Let's Talk About Storage

When I was thinking about this post, in my head I was thinking about digital storage. You know where you store important files, photos and other miscellaneous junk. But as I was typing the title it occurred to me that I could write another whole post on the physical storage in my kitchen or lack thereof. But I touched upon that topic briefly in my last post so I'll drop it.

So digital storage. We all have some. The question is do we know where it is, or how much it houses, or how to access it? Or better yet, what happens to it when we are no longer capable of remembering log in IDs and passwords? Wow, I go could in some ways with this post but I am trying to stay focused on what brought me here.

Photo storage - that's what brought me here. I have photos all over the place - digitally. (We're not even going to discuss the Rubbermaid bins full of actual pictures stored in the dark recesses of our basement. Or the many many physical photo albums. Nope, not talking about that.)

I have photos stored in the following places that I actually remember.

• The hard drive of my laptop
• An external hard drive that Hubby has connected to his computer
• My phone
• Dropbox
• Flickr
• Google Photos
• Instagram
• OneDrive
• PicMonkey
• Pinterest
• Prime Photos
• Shutterfly
• Snapfish

It's enough to make my head spin! 

And therein lies my problem. I have stuff in too many places. I was lured to these stashing grounds originally by their sweet talk of how much free storage they offered. Once I approached the limit, I'd switch to a new hiding place. Except for OneDrive. For some reason I chose to buy more storage with this Microsoft service and for that storage I pay .99/month. I have been paying this for more months than I can remember and quite honestly I don't even remember how to log onto OneDrive.

So concurrently there are two looming space issues I am facing, One with Flickr and one with Google Photos/Google Drive.

Flickr - I joined Flickr in 2009 when they lured and promised free storage of up to one terabyte (TB). I have no idea how much that equals but I know it's a shit ton of storage (A). So imagine my surprise at the beginning of this month when I got a notice saying I had been charged and automatically deducted for $60 for the pro version of the software. When I called and told Ben at Flickr that the billing was in error he said he had no problem refunding the charge and setting my membership back to free status. However, the free membership only allows for storage of 1,000 photos and according to Flickr I currently have over 20,000 photos. Once I go back to free they will delete any and all over 1,000. FML.




My view of Flickr shows I have 11,988 photos so I'm not sure where they got the 20,000 number but at this point, potato, potahtoe. So I have three choices: 1. Do nothing and continue to pay the annual charge which is currently $60. 2. Go back to free without looking thru the photos to see what I may be potentially throwing away. or 3. Find the patience to go through 11,988 photos and purge or move them to other storage. UGH.

Google Photos - when I first started using Google Photos to backup my photos I was using a Samsung or LG handset. The nice people at Google didn't care. Because when the Google Photos cloud back-up option first became a thing, it was an entirely unpaid service for all android users alike, with no limitations or restrictions—nearly everyone with an Android phone or Google account used it freely. Then came the introduction of the Google Pixel - Google's very own smartphone. At that point Google said OK no more unlimited storage for the slackers with handsets other than theirs, but Pixel owners would get free unlimited storage - I think they might have even promised for life. I was very pleased as a proud Pixel owner. But alas, another promise broken. 

As of June 1 2021, Google made the decision to cut the amount of storage freely available to Google account holders down to 15GB. Anything beyond that would come with a fee attached to it. Previously taken photos would be grandfathered in, but would have to be cleared out before users could back up anything else to that 15GB data cap. And not even Pixel owners were exempt. And guess what? I have reached 80% of my storage capacity. So I am faced with two options. 1. Buy more storage. To which I say "oh hell no!" 2. Go through everything in Google Photos and purge or move to different storage. FML x 2.

So if you are still with me, please tell me I'm not the only one facing these quandaries. I have always been the historian, the recording secretary so to speak of all the events in my life and photos are such a huge part of that. So what's a girl to do?

Seeking answers!

Thanks for reading 

A. How Much Does 1TB Hold? 1TB (terabyte) is equivalent to 1,000,000 megabytes. When put in the context of other electronic devices, 1TB has roughly the same amount of storage as eight (128 GB) iPhones. That would also be equivalent to four Windows or Mac laptops with 256 GB of storage.