The SmugVault data transfer in price is 300% that of Amazon S3, and therefore also 300% that of JungleDisk (who don't add a markup).
And, bearing in mind these markups, what's the purpose of the recurring charge? And when does it apply? From setting up the SmugVault service or whenever anything is stored in SmugVault?
Nick
Good questions. There's a mark-up because there are costs associated with it on our end and because we are a business and would like to eventually recover the huge cost of building the feature.
For the data transfer, remember that we have to pay for the data to come into our datacenter, then out from our datacenter and then pay Amazon for them to receive it. We are paying for it three times, thus the 300%. We probably come out even there.
Amazon charges us a recurring monthly flat fee, probably to cover things like credit card charges. Otherwise, you could store 1 KB of data and Amazon would be losing money every month. It applies once each month that the service is active.
S3 is a simple cloud storage service. We believe SmugVault is much more. We can understand that for huge amounts of data it can be expensive, but we think for many people it will be worth it. If you prefer to use S3 or another service, you're certainly welcome to.
We do expect Amazon to drop their prices and we plan to follow suit. This probably is not a fixed price going forwards as the cost of data storage decreases quite rapidly as time passes.
Thanks for doing the MATH. i was going to compare this to 3 1TB drives that would each hold a backup of files. This would be the same image on 3 different external disks that would be archived.
Seems better to do the 1TB drive 3x and give those drives to friends to stow away. This includes the price of Pelican cases and desiccant. But, OTOH if you can afford it then go for it!!!!
I was asking for this feature for months ... (to upload RAW files as a backup) ... so the feature was a welcome addition, but I had no idea it would be priced so high.
I calculated it would cost me about $5,000 per year just for my RAW files - given my current data and shooting 300GB for the next 4-5 years. I also did not think that paying a premium price per month for disk space would also require additional upload costs, additional download costs and an additional monthly recurring charge. Wow. No wonder the example they quote is only for 2GB. I shot 20GB at my last single afternoon event.
I thought the feature would be a flat yearly rate just like the JPG files are now. The only difference in RAW & JPG is the file size. I thought the PRO account would just have a higher annual fee to also store unlimited RAW files. Obvioulsy without paying for uploads and downloads as the SmugMug JPG files work now. I guess it is for people who shoot infrequently, or only want to backup a very small portion of their data, or only use this service for brief periods of time - (during a vacation) - until you get back and can retrieve the files.
But for this brief vacation ... here is what I calculate:
For example, 100GB during the whole vacation.
Upload = 100 x .30 = $ 30
Keep for 1 month = 100 x .22 = $ 22
Recurring charge = $1 (perhaps they charge every month whether you use any space at all?
Retrieve when you return = 100 x .51 = $ 51
So for a temporary use to keep files safe for a trip ... it would cost
30 + 22 + 1 + 51 = $104
Some may think it is well worth the cost to protect 100GB of RAW data. I think that $104 would pay for a whole year of 300GB disk space from a number of web hosting companies. And at a fixed cost with unlimited use.
You can get web hosting accounts with 300 to 1,500 GB disk space included for about 5 to 8 dollars per month. Some accounts start at 300GB and they give you 2GB every week you stay a customer. That means the disk space grows 104GB per year at no additional charge. This is a smaller amount than I shoot every year (about 300GB) but I could get multiple accounts if I went that route. And hosting companies just charge per month - not also for putting and retrieving the data. Most also include one domain name registration per year. The hosting accounts that I looked into that say "unlimited disk space" will not allow data files to be stored there - only the web pages are unlimited in size - so they are not an option.
I'd love to use this vault feature but in my opinion, with all the other options available, it is so overpriced to be out of the question. And imagine losing your data - the insurance purpose for having a vault - and then to restore your files - they ding you additional download fees. Ouch. If I had 300GB there, and paid $90 to upload it - and been paying $66 every month to keep it safe - and lost all my data - to restore it would cost an additional $153? Maybe my math is off ... but it seems like a lot of money when you can buy a 500GB drive for $99.
I decided that it is the best value, and most secure, for me to buy external drives (both remote Network and USB) and store them in both remote and safe fireproof places on a regular basis.
If they change the vault feature to be a fixed price, and unlimited space with no access fees (like the JPG are), then I will certainly reconsider. It is a must to have secure backups, but it also needs to be cost-effective.
