Before launching my portfolio website, I have decided to move my media over to Amazon S3. There are a lot of advantages in letting my media files reside on S3 instead of my current web server.

1. Better Performance – my webserver slows down from time to time but I love the company too much to leave them and go somewhere else. Storing media on S3 gives me overall better performance since their servers are built very strong. I get better download and upload speeds using S3
2. Simplicity – I like the idea of keeping large media files like video separate. In the past I’ve been tempted to store client videos on my webserver, but due to bandwidth and space issues, I’ve had to resort to using another service(dropbox) to share these videos.
3. Cheaper – With my current web hosting plan, I have limited space. Video is what takes up the most space in my plan. If I move all of that over, downgrade web hosting plans I will actually be saving money. Yes, there is an added cost to using S3 but I have calculated it to be a few dollars less. It would be more than a few dollars if I upgrade my current hosting plan to provide more space.

Aside from those advantages mentioned above. The major thing I’ll be using Amazon S3 for backup. I already backup all my local files to timemachine(sync toy on windows) but in the event of a fire or theft, both my local copy and backup will be gone. I needed a 3rd backup option that is offsite and a “cloud” backup solution is perfect. I will not be storing anything heavy, just the most important files that are quick to change.