work just fine.
 
IRS = hacked
Healthcare.gov = hacked
Sony = hacked
Target = hacked
etc
etc

nah, I'm good with a hard drive.
 
DLD said:
Actually, the tape is back. The problem is that the recorders cost a bit of cash but, if one can rent those, the tapes will work just fine.
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The tape never left. I think (not know) it has always stayed at least 5 times bigger in storage capacity than HDD. I only said old school because i think that's where large storage started.
 
mcbob said:
IRS = hacked
Healthcare.gov = hacked
Sony = hacked
Target = hacked
etc
etc

nah, I'm good with a hard drive.
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I'm pretty sure your personal photos are not worth much money to a hacker. The giants get hacked because there is a massive amount of money to be made. We as individual cloud users don't have as much to fear by storing files in the cloud. Does this mean I would store my tax documents online? Not at all but this thread is about storing family photos and videos. That is content that doesn't share any sensitive personal financial information.
 
Phil vG said:
The tape never left. I think (not know) it has always stayed at least 5 times bigger in storage capacity than HDD. I only said old school because i think that's where large storage started.
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Correct. Tape has always been one of the safest and least expensive forms of mass storage. Hard drives are actually a crappy way to store files and considered a horrible archive format in general. Anybody serious about data storage uses data backup tape. Always have and likely always will. LTO tape has been around longer than I care to admit and before that there was DLT. I would rather not go back any further because I was already subject to a massive debate at work on the 286 and 386SX computers vs other computers from the 80's.
 
Thomas Smet said:
Correct. Tape has always been one of the safest
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I think it has a 30 year guarantee.

Unfortunately that was not the case with some of my old video tapes :( . Some of them got damp and grew mold. 1 of them had footage from the 1984 Olympics i would like.
 
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Haha :) Ok, I could store on tape (in reality I store on optical disks much like the Sony XDcam system does and it's worked very well
for me for 3 years now, but that's a pretty short time period so we'll see). But what I was REALLY getting at with my comment, was
two things:

#1. I'm not 100% sure that a person like me is Google's target audience. They are probably expecting a couple gigs of mostly
photos along with a few video clips (which is what most still photographers would have). I on the other hand, have TB after TB of
video content that I want to archive. Would they really store 150TB's and more (as I have no plans to stop shooting anytime soon)
for me for free? I dunno if they are prepared to do that. And what about when I jump to 4K and RAW? Would they be prepared
to deal with those huge file sizes?

#2. Let's just say for the sake of argument that Google WILL accept all my TB's of data. How in the world do I get it
to them? The fastest internet speed I can get where I live is 4meg download 1 meg up. Hmmmm.....don't think that's gonna
work.

Basically, even if it sounds good, it isn't going to work for large amounts of data.....unless you live somewhere
that get's Google Fiber. Hey, maybe that's their idea.......
 
Phil vG said:
The tape never left. I think (not know) it has always stayed at least 5 times bigger in storage capacity than HDD. I only said old school because i think that's where large storage started.
Click to expand...
But HDD's became so inexpensive, projects not needing years of secure storage ended up there. For $100-200, one could store a lot of stuff.

alaskacameradude said:
... #1. I'm not 100% sure that a person like me is Google's target audience. They are probably expecting a couple gigs of mostly photos along with a few video clips (which is what most still photographers would have). I on the other hand, have TB after TB of video content that I want to archive. Would they really store 150TB's and more (as I have no plans to stop shooting anytime soon) for me for free? I dunno if they are prepared to do that. And what about when I jump to 4K and RAW? Would they be prepared to deal with those huge file sizes?...
Click to expand...
I assume this is mass market oriented but, with smartphones in every home replacing chicken in every pot, a lot of folks are more than happy to take a ton of shots daily. Find a family with kids and they have a pile of hard drives and, with higher pixel counts and video, Google has to be projecting forward as well. This may not be pro quality but there's surely a ton of unedited clips a family can take on its summer vacation.
 
Gillvane said:
What "data"? You mean that you shopped for a new crock pot, or you uploaded an interview with a fire extinguisher sales executive or something? What is this "data" people are so worried about Google might see?

Don't you upload videos to youtube or vimeo? How is this any different?
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The difference is that I upload a final video of a client project, that the client wishes to be shared with as many potential viewers as possible.

I don't feel that way about my vacation photos, my purchasing history, home videos of my life, etc. As difficult as it's becoming to retain some sort of personal privacy in the digital age, I'm still attempting it in some ways.
 
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