Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Saving money on Google Photos with Immich: Your own personal photo storage

markpitblado.me

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 137 posts

Re: Saving money on Google Photos with Immich: Your own personal photo storage

#101

Post by odo1242 »

nickthegreek wrote: post #97
odo1242 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my case: I did the math and it would take me ~4-5 years to recoup the initial investment (of about $450) in my homelab (comparing my server + 3 copies of 2TB with the cost of a 2TB google drive subscription). (Also excludes the time spent building the server, and I found very good deals; if you get a regular NAS this becomes about ~10 years) There is, however, a fixed component cost to building such a setup that g…

But its all under 1 roof and can be taken from you in a fire or be stolen?

I mean it could also get dropped yea, sure. This is just a neutral discussion of the costs, I'm not making an argument for anything.

(As for data, the third hard disk isn't actually bought yet and is meant to represent an offsite backup. I might use something like AWS Glacier or Hetzner Storage Box for this anyways cuz this is mostly for experimentation. I just like the idea of having a homelab.)

Re: Saving money on Google Photos with Immich: Your own personal photo storage

#102

Post by fanatic2pope »

drdexebtjl wrote: post #30

I use Immich, but saved me money it has not. Unless you actually go through the "Backing up your photos" step, you _will_ lose your photos, it's just a matter of time. And if you're like most people, that is probably not acceptable. And by the time you do the math for the cost of your backups, you'll find Google Photos pricing is actually pretty good. Still worth it, imo.

Once a year I go through my photos and select my favourites and have them printed to paper. Using Google's print service (as an example) you can spend about $80 to have 150 photos printed into a book. If you do this once a year you will soon have a lovely shelf of paper photos you can easily store, easily look at and show to other people and hand down to your kids and their kids, etc. Long term I suspect my collection of books is far more likely to survive than my google account.

Re: Saving money on Google Photos with Immich: Your own personal photo storage

#103

Post by nickthegreek »

odo1242 wrote: post #101
nickthegreek wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But its all under 1 roof and can be taken from you in a fire or be stolen?

I mean it could also get dropped yea, sure. This is just a neutral discussion of the costs, I'm not making an argument for anything. (As for data, the third hard disk isn't actually bought yet and is meant to represent an offsite backup. I might use something like AWS Glacier or Hetzner Storage Box for this anyways cuz this is mostly for experimentation. I just like the idea of having a homelab.)

Ya, my setup still includes the google drive expense as that’s my offsite.

Re: Saving money on Google Photos with Immich: Your own personal photo storage

#104

Post by dingaling »

buran77 wrote: post #89
swed420 wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> yes but there is still an opportunity cost I would call it more of a set of tradeoffs > a lot of the time is spent on doing menial system admin tasks This is the refreshening opportunity for us non-admins, and a learning opportunity to automate as much of it as possible. Other benefits not mentioned include not signing your data or life away to whatever Google's lawyers or marketers have decided is best for them, c…

> I would call it more of a set of tradeoffs This is mostly wording. It is a commitment, it has an opportunity cost, there are tradeoffs. > This is the refreshening opportunity for us non-admins, and a learning opportunity to automate as much of it as possible. So many opportunities but the day is still 24 hours long. You still have to choose your opportunities wisely, and give up something else in the process. And i…

> You still have to choose your opportunities wisely

It's odd that you've gone off on this as opposed to people who spend their 'opportunity time' on Netflix, Call of Duty or D&D.

Sysadmin is a hobby I enjoy and I don't consider it lost time, or wasted opportunity, when so many of my colleagues go out getting drunk or watch football.

Re: Saving money on Google Photos with Immich: Your own personal photo storage

#105

Post by anon7000 »

fanatic2pope wrote: post #102
drdexebtjl wrote: post #30

I use Immich, but saved me money it has not. Unless you actually go through the "Backing up your photos" step, you _will_ lose your photos, it's just a matter of time. And if you're like most people, that is probably not acceptable. And by the time you do the math for the cost of your backups, you'll find Google Photos pricing is actually pretty good. Still worth it, imo.

