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Ask HN: How do you store your family pictures, what services do you use

4 points by mraza007 6y ago

hestefisk 6y ago
I use my iPhone as my camera so everything is stored in iCloud.
__d 6y ago
I use my NAS. I have tried Google, Apple, Flickr, 500px, Amazon, Dropbox; they all have their pros and cons, but basically you end up with all the compromises of a cloud service. I use an app called PhotoSync on my iPhone to sync to my NAS via SMB; it's scheduled to sync anything new each night. Most NAS systems have a built-in photo application. They're pretty awful, honestly. That's the biggest weak point of this setup. I haven't yet found a good (ie. competitive with Google Photos) self-hosted thing.
- ktpsns 6y ago
  You could check out Nextcloud (a fork of owncloud), which has a decent photo explorer/app included.
mceachen 6y ago
I use PhotoStructure, but that shouldn't be surprising, as I'm the author. PhotoStructure is a self-hosted webserver that runs on macOS, Windows 10, Linux, and docker, with a user interface that works well on mobile and desktop displays. In other words, your data stays yours: there's no cloud component, unless it's your cloud (it runs happily on very meager/cheap VPSs). There's a background sync service that keeps the PhotoStructure library automatically in sync with my filesystem, and can automatically organize photos and videos into a single, deduplicated directory hierarchy. Here's why I'm writing it: https://photostructure.com/about/introducing-photostructure/ https://photostructure.com/about/introducing-photostructure/ (and if you have any other questions or comments, please email me: hello@photostructure.com) I use Resilio Sync to automatically send my mobile phone's pictures to my NAS, and PhotoStructure automatically takes it from there.
- ktpsns 6y ago
  I miss screenshots or a list of (unique?) features on your product website. In fact your description here is more comprehensive then the website.
  - mceachen 6y ago
    That's good feedback. I'm always afraid to overwhelm people with bullet lists. Here are two lists of unique features: * https://photostructure.com/about/introducing-photostructure/#how-else-is-photostructure-different https://photostructure.com/about/introducing-photostructure/... * https://www.reddit.com/r/PhotoStructure/comments/in9pww/what_makes_photostructure_unique/ https://www.reddit.com/r/PhotoStructure/comments/in9pww/what... (I'll migrate that second list to be more prominent on the website)
ktpsns 6y ago
I use Nextcloud (open source) hosted on a cheap VPS. Auto upload works great from Android, and the storage is synced to my notebooks which serve as a backup. As I have all the files locally on my notebooks, I can use any offline file viewer, such as KDEs Gephenview or DigiKam to index and view the photos. There are also cross Plattform clients and cross server federation also works nicely for me. The software is pretty amazing. Nextcloud even keeps an incremental backup of your files accessible within the web app, which is amazing if you mess up your office files. I would like to extend it with a NAS or some more read-only offline backup.
- mraza007 6y ago
  Nice What do you think about blackblaze
  - ktpsns 6y ago
    I don't really get their plans. Personal backup is unlimited in storage size, but limited in the number of backing up computers. There are quite a lot of similiar services. In the end, the average plans are at the order of $2 per terabyte per month. Of course it's hard to beat that with buying the hardware and running them at home. Anyway I feel more safe when I run my own hardware.

4 points by mraza007 6y ago

I use my iPhone as my camera so everything is stored in iCloud.

__d 6y ago

I use my NAS. I have tried Google, Apple, Flickr, 500px, Amazon, Dropbox; they all have their pros and cons, but basically you end up with all the compromises of a cloud service. I use an app called PhotoSync on my iPhone to sync to my NAS via SMB; it's scheduled to sync anything new each night. Most NAS systems have a built-in photo application. They're pretty awful, honestly. That's the biggest weak point of this setup. I haven't yet found a good (ie. competitive with Google Photos) self-hosted thing.

ktpsns 6y ago
You could check out Nextcloud (a fork of owncloud), which has a decent photo explorer/app included.

mceachen 6y ago

I use PhotoStructure, but that shouldn't be surprising, as I'm the author. PhotoStructure is a self-hosted webserver that runs on macOS, Windows 10, Linux, and docker, with a user interface that works well on mobile and desktop displays. In other words, your data stays yours: there's no cloud component, unless it's your cloud (it runs happily on very meager/cheap VPSs). There's a background sync service that keeps the PhotoStructure library automatically in sync with my filesystem, and can automatically organize photos and videos into a single, deduplicated directory hierarchy. Here's why I'm writing it: https://photostructure.com/about/introducing-photostructure/ https://photostructure.com/about/introducing-photostructure/ (and if you have any other questions or comments, please email me: hello@photostructure.com) I use Resilio Sync to automatically send my mobile phone's pictures to my NAS, and PhotoStructure automatically takes it from there.

ktpsns 6y ago
I miss screenshots or a list of (unique?) features on your product website. In fact your description here is more comprehensive then the website.
- mceachen 6y ago
  That's good feedback. I'm always afraid to overwhelm people with bullet lists. Here are two lists of unique features: * https://photostructure.com/about/introducing-photostructure/#how-else-is-photostructure-different https://photostructure.com/about/introducing-photostructure/... * https://www.reddit.com/r/PhotoStructure/comments/in9pww/what_makes_photostructure_unique/ https://www.reddit.com/r/PhotoStructure/comments/in9pww/what... (I'll migrate that second list to be more prominent on the website)

ktpsns 6y ago

I use Nextcloud (open source) hosted on a cheap VPS. Auto upload works great from Android, and the storage is synced to my notebooks which serve as a backup. As I have all the files locally on my notebooks, I can use any offline file viewer, such as KDEs Gephenview or DigiKam to index and view the photos. There are also cross Plattform clients and cross server federation also works nicely for me. The software is pretty amazing. Nextcloud even keeps an incremental backup of your files accessible within the web app, which is amazing if you mess up your office files. I would like to extend it with a NAS or some more read-only offline backup.

mraza007 6y ago
Nice What do you think about blackblaze
- ktpsns 6y ago
  I don't really get their plans. Personal backup is unlimited in storage size, but limited in the number of backing up computers. There are quite a lot of similiar services. In the end, the average plans are at the order of $2 per terabyte per month. Of course it's hard to beat that with buying the hardware and running them at home. Anyway I feel more safe when I run my own hardware.