Seems better to do the 1TB drive 3x and give those drives to friends to stow away.
and then, when you have updates to make on an ongoing basis?
I'm not saying that there's not a cost difference. SmugVault can be used anytime, anywhere, to update files. On a remote shoot? Go ahead, upload your RAWs when you have a fast connection.
and then, when you have updates to make on an ongoing basis?
I'm not saying that there's not a cost difference. SmugVault can be used anytime, anywhere, to update files. On a remote shoot? Go ahead, upload your RAWs when you have a fast connection.
That's actually one thing that doesn't make sense. On a remote shoot, in the jungle or desert, where are you going to get a fast internet service?
Also many countries have even slower Internet service than the US, or have some sort of hourly (web cafe)/bandwidth based pricing.
Though if you're somewhere like Korea or Japan, you're gonna love the 100Mbps or 1Gbps/30 some people speeds.
I was asking for this feature for months ... (to upload RAW files as a backup) ... so the feature was a welcome addition, but I had no idea it would be priced so high.
I calculated it would cost me about $5,000 per year just for my RAW files - given my current data and shooting 300GB for the next 4-5 years. I also did not think that paying a premium price per month for disk space would also require additional upload costs, additional download costs and an additional monthly recurring charge. Wow. No wonder the example they quote is only for 2GB. I shot 20GB at my last single afternoon event.
I thought the feature would be a flat yearly rate just like the JPG files are now. The only difference in RAW & JPG is the file size. I thought the PRO account would just have a higher annual fee to also store unlimited RAW files. Obvioulsy without paying for uploads and downloads as the SmugMug JPG files work now. I guess it is for people who shoot infrequently, or only want to backup a very small portion of their data, or only use this service for brief periods of time - (during a vacation) - until you get back and can retrieve the files.
But for this brief vacation ... here is what I calculate:
For example, 100GB during the whole vacation.
Upload = 100 x .30 = $ 30
Keep for 1 month = 100 x .22 = $ 22
Recurring charge = $1 (perhaps they charge every month whether you use any space at all?
Retrieve when you return = 100 x .51 = $ 51
So for a temporary use to keep files safe for a trip ... it would cost
30 + 22 + 1 + 51 = $104
Some may think it is well worth the cost to protect 100GB of RAW data. I think that $104 would pay for a whole year of 300GB disk space from a number of web hosting companies. And at a fixed cost with unlimited use.
You can get web hosting accounts with 300 to 1,500 GB disk space included for about 5 to 8 dollars per month. Some accounts start at 300GB and they give you 2GB every week you stay a customer. That means the disk space grows 104GB per year at no additional charge. This is a smaller amount than I shoot every year (about 300GB) but I could get multiple accounts if I went that route. And hosting companies just charge per month - not also for putting and retrieving the data. Most also include one domain name registration per year. The hosting accounts that I looked into that say "unlimited disk space" will not allow data files to be stored there - only the web pages are unlimited in size - so they are not an option.
I'd love to use this vault feature but in my opinion, with all the other options available, it is so overpriced to be out of the question. And imagine losing your data - the insurance purpose for having a vault - and then to restore your files - they ding you additional download fees. Ouch. If I had 300GB there, and paid $90 to upload it - and been paying $66 every month to keep it safe - and lost all my data - to restore it would cost an additional $153? Maybe my math is off ... but it seems like a lot of money when you can buy a 500GB drive for $99.
I decided that it is the best value, and most secure, for me to buy external drives (both remote Network and USB) and store them in both remote and safe fireproof places on a regular basis.
If they change the vault feature to be a fixed price, and unlimited space with no access fees (like the JPG are), then I will certainly reconsider. It is a must to have secure backups, but it also needs to be cost-effective.
My feelings anyway.
TOTALLY AGREE.....gonna have to stick with my current method of using 3x 500gb drives for archival.....currently l have 6 full and working on 7-9....so right now I have approx 1200gb of original photo files stored across 9 drives.........no upload or download costs...no recurring monthly fees.....just a 1 time cost of less than $300/ library (a library is what I call each group of 3 hdds) and as I get all my files Post Processed I will upload to one gallery in SM to be my index of each library....so if i need a certain photo, check the index gallery and pull original file from the proper library hdd......
unless I would loose all of my drives for each library then I would be lost except for the original sized jpgs......but I do not think that could happen very easily.........without one heck of an UNNATURAL disaster..............
