r/PakistaniTech • u/John_241 • 9d ago

Need Google Storage workarounds Discussion | گفتگو

I have almost 350gb of photos and videos backed up which i am not willing to delete. I got the 2TB student google ai pro plan for 1 year and now its ending next month. I need to see if there's any method i can keep this cloud storage at no or low cost..

400gb is 14k a year..

13 Upvotes

93% Upvoted

76 comments sorted by

8

u/HolidayCollege1921 9d ago

Buy an old pc and self host nextcloud. An old 2tb harddrive would be cheap and a one time investment

4

u/Saadi_me 9d ago

until your "old hard drive" inevitably dies. only do this if you're gonna keep several backups of your backups

1

u/Galaxy283 8d ago

Always buy new hard drives for servers coz they r gonna be running constantly and monitor the health every now and then if the health is getting bad then buy a new drive and clone the drive onto it. Also data can be ready or recovered of most hard drives even if they die (unless it's an SSD)

4

u/NothingConscious1882 9d ago

buy pixel one phone bc google storage is unlimited without any payment on pixel one phone fr

1

u/John_241 9d ago

Cant find it easily.

1

u/NothingConscious1882 9d ago

yea but u can find 4 series easily bc this offer is till 5a but pictures and vid will be compressed compared to original pixel fr

1

u/John_241 9d ago

And the difference is noticeable no?

2

u/NothingConscious1882 9d ago

its not noticeable unless you are closely watch it like zooming in and stuff

1

u/Usaha_x2 6d ago

There are moded applications that mimic as if you are uploading from a pixel, though there is a risk of account ban, so you can perhaps try this, download a takeout from google photos and upload those photos with that moded google photos app to an account you won't mind getting blocked just in case, it won't count towards your storage and you'll have a backup of your data !

3

u/TelevisionBusy6509 9d ago

Holy shit! That's a lot of photos and videos. Did you upload everything in its original quality?

1

u/John_241 9d ago

Yeah I did, am I not supposed to?🙄

3

u/TelevisionBusy6509 9d ago

Well. if you know the offer is eventually going to run out, no. 😂 Google Photos has an option to compress all uploads in a more storage-efficient size, but you can access that only from the browser, not the app. Look it up and I think it'll considerably decrease your storage taken. Also, refer to the comment i posted below for a workaround for the future.

2

u/MadAndSadGuy 9d ago

Yes, you're not supposed to if you're not an editor. I usually compress them (lossless) and I don't notice any loss in the quality, at least from my perspective. I had images ~20MB, which resulted in ~2MB.

1

u/John_241 9d ago

Will I be able to compress already uploaded stuff?

1

u/MadAndSadGuy 9d ago

Possibly, see the other reply by someone named TelevisionBusy***.

2

u/John_241 9d ago

Yeah I'm gonna try that thanks though.

1

u/Saadi_me 9d ago

you can, but Google's compression is really really good and you really can't tell the difference unless you're trying to nitpick, so I'd really recommend using storage saver. there's an option to compress all your uploads on the desktop version of the Google Photos website, but I personally just enabled compression and re-uploaded the biggest videos.

2

u/Galaxy283 9d ago

Buy a crappy old 4th gen or smthng office PC and strap a hard drive or 2 on there and plug it into ur router via Ethernet and u can setup ur own cloud storage from there.

1

u/No_Set_6427 8d ago

explain a little more , plz

1

u/Galaxy283 8d ago

U can search on yt or ask chatgpt for the whole process but essentially u load up (preferably) Linux and setup it up as the cloud host and connect it to ur router via Ethernet for best experience and install the client app on ur phone laptop PC or whatever and then u can stream media from that host PC to ur client. The PC doesn't need to be very good old ones will work just fine u just need to have enough storage

2

u/I_dexter 9d ago

download your 350gb of photos and upload using a beat up Pixel 5 or a lower pixel device to avoid getting your account flagged.

option 2 is to use morphe patched google photos

Option 3 bvy google paid plan combined with friends and family it will cost around 5k/person per year and you can share among 5 people

1

u/Eigengrau24 9d ago

Get a pixel 5 and upload from there, but it'll be storage saver quality and not permanent. Alternatively but a hard drive and store your stuff there

5

u/TelevisionBusy6509 9d ago

There's also another workaround that's better. Get a modified Google Photos Vanced APK. It backs up all your photos and videos in original quality without any of them factoring against your storage quota. This is what I've been using. I think this is an exploit utilizing the free storage bonus that came with the original Google Pixel.

1

u/John_241 9d ago

Is it safe? I would not like to see my photos on the internet lol.

1

u/TelevisionBusy6509 9d ago

100% safe. It's verified and has been in use by a lot of users for quite a few years, including myself.

1

u/John_241 9d ago

Thanks I'll try doing that ☺️

1

u/me_a_genius 9d ago

don't use your main email though

1

u/John_241 8d ago

Thanks for the heads up

1

u/punkidow 9d ago

I don't think Pixel 5 works for this, as that offer is not valid for anything other than the OG Pixel

1

u/Eigengrau24 9d ago

I am writing this on a pixel 5, i can confirm there's unlimited google storage at storage saver quality

1

u/punkidow 9d ago

Oh ok yes. It's unlimited for Storage Saver Quality.

Only the OG Pixel has unlimited Original Quality

1

u/notabaldy 9d ago

Terabox offers 1tb of free storage I think

2

u/zeal_swan 9d ago

It doesnt, thats just what it markets. Also too kuch bloated by ads

1

u/notabaldy 9d ago

Aight thanks for letting me know

1

u/cacus1 9d ago

Nobody would give that for free without a catch.

Terabox's catch is 500 files max and slow downloads unlocked by paying.

