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Amazon Offers Unlimited Photo Storage For Prime Members

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Amazon is focusing on photo storage by letting its Prime members store as many pictures as they want on the company's cloud servers. The service, called Prime Photos, lets users upload photos from Macs, PCs, iOS, Android and Amazon Fire devices to the cloud and Prime member can also upload their existing collections, starting today.

Amazon Prime is a $99 a year service that provides free two-day shipping for most items ordered and fulfilled directly from Amazon.com. Prime members also get access to Amazon's Prime Instant Video service which, like Netflix, allows for unlimited streaming of movies and TV shows, including some original productions from Amazon Studios, albeit with a smaller library than Netflix. Prime also includes a streaming audio service and the ability to borrow e-books through the Kindle Lending Library.

Prime Photos allows users to upload pictures in their original format "so customers never have to worry about losing the full resolution image," according to Amazon. And you can access photos from PCs, tablets and phones as well as from Amazon's Fire TV and new Fire TV Stick along with PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, and select LG and Samsung smart TVs. Missing from that list are Fire TV competitors Roku, Google's Nexus Player and Chromecast and Apple TV.

Amazon's unlimited photo storage lets you upload from web, mobile or desktopff

Hands-on

I tested the cloud upload service from a PC, the web and an Android phone and it worked like most photo uploading services. On the web or computer, you simply drag a photo or folder to the PC app or web app and it uploads to the cloud server. The mobile app will upload photos automatically as you take them. You can access the photos from the mobile app or the website with photos organized by date.

Prime Photos mobile app displays pictures by date

Advantages of cloud photo storage

In addition to being able to access your pictures from anywhere, the biggest advantage to cloud storage of photos or any other precious files is that you don't have to worry if your device is lost, stolen or destroyed. For the most part, it's actually better than having a local backup on DVDs, CDs or other media because those media are also vulnerable to loss or damage, especially if there is a fire or other disaster.

In addition to Amazon's service, consumers can store photos and other files on Dropbox, Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive and other services but Amazon is one of the few services to offer unlimited storage as part of a package of services.