I understand that if you upload images (cr2, tiff, for example) then you will not get them rendered if that feature was off when they were uploaded.
However, enabling rendering does not affect the those already uploaded before rendering was turned on. Is that the way it's supposed to be, or should enabling rendering also process those images already uploaded?
I understand that if you upload images (cr2, tiff, for example) then you will not get them rendered if that feature was off when they were uploaded.
However, enabling rendering does not affect the those already uploaded before rendering was turned on. Is that the way it's supposed to be, or should enabling rendering also process those images already uploaded?
Enabling after you upload won't generate a display copy for previously uploaded images, I'm sorry
One more thing - if you upload a raw file (a DNG for example) with rendering enabled you have two options when you click on "Save Photo" in the photobar. They would be "original" and "DNG". The term "original" may be confusing to some. It is not really an original image. Rather, it is the rendered display copy which in my case was about 270 kB.
Perhaps a better term than "original" should be used to avoid possible confusion?
One more thing - if you upload a raw file (a DNG for example) with rendering enabled you have two options when you click on "Save Photo" in the photobar. They would be "original" and "DNG". The term "original" may be confusing to some. It is not really an original image. Rather, it is the rendered display copy which in my case was about 270 kB.
Perhaps a better term than "original" should be used to avoid possible confusion?
Yeah, we'll bounce around ideas here. The original idea (hah!) was that it maintains consistency, as "original" in the photobar always refers to the JPEG/PNG/GIF.
Thoughts about JungleDisk and SmugVault
I currently shoot and keep about 4G/month and have definitely been worried about backups; I'm overflowing my internal drives and am re-thinking my workflow to deal with external drives and off-site backup. So, I really like the idea of SmugVault.
The pricing/mark-up may be a bit high---however, I also know that keeping multiple hard drives synchronized and off-site would require more discipline than I have. So it is a time/money trade-off. SmugVault's release has gotten me looking seriously at JungleDisk however, whose recent 2.0 release looks quite nice. Without the SmugMug markup (however justifiable), it makes the price a bit more palatable.
Currently, I am not completely sold. There are issues (that I've already sent to help@smugmug.com) from simple bugs (e.g., DNG preview generation is broken, and bundling seems to only work if you upload jpegs first and DNG/RAWs second) to an immature UI (e.g., no way to manually merge files into a bundle, limited meta-data available for browsing in the archive view). Obviously, these things will improve with time, even if a lot of developer energy is required (witness, SmugIslands), but at the moment, its functionality over JungleDisk is not compelling enough for me.
How cool would it be if there were a JungleDisk (unencrypted) to SmugMug direct transfer, done entirely inside EC2?
Thanks for the new option. I also think that the 300% markup is excessive. Jungle disk doesn't need such a markup to make a profit. Maybe the implementation is bad causing all the excessive bandwidth usage between SM and S3.
Anyways, I'm not going to argue the price decision. I just want to say that all those people just buying a couple 500GB hard drives and swapping them around are really risking their data and not considering all associated costs.
I've had 3 hard drives fail on me within a week of each other. I've also had a raid 5 array go down but not before corrupting several files so even a rebuild could not get them all. Right now I use 2 Terastations running raid 5 which I then backup after every job to cheap externals and semiannually I burn an archive of all of it to DVD using a robotic DVD burner.
There are alot of costs associated to all this. And I still don't have an off site solution. I lost one of my cheap externals just a few weeks ago and it reminded me of the dangers.
Just something to think about. And don't get me started on cheap hosting solutions. They loose data ALL the time. I had one just pack up and leave, data and all.
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SmugVault upload problems
So far I have experienced the following problems trying to upload 16 bit Tiff files:
* PSCS3 Bridge: does not allow one to upload anything but PNG, jpg & gif files
* MacDaddy; I get "unsupported file type" errors
* Aperture to Smugmug: so slow I can chew my arm off. My broadband connection guarantees 2mbps upload, the bottleneck is not on my side...
Realy guys, maybe test things before you release it?
