Question for Smugmug users

[Cleo68]

Anyone know if they are having a weekly shutdown right now (6:45pm Sunday EST in the US), or are they just having more technical difficulties? Seems as of late, the site has been down a lot. So much so, that I am strongly considering using another site for my photos. My in-laws in England always complain of not being able to view the images (although I think they get confused pretty easily with anything computer-related). I would just assume, since no one seems to care anyway, that I put my pictures up somewhere that is not overly consumed with fancy features in the galleries. I prefer them, but most of my 'audience' doesn't understand them and some of them are still on dial-up. :Angry: Just curious. Have any ideas?

 

[dmwphoto]

I have been using them for over 3 years and no significant downtime ever. including now.

 

[dmwphoto]

correction, they are down for the moment

 

[Cleo68]

I'm entering year #2 and have loved them. But lately, there seem to be issues. Can't remember the exact day, but for awhile there, they were down at least 24 hours. Something to do with Amazon servers?

 

[dmwphoto]

they have been extremely reliable for me.

 

[Marina]

I'm going on 2nd year, and i've never had a problem, until recently. It seems like the more upgrades they do, the more problems they have. Now this Amazon thing, causing all the troubles.
I wont switch them yet, i have no real reason to do so.

 

[williadw]

My site seems to be up and doing fine. I have to agree with Dave. Outages and downtimes are few, from what I have seen.
I have only been with them about a year.

That Amazon thing... if they are buying space from them... I'm sure they have no control over Amazon's problems. I won't hold that against them at all.

Don

I have been using them for over 3 years and no significant downtime ever. including now.

 

[Micky]

Working fine here...

Been with them over 3 years, extremely reliable.

 

[spalding12]

i love smugmug
but... 1 week ago...
because of a crashed amazon.com server (out of smugmug's control)... they were down for more than 12 hours
that has never happened before

i still love them
wouldn't have my photos anywhere else, personally

 

[Cleo68]

I love them too. But if they have to depend on Amazon, is it worth it? Why are they even affiliated with Amazon?

 

[spalding12]

I love them too. But if they have to depend on Amazon, is it worth it? Why are they even affiliated with Amazon?

amazon has never gone down before, either
amazon has the largest server base on earth
they ARE who you want your photo storage site to be with

amazon can afford the latest and greatest servers
1 time down in 3 years.... that's better than 99.99999999999999% of other servers on earth.... no?

 

[Cleo68]

I suppose. But it also means more users.

 

[schuds]

I love them too. But if they have to depend on Amazon, is it worth it? Why are they even affiliated with Amazon?

Amazon sells server space. They are VERY good at what they do.

Any photo storage service (Zenfolio, Pbase et al) is nuts if they try to maintain their own servers. Maintaining servers is a business they don't need to be in. There are many storage providers that can do it better and less expensive.

If you had a business that was growing at a phenomenal rate that depends on reliable storage it make sense to outsource the space and stick to the business you do best. Let the storage provider worry about future expansion. In Smugmug's case what they do best is developing user-friendly front-end interfaces and provide first-rate customer support. They leave it up to Amazon to provide the storage.

With Smugmug you are buying into both first-rate storage and customer support for a mere .11 cents per day. Try to set up bomb-proof storage on your own PC/Mac and find out how much it costs.

 

[Cleo68]

Like I've said several times, I am very happy with their customer support and their interface. I simply didn't understand why they use Amazon's servers, that's all.

 

[jemaerca]

Basically, Smugmug is outsourcing its server management. They believe that this is not part of their core business and they're probably right.

 

[Neige]

I agree. Smugmug is not in the server business. It's not what they are good at. They don't have to be. They need to be good at having an accessible easy to use front end to a database hosted on a really robust server. Unless you have a huge amount of money and can afford a lot of equipment and can pay a cadre of geeks to maintain them, outsourcing your server needs makes good business sense. Most online businesses buy their server needs from someone rather than try to host it themselves.

Amazon is good at having server mega-farms; they've had a number of years to perfect the internet server thing - they had to in order to survive themselves. Any business can have an unexpected emergency. Once in three years is pretty darned good. I've been with Smugmug for almost two years and am happy.

 

[iLLMaCK]

I have never had a problem with smugmug. There are times when glitches happen, jumping ship is just going to cost you money in the long run.

 

[jpappas]

I've been with them for over 3 years with no major issues. I've told other people about them and they are happy. They are growing as well as the size of the pictures, they will always need space.

Jim

ljp.smugmug.com

 

[nipprdog]

I just found out yesterday that SM lowered our costs on 5x7s and 8x10s.

:biggrin: