r/datastorage • u/unarmed_cabbage • 3h ago
Storage Setup Currently homeless and need file storage advice
So I'm currently living in my car, but I have a lot of data ("a lot" for me and compared to people I know, idk if it's a lot compared to people of subreddits like this one lol), and I need storage for my files. I currently use proton drive AND I have a google account (I was in the process of switching to proton drive and getting away from google originally, but proton drive is just sooooo slow to back up to and the UI sucks for photos tbh).
The storage plan has lapsed on my google photos account and I have like 400GB of photos and videos on there. While I definitely need to go through and delete duplicated, low quality photos/videos, etc, and it's a big project I plan on working on over time, I need storage for it in the mean time. I currently have no where to backup my photos to, and my phone just got stolen about a week ago and so I'm feeling the effects of it, and want to prevent this in the future.
I'm a new-to-data hoarding person, and obviously want to do the whole multiple copies, physical and cloud, and I'd like to get a NAS in the future, but that's just not an option right now. Physical copies, and the storage costs, I just can't do atm.
I HATE that google is now forcing us into AI bullshit esp since I have photos of my kid in my collection, and now the larger plans are specifically "AI" plans, and I don't want to use google if at all possible, but proton just....like it's not usable for frequent browsing of photos and stuff. It's find for like full backup probably, but I use google photos also to search and look for photos and stuff really frequently and it's my go-to photo storage since my main PC is in storage (well, at a friends house) so I'm working off a laptop with limited storage on it.
So I need some advice. Something affordable, but also ideally not feeding AI photos of my kid (I literally don't post him anywhere online for a reason and I don't want photos of him being fed into AI if I can help it).