So far I have experienced the following problems trying to upload 16 bit Tiff files:
* PSCS3 Bridge: does not allow one to upload anything but PNG, jpg & gif files
* MacDaddy; I get "unsupported file type" errors
* Aperture to Smugmug: so slow I can chew my arm off. My broadband connection guarantees 2mbps upload, the bottleneck is not on my side...
Realy guys, maybe test things before you release it?
Right now, it's simple uploader only on SmugMug, sorry We hope to have the other uploaders working with the Vault in the future!
And, we're updating our help page to reflect this. Sorry!
We test thouroughly. Where we failed here (sorry!) is that we didn't shout loud and clear about the other uploaders and the third party uploaders.
Right now, it's simple uploader only on SmugMug, sorry We hope to have the other uploaders working with the Vault in the future!
Correction: Star*Explorer was able to upload any Vault stuff 15 minutes after SmugVault came live
And I actually used the same Bridge script that comes with S*E to upload .CR2 and .PSD directly from Bridge
I think I'm being dense, but I've read through this thread and the docs and I'm still not sure about this...
I want the ability to upload raw images into my normal galleries, and have them behave just as if they were JPEGs (mixed in galleries with JPEGs). In other words, I really just want to be able to skip the step of converting raw->jpg before uploading to SmugMug. Will SmugVault do that for me? Is it possible to use SmugVault for that and leave everything else about how I use SmugMug the same? Can I just drop in a folder with mixed JPEGs and raw files and have it do the right thing?
If not, is this planned for the future? I don't really need the backup features (though I think they're nice). I just find that I waste a lot of time doing the conversion just for SmugMug, and it would be great to eliminate that. A lot of my stuff I don't even bother uploading because I'm too lazy to deal with converting it....
...In other words, I really just want to be able to skip the step of converting raw->jpg before uploading to SmugMug...
With all due respect, you can't be serious about it. I mean, it's great to dream, but... How do you expect what essentially is a storage place to know all the intricascies of the conversion process? Did you ever try different RAW tools on the same raw file? ACR/LR (different versions do different things), PM, DxO, etc. They all produce slightly different results, and the users are usually fanatic about theirs, so even if SM decide to do that (which I hope and pretty sure they won't), they will automatically enrage 65%..80% of the raw-handling audience.
With all due respect, you can't be serious about it. I mean, it's great to dream, but... How do you expect what essentially is a storage place to know all the intricascies of the conversion process? Did you ever try different RAW tools on the same raw file? ACR/LR (different versions do different things), PM, DxO, etc. They all produce slightly different results, and the users are usually fanatic about theirs, so even if SM decide to do that (which I hope and pretty sure they won't), they will automatically enrage 65%..80% of the raw-handling audience.
If I'm not mistaken SM aready extract the embedded preview jpeg for these exact purposes, at least I *think* it did on my tests, but I have been wrong before.
I was arguing the purpose of the full blown conversion...
Right now, it's simple uploader only on SmugMug, sorry We hope to have the other uploaders working with the Vault in the future!
Might Give NITRO DESK a try......it has been blazing fast for my SM uploads.....I do not have Smug vault tho............There is a free version at the bottom of their page...
With all due respect, you can't be serious about it. I mean, it's great to dream, but...
With all due respect, I'm completely serious about "it." I'm intimately familiar with the raw conversion process, and I take great care with raw conversion for making large prints or when doing work for clients. But when I'm putting up hundreds or thousands of photos in a web gallery for my family and friends (pretty much all I use SmugMug for), doing a manual conversion is extreme overkill. If the photos are well-exposed and reasonably white balanced in the camera, a braindead "as shot" conversion from any of the leading apps (Photoshop, Aperture, Lightroom, Capture One, etc.) is more than adequate for the things I use SmugMug for. In fact, that's exactly what I do now -- before I upload to SmugMug, I just run a batch Photoshop action that converts all of the raw files to jpegs with no adjustment. Automated conversion is a reality, and it works perfectly for this.
Yes, there are some differences between the conversions by the various tools, but for personal web viewing they're pretty minor in the vast majority of cases. If I were using this for showing images to clients, I would care more (though honestly, an automatic conversion works pretty darned well for client proofs most of the time too). But a straightforward raw conversion works great for 99% of the photos I throw onto SmugMug, and having that conversion happen automatically would save me a lot of time.
