📸 Fototime down FOREVER! Not coming back on line, ever! see pg 12

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They should at least have a backup server/storage at his mommy's basement.
 

“I’ve seen it all,” says the award-winning National Geographic photographer Ami Vitale, about backing up her photos. “I’ve had hard drives fail throughout my career. For example, back when I first started as a photographer, I had a very nice hard drive system in my home, and the whole thing failed.” In retrospect, Ms. Vitale says, she would have definitely set the system up differently.

“I lost some historic moments from the first part of my career,” she says, “and they’re gone forever.”

Ms. Vitale may shoot photos differently from how most of us capture images these days — she shoots with a digital single-lens-reflex camera (or DSLR). But her cautionary tale should resonate, since many of the same vulnerabilities exist when photographing with smartphones. In other words, if you’re snapping away without a backup plan for your photos, beware: In an instant, you could lose them all, forever.
 
Since Photo sites use hard drives to backup too, the risk is the same. That is why I have 3 different hard drives backing up my stuff. My Mac Pro Tower has 4 drive bays, and 2 Optical drive bays for which one has an adapter and has another hard drive. I also use a PCI card which an adapter for another drive [SSD to copy my main boot drive SSD]. I have a UPS with surge protector on it too, and TWO external hard drives. They fail, so you need more than one. Note that some of the internal drives are Boot drive backups.
 
That's why I don't put things like photos in someone else's hands unless there are other backups. I know many folks young and old who just think it's overkill and isn't necessary that it won't happen.


Storage media​

You’ll get a lot of conflicting answers as to the best long-term storage media. Many people feel strongly that “X” is the way to go, and others feel just as strongly that, no, it needs to be “Y”.

They can both be right if you approach it properly. For example, the right solution might be both “X” and “Y”.

I’ll review the options and describe what I do.

Optical media​

Once upon a time, CDs and DVDs were the go-to media for archival. They had oodles of capacity and didn’t take much room.

We quickly discovered that quality matters. In fact, it matters a lot. Many cheap writable CDs that were written just 5 or 10 years ago are no longer readable. That’s exactly the scenario we’re trying to avoid.

Archival-quality CDs and DVDs (and perhaps Blu-Ray) are probably worth the money if you’re thinking of storing for many, many years. There are experts that even as recently as a few years ago will tell you this is the way to go. I suspect it’s a very safe bet for the most important data.

The real problem is that what was once big is now small. That 4.7GB DVD might be small given some the things we might want to archive these days, like video or lots and lots and lots of photos.

An “oodle” just isn’t what it used to be.

Flash memory​

I don’t have a lot of faith in memory cards and thumb drives.

Theoretically, they should last for a long time. But, again, there is such a variation in quality, it’s just not something I would put a lot of faith in. I know many people use them successfully. But whether or not they’re going to be readable 10 years from now, for example, I really can’t say.

I will say that if media starts to go bad, a simple one-bit error has the potential to make the entire drive unrecoverable — unlike optical or magnetic media, where data-recovery techniques stand a better chance of success.

Traditional hard drives​

Traditional magnetic spinning-platter hard drives — HDDs — are probably the most practical long-term storage if they’re stored properly. What that means is keeping them away from moisture and not storing them around strong magnetic fields. I’d feel confident in that data being accessible for decades.

You also need to manage them properly, perhaps updating to newer technology as it becomes available. More on that below.

HDDs are big; they store a lot of data. Even “older” drives — just a few years old — might be considered small when used in a computer, but if converted to an external drive, they make for excellent long-term storage.

SSDs​

Solid state drives are best thought of as a cross between flash memory and traditional hard drives.

My take on them is that the jury’s still out. They’re certainly of better quality than your average thumb drive, but it’s still not clear if they’ll hold their data for decades. Since they are both still smaller and more costly than traditional hard drives, to me they don’t seem like a good choice for long-term storage right now.

That could change.

Future compatibility
When it comes to compatibility between today’s technology and that of years from now, there are two issues: physical and logical.

