I’ve mostly just relied on Google Photos, and I really like its features. However, I have always been deathly afraid of losing access to my Google photos account and losing all of those, so I need a better way to actually back up my photos. Right now all I do is do a Google Takeout every so often, but that’s inefficient as hell.

How do you do it? How do you backup or sync your photos with a PC/local server?

  • I selfhost a Nextcloud server at home, and use its “auto upload” functionality to automatically upload my photos and videos as I take them.

    I have that server automatically backed up (in encrypted format) nightly to an Amazon S3 bucket and then to an external hard drive once a month.

    • That’s pretty interesting. I’ve thought of setting up a Nextcloud but it didn’t ocurr to me it could help out with this.

      About your S3 backup strategy, I have a couple of questions, if you don’t mind:

      • Do you essentially just make an encrypted .zip or .tgz of your whole NC instance and upload it straight? Or do you have some kind of delta updating

      • What S3 tier do you use? Intelligent-Tiering or something else?

      • I actually have the files stored in a pool on a TrueNAS machine, which handles the backup process for me in an automated fashion. I have it set to do ZFS snapshots and ship those.

        I used IA tiered storage for a long time; Though I actually moved to Wasabi recently, as it’s cheaper. It’s just easier to say S3 because people recognize it lol.