The camera quality on smartphones these days have been getting a lot better. Frankly speaking, I am taking a lot more photographs on a smartphone because the best camera is the one I have with me. Hence, data storage is extremely important for us photographers and that’s exactly why today I’m going to talk about my experience with the Transcend StoreJet Cloud 110K.
Cloud Storage? Expensive!
Before DropBox and Google Photos came out with the photo backup feature, the only way I could backup the photos are by connecting the phone to a computer. The potential of losing the photos is extremely high because we never know when accidents strike.
Then, Dropbox introduces the photo backup solution which automatically uploads my photos to the cloud storage. However, a mere 2 GB from the basic free account is insufficient from a trigger-happy guy like me. Worst of all is the whooping US$ 99 (~RM 424) per year for 1 TB storage. Nope.
How about Google Photos? Google offers unlimited free backup for all photos. But there’s a catch, the photos are being downsized before being uploaded. While Google does offer original photo backup, but it will be counted against with your Google Drive’s storage quota (Basic Free – 15 GB). Of course, another RM 429 per year for 1 TB storage. Nope.
StoreJet Cloud
Enter the StoreJet Cloud, where Transcend calls it the personal cloud storage. Yes, we literally can host our own cloud storage without having to rely on any third party public cloud storage services.
The StoreJet Cloud 110K comes with a 4 TB hard drive and extremely easy to setup. The setup process is indeed very straight forward where you register a StoreJet Cloud account and it will bind the drive to your account.
StoreJet Cloud Mobile App
The StoreJet Cloud mobile app is available on Apple App Store or Google Play Store. Install and log into your account and you’re ready to access your photos.
From the mobile app, enabling the Auto backup function will auto upload the photos to the StoreJet Cloud. There are several advanced settings where you might want to look into such as upload using cellular network and backup videos.
Access from PC or MAC
All the photos are now available in the StoreJet Cloud 4 TB drive.
While there is a Google Chrome app available for easy access to my photos in the drive, my personal favourite is using the MacOS Finder or Windows Explorer. From the photos above you can see how I can access all my files and folders in the StoreJet Cloud from my laptop.
Conclusion
Now I have the perfect photo backup configuration where I don’t have to worry about downloading the photos from DropBox to free up the 2 GB space. Low storage warning, begone! Furthermore, I’m in full control of all my files and photos.
At the price of RM 799, the initial investment is definitely higher than the third party storage services. However, it is definitely worth the price considering that we are getting a total of 4 TB of permanent storage as well as media server features.