Physical compatibility​

Will computers 10 or 20 years from now be able to read the media we write things to today?

For example, if you stored something on floppy disks 20 or 30 years ago, you are now dealing with the fact that computers no longer have floppy drives. You can find an external floppy drive for 3.5 inch floppies, but if it’s much older — say a five-inch disk common at the dawn of the PC era — you’ll have a difficult time finding a way to read it. Optical drives are beginning to disappear as well.

I’m fairly confident that the USB

USB is an acronym for Universal Serial Bus, a wired interface that allows multiple various devices to be connected to a computer using a common interface.
(Click on the term for full definition.)

" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; border-bottom: 1px dotted rgb(0, 0, 0) !important; border-left: 0px; border-image: initial; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: transparent; transition: color 0.1s ease-in-out 0s, background-color 0.1s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration: underline dotted rgb(171, 217, 255); color: rgb(30, 114, 189);">USB interface, and thus USB external drives, are going to be supported for a very long time. As I write this, USB 3 is common, and USB 4 is on the horizon; yet even old USB 1 devices still work, albeit more slowly. I’m confident that 20 or 30 years from now, there will still be a USB interface into which I can plug one of today’s external drives.


Logical compatibility​

Will our computers 10 or 20 years from now have logical compatibility? By “logical”, I mean the format of the information we store, and our ability to run programs to read or interpret it.

A great example is the impending death of Adobe Flash, after which software that plays Flash-based games will no longer be generally available. People wanting those programs to continue running will need to “do something” (although it’s currently unclear what that is).1

Compatibility falls into two categories:

  • The format of data on disk. Will the NTFS filesystem still be readable 30 years from now? How about FAT or FAT32? One would hope both will — and indeed, I do expect they will. But historically, there are definitely storage formats that lasted for only a brief time and you’d be hard pressed to recover today.
  • The format of the data. Will jpg files still be a thing 30 years from now? Will there be programs that can play mp3 files? Again, one would hope that based on the current ubiquity of those formats, there will be compatible readers for decades. But, again, digital archives are littered with file formats that are understood by no current programs at all. While recovery would theoretically be possible by re-inventing a compatible reader, it’s not a simple task.
Left unaddressed, both of these are barriers to the viability of long-term digital archives.

What I do​

Clearly, technology is constantly changing. Long-term archiving might not be best thought of as a “set it and forget it” kind of thing. Every so often, it’s worth a re-visit.

And that’s pretty much what I do.

I have a strategy.

On the physical/hardware side of things, what I once had on floppies, I eventually copied to CD. Then years later, what I once had on CDs (and a handful of DVDs), I copied to external hard disks. As newer, larger hard disks become available, I occasionally combine data from older, smaller ones to newer, larger drives. The 512GB drives I once used for archival have all now been replaced by at least 1TB drives, and my most recent addition to the mix was an 8TB drive.

This is the management I referred to earlier. By periodically “upgrading” the storage used by your archives to newer technology — copying the old disks to new, say, every 10 years or so — you also sidestep issues with older hardware failing due to age or lack of availability.

It does takes a little bit of forethought and effort to organize and copy the data. (The floppies were the worst.)

When it comes to things like the file formats of my data, I have less of a plan and more of an expectation. I expect that file formats ubiquitous today will still be readable in 50 years.

That means I save things in common file formats like .jpg, .mp3, and .PDF [Portable Document Format]

PDF is an acronym for Portable Document Format.
PDF is a file format originally created by Adobe intended to capture the look and feel of a printed document in a way that could be displayed on a wide variety of different computers.
There are many approaches to creating PDF files; these range from using the original, full-featured Adobe Acrobat program, to sending documents to print drivers that simply capture output being printed into a PDF file.
PDF files can be read on almost all current devices, ranging from Windows, Mac, and Linux PC to iPhones, iPads, Android-based phones and tablets, and more.
See also: Just what is PDF format, how do I view it, and why do people use it? at Ask Leo!.
(Click on the term for full definition.)

