For the past few years, my wife and I have taken thousands of photos. Vacations and the birth of our child in 2010 have been the highlight and majority of them. While I make a conscious effort to back up my photos on to our external harddrives, my wife has always shuddered at the thought of those drives being lost or stolen during a break-in. So I decided to do a second backup for my photos. While researching which online photo storage solution was best, I decided Smugmug was the right choice for my family. The unlimited uploads made it an easy solution. Other services, while less expensive, only allow a certain amount of uploads each month. The sharing capabilities of Smugmug are also quite advanced. Simply create albums and choose which albums you want to share to your friends and family. There are three tiers of accounts:

I opted for the Power account, as I wanted to back up all my videos, but did not feel I needed a Pro account to sell or market my photos. Sixty dollars a year may seem steep at first, but remember you can upload as many photos and videos as you want. I have only backed up a small percentage of my files, and I already have over seven thousand on the service!

So far, I have been very happy with the service. As soon as I signed up back in early June, I took some time and uploaded all important photos. And every time we take a large number of photos with the large SLR camera, I upload them using their web interface, which is quite fast. Uploading photos from my iPhone is even easier, using the Photosync app that I previously reviewed.

There is a free trial (no credit card needed) if you feel unsure about this service. I tried it and was more than satisfied. When your trial runs out, Smugmug will send you an email asking if you are ready to commit. I feel that we get the peace of mind of always having our precious photos and videos securely protected online, and that if our house ever gets broken into, we do not need to worry about losing them.

Smugmug currently has its own iPad app (free), where you can view all your folders and files within them. However, I have recently reviewed two other apps that work with Smugmug, that will be beneficial for both owners of the service and for friends and family members who wish to view their albums.

A definite advantage of having Smugmug for iPad owners is that you can regularly clear photos and videos from your Camera Roll after you upload them to Smugmug, you will then save a large amount of space. At least from my experience, photos and videos take up the most space on these devices, more than apps and music.

Check out this video:

If you currently do not have a back up in place for your photos and videos, I suggest you give Smugmug a try. Definitely check out www.smugmug.com for more information.

Which online photo back ups do you currently have? Let us know in the comments!