Upload 400 GB to flickr

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jlittle

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Topic # 145404 16-May-2014 21:28

I'm helping a recently widowed neighbour who is a Telecom customer. She has about 350 GB of photos and videos, which have become precious. They're backed up to an external hard drive, but putting the lot on Flickr, which offers 1 TB free, seems a good idea.

I contacted Telecom about it, but the response I consider impractical.

There is only one way to upload to a Cloud based storage system, and that is via a broadband connection.
Yes it will take a while to upload all the data but I'm sure it is not imperative that it is all uploaded immediately. You may also find that many of the images can be compressed or resized to reduce the overall amount of data to be transferred. There is also the option to change broadband plans for a couple of months to allow for the transfer of the data, then revert back to the original plan. A third option is to take the hard drive to a friend's or relative's house who has access to a larger plan on a faster connection - naturally you would need to discuss that with them first.

She has a 40 GB per month data cap. We'd be at it for a year or so.

I was kinda hoping for a service where I could take along a hard drive to some place with a fat pipe, and maybe leave it to upload at off-peak times. Any Ideas?

Regards, and TIA, John Little

jjnz1

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Reply # 1046684 16-May-2014 21:31

Or change to an ISP like snap who offer free nights...? Or use someone elses connection that has unlimited data?

plambrechtsen

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Reply # 1046689 16-May-2014 21:42

See if she can get vdsl. And move to the unlimited for a month or so however long it takes. Then move back to your normal plan afterwards.

Inphinity

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Reply # 1046691 16-May-2014 21:44

Internet cafe, or friend/family with unlimited VDSL/Fibre?

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Shoes2468

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Reply # 1046692 16-May-2014 21:44

Now that telecom has an unlimited plan, probably the best bet is to upgrade to an unlimited plan for a month, do the upload then change back the next month, or taking it to someone with an unlimited connection and upload it. Just note it you do change to an unlimited plan, make sure there are no tie ins for 12 months or something.

NonprayingMantis

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Reply # 1046695 16-May-2014 21:49

Shoes2468: Now that telecom has an unlimited plan, probably the best bet is to upgrade to an unlimited plan for a month, do the upload then change back the next month, or taking it to someone with an unlimited connection and upload it. Just note it you do change to an unlimited plan, make sure there are no tie ins for 12 months or something.

jjnz1: Or change to an ISP like snap who offer free nights...? Or use someone elses connection that has unlimited data?

plambrechtsen: See if she can get vdsl. And move to the unlimited for a month or so however long it takes. Then move back to your normal plan afterwards.

guys, moving to a bigger or unlimited plan was already suggested by Telecom in the OP and the OP considers it too inconvenient (for some reason)
If a simple plan change is deemed too inconvenient, then switching ISP is going to be doubly so.

(although I am a little confused that a plan change is considered more inconvenient than physically delivering a hard drive somewhere, then collecting it again later once uploaded.)

jamesrt

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Reply # 1046699 16-May-2014 21:55

Where are you physically located? Perhaps there is a nearby fellow geekzone'r with unlimited internet....

eXDee

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Reply # 1046724 16-May-2014 22:33

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I believe a few cloud storage providers offer a "send a hard disk" option. While expensive, it might be practical? Worth seeing if any provide it from NZ.

jlittle

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Reply # 1046727 16-May-2014 22:49

plambrechsten:See if she can get vdsl.

No, we can't get VDSL (and will be late getting fibre).

plambrechsten: And move to the unlimited for a month or so however long it takes. Then move back to your normal plan afterwards.

Shoes2468:Now that telecom has an unlimited plan, probably the best bet is to upgrade to an unlimited plan for a month, do the upload then change back the next month

In the absence of a better option, that will do.

NonprayingMantis:(although I am a little confused that a plan change is considered more inconvenient than physically delivering a hard drive somewhere, then collecting it again later once uploaded.)

A bit hard to manage for me, I don't like to intrude to often. I'll have to ask her to contact telecom to get the plan changed, and then confirm when it has happened, then visit to start the upload, and to check how it's going.

jamesrt: Where are you physically located? Perhaps there is a nearby fellow geekzone'r with unlimited internet....

St Heliers, Sayegh St.

Thanks to all, John Little

Zeon

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Reply # 1046783 17-May-2014 00:48

I can upload from my work in Penrose if you want to drop them off? Have business fibre @ 1gbps..... (although no way it would upload at that rate).

timmmay

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Reply # 1046818 17-May-2014 08:51

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Batch convert from super high resolution to moderate resolution to upload them. You don't need to upload full res. 1000px is plenty big enough for most things, even 1800px, and you can reduce the quality without it being visually apparent.

However I'm not sure flickr is the best idea. Use CrashPlan or similar to back up the photos and all important documents, then share just the best on Flickr. That way new photos will be uploaded automatically.

An external disk kept offsite is another cheap, effective option.

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ripdog

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Reply # 1046866 17-May-2014 10:43

I tried to mass upload my photos to Flickr once. I wasn't stymed by my data cap, I was stymed by the lack of any good mass-upload clients. The web uploader has a limit of ~200 photos at a time, and the Uploadr client was unstable and unpredictable as hell. Never knew where my upload had got to before something went bork.

Eventually I just did what timmmay said: Crashplan. Cheap, unlimited, completely automatic. Point it at your files and let it go. Get a family subscription and put it on all your computers.

Especially do this if you don't have a reliable backup going already. Just imagine how you'd feel if a harddrive died and you lost everything!