It's fine if that wouldn't be helpful for you, but it would definitely help me. I'm sure there are SmugMug features that you love and I never use too
With all due respect, I'm completely serious about "it." I'm intimately familiar with the raw conversion process, and I take great care with raw conversion for making large prints or when doing work for clients. But when I'm putting up hundreds or thousands of photos in a web gallery for my family and friends (pretty much all I use SmugMug for), doing a manual conversion is extreme overkill. If the photos are well-exposed and reasonably white balanced in the camera, a braindead "as shot" conversion from any of the leading apps (Photoshop, Aperture, Lightroom, Capture One, etc.) is more than adequate for the things I use SmugMug for. In fact, that's exactly what I do now -- before I upload to SmugMug, I just run a batch Photoshop action that converts all of the raw files to jpegs with no adjustment. Automated conversion is a reality, and it works perfectly for this.
Yes, there are some differences between the conversions by the various tools, but for personal web viewing they're pretty minor in the vast majority of cases. If I were using this for showing images to clients, I would care more (though honestly, an automatic conversion works pretty darned well for client proofs most of the time too). But a straightforward raw conversion works great for 99% of the photos I throw onto SmugMug, and having that conversion happen automatically would save me a lot of time.
OK, I got it.
It would be interesting to see if SM decides to spent time and resources to provide a free version of ACR-like functionality for its dozens of thousands of cutomers (don't forget all the different RAW formats). And since it will put a much higher toll on a processing engine this would most likely diminish servers capacity to process the "ordinary" jpegs, thus affecting the innocent jpeg-only crowds
I want the ability to upload raw images into my normal galleries, and have them behave just as if they were JPEGs (mixed in galleries with JPEGs). In other words, I really just want to be able to skip the step of converting raw->jpg before uploading to SmugMug. Will SmugVault do that for me? Is it possible to use SmugVault for that and leave everything else about how I use SmugMug the same? Can I just drop in a folder with mixed JPEGs and raw files and have it do the right thing?
SmugVault handles that, yes. Our RAW conversion is really meant mostly for visual browsing of archived RAW files, but we do make every attempt to produce a usable JPEG. Your best bet might be to upload the RAW's from a photoshoot to a gallery, choose the ones you want and do only the processing on those ones.
As far as it "doing the right thing", I'm not quite sure what you are asking. If you want it to render a JPEG, it can do that and will automatically bundle them together. If you want it to bundle processed JPEG's and RAW's together automatically, it will do that if the filenames are the same.
SmugVault handles that, yes. Our RAW conversion is really meant mostly for visual browsing of archived RAW files, but we do make every attempt to produce a usable JPEG. Your best bet might be to upload the RAW's from a photoshoot to a gallery, choose the ones you want and do only the processing on those ones.
Thanks, sounds like it's worth trying at least. I assume I can cancel the SmugVault portion of my service without affecting the rest of my account if I decide I'm not happy with the results? (Silly to pay the $1/mo. fee if I'm not going to use it).
Thanks, sounds like it's worth trying at least. I assume I can cancel the SmugVault portion of my service without affecting the rest of my account if I decide I'm not happy with the results? (Silly to pay the $1/mo. fee if I'm not going to use it).
The SmugVault payments are completely separate from your SmugMug subscription fees. You pay Amazon directly. So yes, you can cancel it at anytime without changing your SmugMug subscription.
Use cases are fine but...
I think there is a need for a better tool to manage your vault than the simple uploader. Be able to download a "wedding job". Edit it, remove images, etc. etc. and then archive it back to the vault. WebDav could be a nice protocol to mount your vault locally. Some sort of sync tool if you do decide to keep a local copy on a drive for fast access and let the vault be the disaster backup.
Jungledisk, Mozy and others provides this but doesn't have the online photo angle. The combination would be a killer.
1 - Priceless photos forever. There are some photos that you simply can't bear to lose. Storing the RAW files on just your home computer keeps you awake at night.
But you don't want to just dump 5,000 RAW files onto some cloud storage and try to remember which ones are which by filenames alone. You want visual browsing and you want them integrated directly into SmugMug right alongside your JPEGs.
2 - Temporary emergency storage. My wife is shooting three weddings this summer. She shoots in RAW. She absolutely cannot lose the wedding photos. So she gets back from shooting a wedding and dumps the RAWs onto her computer.