Once a year I go through my photos and select my favourites and have them printed to paper. Using Google's print service (as an example) you can spend about $80 to have 150 photos printed into a book. If you do this once a year you will soon have a lovely shelf of paper photos you can easily store, easily look at and show to other people and hand down to your kids and their kids, etc. Long term I suspect my collectio…

Long term your kids will probably wish they were digitized as well

Re: Saving money on Google Photos with Immich: Your own personal photo storage

#106

Post by odo1242 »

nickthegreek wrote: post #103
odo1242 wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean it could also get dropped yea, sure. This is just a neutral discussion of the costs, I'm not making an argument for anything. (As for data, the third hard disk isn't actually bought yet and is meant to represent an offsite backup. I might use something like AWS Glacier or Hetzner Storage Box for this anyways cuz this is mostly for experimentation. I just like the idea of having a homelab.)

Ya, my setup still includes the google drive expense as that’s my offsite.

Nice, I see how that affects the cost benefit analysis for sure

Re: Saving money on Google Photos with Immich: Your own personal photo storage

#107

Post by fuzzzerd »

tripleee wrote: post #60
dominotw wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

is nas + backup to amazon glacier a good solution?

Yes. Should have 1 onsite + 1 offsite backup ideally.

I always follow 321 for important things. Three copies, two media types, one offsite.

Re: Saving money on Google Photos with Immich: Your own personal photo storage

#108

Post by QuiEgo »

bilalq wrote: post #73
drdexebtjl wrote: post #30

I use Immich, but saved me money it has not. Unless you actually go through the "Backing up your photos" step, you _will_ lose your photos, it's just a matter of time. And if you're like most people, that is probably not acceptable. And by the time you do the math for the cost of your backups, you'll find Google Photos pricing is actually pretty good. Still worth it, imo.

Yeah. I actually love Google Photos as a product. I just want Immich as a safety net in case Google ever feels like locking me out of my account on a random Tuesday. I haven't really found a guide or discussions on how best to use Immich in this mirroring way. Admittedly, I haven't looked very hard. Setting up Immich is something that's been on my todo list for years now.

You can use https://www.photosync-app.com/home if all you want is a local backup. It has a killer feature Immich is still missing: encryption at rest of the photos.

Re: Saving money on Google Photos with Immich: Your own personal photo storage

#109

Post by QuiEgo »

altmanaltman wrote: post #54
drdexebtjl wrote: post #30

I use Immich, but saved me money it has not. Unless you actually go through the "Backing up your photos" step, you _will_ lose your photos, it's just a matter of time. And if you're like most people, that is probably not acceptable. And by the time you do the math for the cost of your backups, you'll find Google Photos pricing is actually pretty good. Still worth it, imo.

People setting up homelab often talk about money saved but never account for the time they have to spend as well not just in setting it up and maintainence. If you value your time, the cost of a google pro subscription is not much. I still run a homelab because I like it and yes its good to be able to run several services for "free" but the commitment is never free. This is also true for businesses. I used to think w…

The value of the homelab for me is things I can’t pay money to get any other way. I would never recommend it for just replacing cloud storage, ROI is not good.

There’s nothing as nice as Plex for consuming media IMHO, and home assistant/homebridge glue a pile of cheap IoT stuff into a single, cohesive, useable setup.

I am a reluctant admin. I resent spending time on it. It feels like work, which after 10 hours of doing similar things for much better pay grinds on you. Luckily it doesn’t take much time to keep it going after the initial setup.

Thread and Matter give me hope one day the IoT stuff might be okay. I have no hope I will ever be able to get the single media portal any other way.

Re: Saving money on Google Photos with Immich: Your own personal photo storage

#110

Post by bix6 »

fanatic2pope wrote: post #102
drdexebtjl wrote: post #30

I use Immich, but saved me money it has not. Unless you actually go through the "Backing up your photos" step, you _will_ lose your photos, it's just a matter of time. And if you're like most people, that is probably not acceptable. And by the time you do the math for the cost of your backups, you'll find Google Photos pricing is actually pretty good. Still worth it, imo.

Once a year I go through my photos and select my favourites and have them printed to paper. Using Google's print service (as an example) you can spend about $80 to have 150 photos printed into a book. If you do this once a year you will soon have a lovely shelf of paper photos you can easily store, easily look at and show to other people and hand down to your kids and their kids, etc. Long term I suspect my collectio…

We got rid of my mom’s family photo books. Nobody has space / desire for 50 pounds of photos unfortunately. We use a rotating electronic frame now to cycle photos.
Post reply on HN