" style="border-top: 0px; border-right: 0px; border-bottom: 1px dotted rgb(0, 0, 0) !important; border-left: 0px; border-image: initial; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; background-color: transparent; transition: color 0.1s ease-in-out 0s, background-color 0.1s ease-in-out 0s; text-decoration: underline dotted rgb(171, 217, 255); color: rgb(30, 114, 189);">pdf when I can. I would hope there would be better alternatives in the future, but I expect that because there are so many files in these formats today, they’ll always be readable, or convert-able somehow, in my lifetime and beyond.
 
I bought an SSD for all the kids laptops, cloned the boot drives, then used the SSD as the boot drive and the old spin platter hard drives as a backup. There isa Network backup [NAS] drive in the basement for all 3 too. I bought a 256 GB backup thumb drive for their iPhones that also automatically backs it up, and they have iPhone backups on their laptops.
 
There are some thumb drives that for USB-A and lightning ports or USB-c, that use backup software on Android and/or iPhones.
 
I originally started this thread just to gripe a little about the inconvenience of a photo hosting site being down. Never expected that it would have such a crappy ending. But the amount of info being shared here has been incredible. Suggestions on copying/storing/backing up files border on sensory overload. I don't know how I'll ever make up my mind, but that's not a bad problem to have. Thanks to the many new members who have shared their knowledge and tips here. And thanks to all for your support and help, it has been beneficial to so many. And now to take on the daunting task of re-shooting all my watches, and choosing a site for storage and new back up system. Life is good. :) :cheers:
 
A thought I have had for a few years now, regarding the billions of images that will be lost in the ether due to the switch to digital photography:

Sites like www.shorpy.com and others, and any archival collection of printed photos and negatives, is why we can still see those images today. But with the advent of digital photography, people mostly do not make prints and there are no negatives. Hard drives crash, thumb drives get lost, and so do the images with them. Even those who have thousands or tens of thousands of digital images on hard drives, when they die, who will be the keeper of them. Will a family member know how to access them and preserve them. Will they even care.

Billions of historical images, like we can see on Shorpy and other places, due to them being prints or negatives that once again got printed, will not be saved and accessible to future generations. And that is very sad to me.
 


 
Just been posted on the Fototime site, so at least we can stop thinking that it might come back again!


FotoTime​

On March 10, due to circumstances beyond our control, FotoTime suffered a catastrophic outage. This outage effected both the infrastructure and data. Regretably, due to this outage, FotoTime has ceased operations.

We would like to thank all of our customers for supporting us all of these years. This difficult decision to cease operations was the only option available to us.
This coincides with the date of the fire at the hosting company OVH in Strasbourg, France.
 
It could have happened that way, but if it did why not acknowledge that is the cause when the issue arose. It also could just be taking advantage of a "happy accident" using an out for a convenient excuse. Their lack of consideration only breeds speculation and contempt.






:hmm:They are still trying buzz. :cheers:


Photobucket
If you decide not to upgrade,
you will need to immediately download and remove photos to get under the 250 image limit.​
 
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Hello all. Thanks so much for having this discussion. I came here because it is the only resource I've found saying anything about FotoTime. Given the latest information about that cached notice, I was compelled to go to the Wayback Machine to see what I could find in screenshots. It was honestly. helpful to me just to see the homepage even though I couldn't log in, naturally. For those who don't know, the Wayback Machine is an archive of website screenshots: https://archive.org/web/. It helped me when a website of mine was hijacked and someone even managed to corrupt my backups. At any rate, curiously, the links worked to go to archived pages relative to the content no matter what year. Also, surprisingly, I was even able to download an executable file of FotoAlbum 7. I didn't install it, but it opened up as any .exe would. Some fantasy made me hope it would allow me to log in. It didn't, of course. But I wanted to share this information with other users. A number of users are understandably traumatized by this event. I don't know much about caching where personal accounts are concerned, so...not to get anyone's hopes up and I don't expect anything...it just made me wonder. Thanks again for the robust discussion! -Donna
 
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Thanks for the link Donna. Best of luck with your images.