But editing them takes weeks or even months, so she wants to clear off her cards for the next wedding. Does she dare leave the RAWs only on a single computer before she has edited them and produced JPEGs to put on SmugMug?
Instead, she puts all the RAWs on SmugVault for a month until she is done editing. Then she removes the RAWs that she doesn't like, thanks to visual browsing, and keeps the rest on SmugVault for at least a few months.
3 - Original video storage. I only make a few home videos each year, but they are very precious to me. SmugMug does a great job making them viewable in HD on the Web, but has to lower the bitrate in order to do it. Well, what happens in 10 years when the full video at original bitrate can easily be displayed on the Web? I want those original video files stored until that time.
4 - Contracts. A pro photographer has contracts for each event he/she does. So the Pro stores the PDF right in the gallery with the photos from the event.
Really, there are plenty of possibilities. We're not sure how it will be used, we just think it's awesome and adaptable.
I think there is a need for a better tool to manage your vault than the simple uploader. Be able to download a "wedding job". Edit it, remove images, etc. etc. and then archive it back to the vault. WebDav could be a nice protocol to mount your vault locally. Some sort of sync tool if you do decide to keep a local copy on a drive for fast access and let the vault be the disaster backup.
Jungledisk, Mozy and others provides this but doesn't have the online photo angle. The combination would be a killer.
/Mikael
Agreed. Just like a backup utility that you would normally use, it looks at what is newer on the local disk than on the backup target, and copies the changed files to the backup target as needed automatically. I think such a tool will eventually be developed by somebody. Hopefully it runs on a Mac, too.
I have been experimenting with uploading photos; unfortunately the upload is so slow it is not worth the effort.
I am based in Singapore (currently) and I have one of the fastest connections you can find in this town so I am pretty sure the infrastructure is up to snuff.
this brings me to my next question: where exactly are the smugmug servers? If my understanding is correct my SmugVault uploads are first routed through smugmug servers then to Amazon; so if there are no smugmug servers out here in the east and I am in effect sending data to the US, well, that would explain things.
Good questions. There's a mark-up because there are costs associated with it on our end and because we are a business and would like to eventually recover the huge cost of building the feature.
For the data transfer, remember that we have to pay for the data to come into our datacenter, then out from our datacenter and then pay Amazon for them to receive it. We are paying for it three times, thus the 300%. We probably come out even there.
Amazon charges us a recurring monthly flat fee, probably to cover things like credit card charges. Otherwise, you could store 1 KB of data and Amazon would be losing money every month. It applies once each month that the service is active.
S3 is a simple cloud storage service. We believe SmugVault is much more. We can understand that for huge amounts of data it can be expensive, but we think for many people it will be worth it. If you prefer to use S3 or another service, you're certainly welcome to.
We do expect Amazon to drop their prices and we plan to follow suit. This probably is not a fixed price going forwards as the cost of data storage decreases quite rapidly as time passes.
Comments
Good questions. There's a mark-up because there are costs associated with it on our end and because we are a business and would like to eventually recover the huge cost of building the feature.
For the data transfer, remember that we have to pay for the data to come into our datacenter, then out from our datacenter and then pay Amazon for them to receive it. We are paying for it three times, thus the 300%. We probably come out even there.
Amazon charges us a recurring monthly flat fee, probably to cover things like credit card charges. Otherwise, you could store 1 KB of data and Amazon would be losing money every month. It applies once each month that the service is active.
S3 is a simple cloud storage service. We believe SmugVault is much more. We can understand that for huge amounts of data it can be expensive, but we think for many people it will be worth it. If you prefer to use S3 or another service, you're certainly welcome to.
We do expect Amazon to drop their prices and we plan to follow suit. This probably is not a fixed price going forwards as the cost of data storage decreases quite rapidly as time passes.
Seems better to do the 1TB drive 3x and give those drives to friends to stow away. This includes the price of Pelican cases and desiccant. But, OTOH if you can afford it then go for it!!!!
Cheers
I'm not saying that there's not a cost difference. SmugVault can be used anytime, anywhere, to update files. On a remote shoot? Go ahead, upload your RAWs when you have a fast connection.
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That's actually one thing that doesn't make sense. On a remote shoot, in the jungle or desert, where are you going to get a fast internet service?
