There are two photography related updates I wanted to share:
- I’m deleting my 500px account.
- Drobo is no more.
Goodbye 500px
I’ve decided to close my 500px account. I’ve been a user of their site since 2012. My main goal back then was to sell prints of my work, along with some licenses. But in 2018, they were acquired by Visual China Group (VCG), and shut down that marketplace.
Many photography services I used in the last ten plus years have either gone away or changed drastically. Nuvango, Instacanvas, and Twenty20 have all come and gone. So any link going to 500px from my blog will be broken. I believe I fixed outgoing links to Nuvango and Twenty20 already.
I’m not a fan of how 500px wants me to upgrade to access my liked photos history. See screenshot below.
The 500px community that I knew, no longer exists. Even the Flickr community isn’t quite what it used to be. Remember Google Plus?
It is a bummer that the time and energy I put into promoting 500px, that it’s come to this. I also do not trust VCG with my photos.
Hello SmugMug
The only place to purchase my photos are on sunpechphotography.com, which is hosted with SmugMug.
Back in 2014 I wrote about quitting SmugMug and building my own site from scratch. How the times have changed!
Goodbye Drobo
From the Drobo website:
As of January 27th, 2023, Drobo support and products are no longer available. Drobo support has transitioned to a self-service model. The knowledge base, documentation repository, and legacy documentation library are still accessible for your support needs. We thank you for being a Drobo customer and entrusting us with your data.
I once championed the Drobo hardware for backup needs. See my 2014 post on Converting Your VHS and Betamax Tapes to Digital.
For me, it was the product where I backed up all my raw images and videos. The writing of their demise was on the wall ever since the global covid19 pandemic started. Although it’s been almost a year since they announced this, it took me some time before found a suitable alternative.
Hello Unraid
If you are a techincal person that can buiild a computer and install an operating system, I recommend Unraid.
The idea is that you own your own hardware that you either buy + assemble yourself, or you use some existing older PC hardware. You then just need to buy the Unraid license to boot up the system, that you also own.
You do not need to rely on a harware vendor like Drobo to offer you hardware or software support. If they go out business, you’re basically out of luck.
If Unraid doesn’t suit you and you really prefer a hardware solution, maybe give Synology a look.