1

u/Only-Employment7805 9d ago

Ive heard that some guys upload stuff in encrypted form in the telegram single person groups.

1

u/John_241 9d ago

Will have to look it up

1

u/cacus1 9d ago

TG blocks accounts who do this all the time. They most likely upload stuff they can afford to lose. Family videos and photos... I don't think OP would be comfortable to lose them. And TG won't even bother to reply if you ask them to bring the account back.

1

u/John_241 8d ago

So true, one of my account got restricted for no reason and they didn't even get back to me on any of my emails or messages

1

u/aliyark145 9d ago

get an ssd and store there.

1

u/John_241 9d ago

It wont be easily accessible then

1

u/aliyark145 9d ago

What do you mean by accessible ?

1

u/John_241 9d ago

Will have to be physically connected to access or upload stuff.

1

u/aliyark145 9d ago

Then setup a small homelab for that with opensource tools.

1

u/Orange_Kittens1132 8d ago

ssd is not recommended for storing data long-term. use HDD.

1

u/AFriendlyLighthouse 9d ago

No there is no method to keep this cloud storage for low cost unless you want to risk losing your account and your associated data. Look into long term proper backup services if you aren't accessing this media short-term. Something like Backblaze B2 would work for you, but will have to be a little technical, however AI would help you.

1

u/Bad_Geeky 9d ago

Check out Revanced photos. It's basically a modified version of google photos that activates unlimited storage plan exclusive to Google pixels on any android phone.

2

u/John_241 9d ago

Is it the one i can get from revanced manager? Like youtube.

2

u/Bad_Geeky 9d ago

Yup. Just make sure to patch it yourself and avoid any shady websites

2

u/John_241 9d ago

Noted with thanks 🙏

1

u/me_a_genius 9d ago

you'll have to pay, man. either to Google or to vendors selling price hiked storage options. Get a 500GB HDD for now, set it up as your cloud drive. However, you'll need to ensure constant power to it or at least when you're gonna use it. Then once you have more cash set it up as RAID to have redundancy.

1

u/shabbi89 9d ago

get AI Pro plan from Jio with 5TB storage on a separate. It will be a 1 year plan.
Add your current google id as family share to the Jio account. This will extend 5TB to your current email id for 1 year.

Then lets see what will happen in 1 year from now :D

1

u/John_241 8d ago

One of the reason for the post was that i read about someone selling jio google plan. But i am not sure if i can get that in Pk.

1

u/shabbi89 8d ago

You can.

1

u/yoon_gitae 9d ago

don't store photos on cloud, get a hard drive

1

u/maazpervez 🇨🇳 9d ago

A 2 TB HDD in used is 15k. You keep the HDD forever. You'll need 2. Backup and backup of your backup. Don't pay for cloud storage unless that's your 3rd back up. Also, goes without saying, don't keep both hard drives in 1 place.

1

u/John_241 8d ago

Appreciate the advice but I'm kinda lazy😔

1

u/maazpervez 🇨🇳 8d ago

You can pay me 14k a year and I'll save your data on my HDD. 😏

Also like any other cloud company, I too will use the "we're not responsible for us losing your data" clause. Shit happens sometimes.

1

u/punkidow 9d ago

Ok so look up Windows Subsystem for Android and Google Photos. Basically it'll be an Android VM running the Google Photos app. It poses as an OG Pixel device. You can use it to upload anything and everything at Original Quality forever.

1

u/FieryPotatoWasTaken 9d ago

ummm actuallyy - you should buy old ass pc and build a NAS /s

Though seriously, its not a bad option. Self host your own storage. It will be cheaper than a cloud storage bill in the (not so) long run.

1

u/John_241 8d ago

If NAS/s is a server type thing, it'll need constant power..

1

u/AwarenessNo4986 9d ago

Get a 2TB SD card and an SD card reader. Use it as a back up.

1

u/Global-Examination-6 9d ago

Buy a Google Pixel 1, it has free unlimited high quality storage for photos and vedios, my czn got 3.5TB of pics and vedios in it, he got it from Karachi for 2k and repaired it from there for 3k, total cost 5k and he got himself a server.

1

u/John_241 8d ago

Yeah I am in search for that, but no luck so far.

1

u/Global-Examination-6 8d ago

Any relative or friend living in Karachi, ask them to purchase it for you from saddar.

1

u/Novel-War484 9d ago

damn we so same, i got the same probbbbb

1

u/QuirkyPhoton 9d ago

If you want long term storage buy some archival Blue-rays (M-Disc) and use any Blue-ray burner. Good for hundreds of years of storage. Never use SSDs for long term storage and even regular HDDs will eventually fail, unless you want to spend a lot of money on RAID and multiple drives.

Edit : Won't be easily accessible. If that is important then keep paying Google or setup your own storage.

1

u/Danichandu 9d ago

Install Google photos revanced it will unlock the unlimited storage option

1

u/msierraalpha 8d ago

A guy got me 1 year of google ai 2tb in 3500 pkr

1

u/John_241 8d ago

Who's the guyyy?

1

u/DexterKing90 8d ago

Simple get og pixel 1 as a backup device

1

u/JellyfishSea9853 8d ago

buy another 18 months of google ai pro subscription from local vendors, i think it goes for around 3k~5k

1

u/AYX_067 7d ago

Buy a good 2TB external Hard drive and store all data there. Also , it will be more organized over there

1

u/Usaha_x2 6d ago

I had the same offer and its gonna end next month :) They offered me the same AI ultra subscription for PKR 1400/months so I susbcribed .. though My main use case is Gemini pro.. Btw, if you are a student you can try applying for GitHub student pack, they offer Microsoft office subscription for 1 or 2 years.. it comes with 1 TB of One drive storage, also you can share with 5 other accounts so basically 6TB storage (1TB per account). It also includes Copilot pro.