Also many countries have even slower Internet service than the US, or have some sort of hourly (web cafe)/bandwidth based pricing.
Though if you're somewhere like Korea or Japan, you're gonna love the 100Mbps or 1Gbps/30 some people speeds.
TOTALLY AGREE.....gonna have to stick with my current method of using 3x 500gb drives for archival.....currently l have 6 full and working on 7-9....so right now I have approx 1200gb of original photo files stored across 9 drives.........no upload or download costs...no recurring monthly fees.....just a 1 time cost of less than $300/ library (a library is what I call each group of 3 hdds) and as I get all my files Post Processed I will upload to one gallery in SM to be my index of each library....so if i need a certain photo, check the index gallery and pull original file from the proper library hdd......
unless I would loose all of my drives for each library then I would be lost except for the original sized jpgs......but I do not think that could happen very easily.........without one heck of an UNNATURAL disaster..............
However, enabling rendering does not affect the those already uploaded before rendering was turned on. Is that the way it's supposed to be, or should enabling rendering also process those images already uploaded?
GreyLeaf PhotoGraphy
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Perhaps a better term than "original" should be used to avoid possible confusion?
GreyLeaf PhotoGraphy
Yeah, we'll bounce around ideas here. The original idea (hah!) was that it maintains consistency, as "original" in the photobar always refers to the JPEG/PNG/GIF.
I currently shoot and keep about 4G/month and have definitely been worried about backups; I'm overflowing my internal drives and am re-thinking my workflow to deal with external drives and off-site backup. So, I really like the idea of SmugVault.
The pricing/mark-up may be a bit high---however, I also know that keeping multiple hard drives synchronized and off-site would require more discipline than I have. So it is a time/money trade-off. SmugVault's release has gotten me looking seriously at JungleDisk however, whose recent 2.0 release looks quite nice. Without the SmugMug markup (however justifiable), it makes the price a bit more palatable.
Currently, I am not completely sold. There are issues (that I've already sent to help@smugmug.com) from simple bugs (e.g., DNG preview generation is broken, and bundling seems to only work if you upload jpegs first and DNG/RAWs second) to an immature UI (e.g., no way to manually merge files into a bundle, limited meta-data available for browsing in the archive view). Obviously, these things will improve with time, even if a lot of developer energy is required (witness, SmugIslands), but at the moment, its functionality over JungleDisk is not compelling enough for me.
How cool would it be if there were a JungleDisk (unencrypted) to SmugMug direct transfer, done entirely inside EC2?
Anyways, I'm not going to argue the price decision. I just want to say that all those people just buying a couple 500GB hard drives and swapping them around are really risking their data and not considering all associated costs.
I've had 3 hard drives fail on me within a week of each other. I've also had a raid 5 array go down but not before corrupting several files so even a rebuild could not get them all. Right now I use 2 Terastations running raid 5 which I then backup after every job to cheap externals and semiannually I burn an archive of all of it to DVD using a robotic DVD burner.
There are alot of costs associated to all this. And I still don't have an off site solution. I lost one of my cheap externals just a few weeks ago and it reminded me of the dangers.
Just something to think about. And don't get me started on cheap hosting solutions. They loose data ALL the time. I had one just pack up and leave, data and all.
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So far I have experienced the following problems trying to upload 16 bit Tiff files:
* PSCS3 Bridge: does not allow one to upload anything but PNG, jpg & gif files
* MacDaddy; I get "unsupported file type" errors
* Aperture to Smugmug: so slow I can chew my arm off. My broadband connection guarantees 2mbps upload, the bottleneck is not on my side...
Realy guys, maybe test things before you release it?
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Kind regrds
RIOT! i
And, we're updating our help page to reflect this. Sorry!
We test thouroughly. Where we failed here (sorry!) is that we didn't shout loud and clear about the other uploaders and the third party uploaders.
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And I actually used the same Bridge script that comes with S*E to upload .CR2 and .PSD directly from Bridge
I want the ability to upload raw images into my normal galleries, and have them behave just as if they were JPEGs (mixed in galleries with JPEGs). In other words, I really just want to be able to skip the step of converting raw->jpg before uploading to SmugMug. Will SmugVault do that for me? Is it possible to use SmugVault for that and leave everything else about how I use SmugMug the same? Can I just drop in a folder with mixed JPEGs and raw files and have it do the right thing?