I'm not sure if Fototime had any disclaimers up, but they can be helpful food for thought about having backups. Sometimes folks just don't think about it at the time.







example below:


"ImageEvent provides space for Member Albums but makes no implied or express warranties about the reliability of these albums. ImageEvent is not responsible for any damage caused by loss of access to, or deletion or alteration of Member albums; individual Members are responsible for monitoring and creating backups of their albums.

DISCLAIMER

YOUR USE OF THE ImageEvent SERVICE, INCLUDING ANY MATERIALS, DATA OR INFORMATION POSTED, SUBMITTED, DOWNLOADED OR OTHERWISE OBTAINED THROUGH THE ImageEvent SERVICE, IS AT YOUR OWN RISK. THE ImageEvent SERVICE IS NEITHER DESIGNED NOR INTENDED TO BE USED AS A DISASTER RECOVERY FACILITY OR AS AN EMERGENCY DATA STORAGE FACILITY. ALTHOUGH ImageEvent TAKES REASONABLE PRECAUTIONS TO PRESERVE AND PROTECT THE MATERIAL YOU MAY UPLOAD TO THE ImageEvent SERVICE, YOU SHOULD NOT RELY ON THE ImageEvent SERVICE AS YOUR ONLY SOURCE FOR THE MATERIAL YOU PROVIDE. YOU SHOULD KEEP YOUR OWN BACKUP COPIES OF ALL MATERIALS YOU MAY USE, OR ALLOW OTHERS TO USE, IN CONNECTION WITH THE ImageEvent SERVICE, INCLUDING MATERIALS POSTED OR SUBMITTED TO THE ImageEvent SERVICE.

THE OPERATION OF THE ImageEvent SERVICE MAY BE AFFECTED BY NUMEROUS FACTORS BEYOND ImageEvent'S CONTROL. THE OPERATION OF THE ImageEvent SERVICE MAY NOT BE CONTINUOUS OR UNINTERRUPTED OR SECURE. SECURITY AND PRIVACY RISKS CANNOT BE ELIMINATED. PASSWORD PROTECTION MAY NOT PREVENT UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS TO MATERIALS YOU MAY USE OR ALLOW OTHER PERSONS TO USE IN CONNECTION WITH THE ImageEvent SERVICE, INCLUDING MATERIALS POSTED OR SUBMITTED TO THE ImageEvent SERVICE.

THE ImageEvent SERVICE IS PROVIDED ON AN "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE" BASIS, AND WITHOUT ANY REPRESENTATIONS, WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, WHETHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, AND INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF TITLE, NON-INFRINGEMENT, MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, PERFORMANCE, OR DURABILITY, ALL OF WHICH ARE HEREBY DISCLAIMED BY ImageEvent AND ITS SERVICE PROVIDERS TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW. "

Just because you have had no problem with your storage, doesn't mean it will be available or work forever..

Chances are, it too will eventually fall..
 
Thanks for the link Donna. Best of luck with your images.

I'm not sure if Fototime had any disclaimers up, but they can be helpful food for thought about having backups. Sometimes folks just don't think about it at the time.







example below:

"ImageEvent provides space for Member Albums but makes no implied or express warranties about the reliability of these albums. ImageEvent is not responsible for any damage caused by loss of access to, or deletion or alteration of Member albums; individual Members are responsible for monitoring and creating backups of their albums.

DISCLAIMER

YOUR USE OF THE ImageEvent SERVICE, INCLUDING ANY MATERIALS, DATA OR INFORMATION POSTED, SUBMITTED, DOWNLOADED OR OTHERWISE OBTAINED THROUGH THE ImageEvent SERVICE, IS AT YOUR OWN RISK. THE ImageEvent SERVICE IS NEITHER DESIGNED NOR INTENDED TO BE USED AS A DISASTER RECOVERY FACILITY OR AS AN EMERGENCY DATA STORAGE FACILITY. ALTHOUGH ImageEvent TAKES REASONABLE PRECAUTIONS TO PRESERVE AND PROTECT THE MATERIAL YOU MAY UPLOAD TO THE ImageEvent SERVICE, YOU SHOULD NOT RELY ON THE ImageEvent SERVICE AS YOUR ONLY SOURCE FOR THE MATERIAL YOU PROVIDE. YOU SHOULD KEEP YOUR OWN BACKUP COPIES OF ALL MATERIALS YOU MAY USE, OR ALLOW OTHERS TO USE, IN CONNECTION WITH THE ImageEvent SERVICE, INCLUDING MATERIALS POSTED OR SUBMITTED TO THE ImageEvent SERVICE.

THE OPERATION OF THE ImageEvent SERVICE MAY BE AFFECTED BY NUMEROUS FACTORS BEYOND ImageEvent'S CONTROL. THE OPERATION OF THE ImageEvent SERVICE MAY NOT BE CONTINUOUS OR UNINTERRUPTED OR SECURE. SECURITY AND PRIVACY RISKS CANNOT BE ELIMINATED. PASSWORD PROTECTION MAY NOT PREVENT UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS TO MATERIALS YOU MAY USE OR ALLOW OTHER PERSONS TO USE IN CONNECTION WITH THE ImageEvent SERVICE, INCLUDING MATERIALS POSTED OR SUBMITTED TO THE ImageEvent SERVICE.

THE ImageEvent SERVICE IS PROVIDED ON AN "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE" BASIS, AND WITHOUT ANY REPRESENTATIONS, WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, WHETHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, AND INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF TITLE, NON-INFRINGEMENT, MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, PERFORMANCE, OR DURABILITY, ALL OF WHICH ARE HEREBY DISCLAIMED BY ImageEvent AND ITS SERVICE PROVIDERS TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW. "

Just because you have had no problem with your storage, doesn't mean it will be available or work forever..

Chances are, it too will eventually fall..
Same to you roadwarrior. I'm fortunate to have a backup but for some, it's not just the images, but the time and history put in curating and commenting...including sharing history, etc. I've been a user pretty much since the site first started and shared it with others after discovering how user-friendly and serviceable it was. It's truly sad and even tragic for some.
 
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Has anyone found a contact for the owners of Fototime? Any new ground or leads on that?

I am still trying to contact to get my late 14 year old daughters pictures off them.
 
It could have happened that way, but if it did why not acknowledge that is the cause when the issue arose. It also could just be taking advantage of a "happy accident" using an out for a convenient excuse. Their lack of consideration only breeds speculation and contempt.

Maybe they thought it could be revived? I always thought of them as a photo hosting sight, not a place to store digital photos long term. At least legally you would be hard pressed to find them liable for what happened, letalone liable for any damages above your subscription fee, you incurred for not having backups. Everybody knows or should know to keep backups of everything important that they keep digitally and online. I think I found a good replacement at a sight called Photo Bucket. Easy to set up albums and to generate links to pictures you want to post online.
 
Maybe they thought it could be revived? I always thought of them as a photo hosting sight, not a place to store digital photos long term. At least legally you would be hard pressed to find them liable for what happened, letalone liable for any damages above your subscription fee, you incurred for not having backups. Everybody knows or should know to keep backups of everything important that they keep digitally and online. I think I found a good replacement at a sight called Photo Bucket. Easy to set up albums and to generate links to pictures you want to post online.
Many of us left Photobucket when they suddenly started charging ridiculous fees for what was once free. We had to scramble quickly to get our pics downloaded or agree to the new sky high prices. Because of that, I won't be going back. Hopefully things work ok for your needs. I can't remember what the prices rose to, but I bet roadwarrior can.
@roadwarrior
 
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