If not, is this planned for the future? I don't really need the backup features (though I think they're nice). I just find that I waste a lot of time doing the conversion just for SmugMug, and it would be great to eliminate that. A lot of my stuff I don't even bother uploading because I'm too lazy to deal with converting it....
Thanks.
Might work for proofs?
Dgrin FAQ | Me | Workshops
I was arguing the purpose of the full blown conversion...
Might Give NITRO DESK a try......it has been blazing fast for my SM uploads.....I do not have Smug vault tho............There is a free version at the bottom of their page...
With all due respect, I'm completely serious about "it." I'm intimately familiar with the raw conversion process, and I take great care with raw conversion for making large prints or when doing work for clients. But when I'm putting up hundreds or thousands of photos in a web gallery for my family and friends (pretty much all I use SmugMug for), doing a manual conversion is extreme overkill. If the photos are well-exposed and reasonably white balanced in the camera, a braindead "as shot" conversion from any of the leading apps (Photoshop, Aperture, Lightroom, Capture One, etc.) is more than adequate for the things I use SmugMug for. In fact, that's exactly what I do now -- before I upload to SmugMug, I just run a batch Photoshop action that converts all of the raw files to jpegs with no adjustment. Automated conversion is a reality, and it works perfectly for this.
Yes, there are some differences between the conversions by the various tools, but for personal web viewing they're pretty minor in the vast majority of cases. If I were using this for showing images to clients, I would care more (though honestly, an automatic conversion works pretty darned well for client proofs most of the time too). But a straightforward raw conversion works great for 99% of the photos I throw onto SmugMug, and having that conversion happen automatically would save me a lot of time.
It's fine if that wouldn't be helpful for you, but it would definitely help me. I'm sure there are SmugMug features that you love and I never use too
It would be interesting to see if SM decides to spent time and resources to provide a free version of ACR-like functionality for its dozens of thousands of cutomers (don't forget all the different RAW formats). And since it will put a much higher toll on a processing engine this would most likely diminish servers capacity to process the "ordinary" jpegs, thus affecting the innocent jpeg-only crowds
SmugVault handles that, yes. Our RAW conversion is really meant mostly for visual browsing of archived RAW files, but we do make every attempt to produce a usable JPEG. Your best bet might be to upload the RAW's from a photoshoot to a gallery, choose the ones you want and do only the processing on those ones.
As far as it "doing the right thing", I'm not quite sure what you are asking. If you want it to render a JPEG, it can do that and will automatically bundle them together. If you want it to bundle processed JPEG's and RAW's together automatically, it will do that if the filenames are the same.
Thanks, sounds like it's worth trying at least. I assume I can cancel the SmugVault portion of my service without affecting the rest of my account if I decide I'm not happy with the results? (Silly to pay the $1/mo. fee if I'm not going to use it).
Thanks Andy, I will give the simple loader a whirl tonight and see what the speed is like.
Thanks
RIOT! i
_________
Kind regrds
RIOT! i
The SmugVault payments are completely separate from your SmugMug subscription fees. You pay Amazon directly. So yes, you can cancel it at anytime without changing your SmugMug subscription.
I think there is a need for a better tool to manage your vault than the simple uploader. Be able to download a "wedding job". Edit it, remove images, etc. etc. and then archive it back to the vault. WebDav could be a nice protocol to mount your vault locally. Some sort of sync tool if you do decide to keep a local copy on a drive for fast access and let the vault be the disaster backup.
Jungledisk, Mozy and others provides this but doesn't have the online photo angle. The combination would be a killer.
/Mikael
A former sports shooter
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Guys,
I have been experimenting with uploading photos; unfortunately the upload is so slow it is not worth the effort.
I am based in Singapore (currently) and I have one of the fastest connections you can find in this town so I am pretty sure the infrastructure is up to snuff.
this brings me to my next question: where exactly are the smugmug servers? If my understanding is correct my SmugVault uploads are first routed through smugmug servers then to Amazon; so if there are no smugmug servers out here in the east and I am in effect sending data to the US, well, that would explain things.
PS: my arm is getting shorter...
_________
Kind regrds
RIOT! i
Kind regards
N