Jdrew Loc: Sweden/Cape Coral, FL

Hello and thanks in advance for any help. I bought the My Book external hard drive for my Imac. I am technically challanged and can't seem to figure out how to transfer my images to My book (despite searching the internet). I don't want to copy the images, i want to transfer them and get them off my Imac to free up space? Im sure there is an easy solution to this but i am feeling a little overwhelmed :(

duanes Loc: Madison, Wisconsin

A couple of things. First do you see the ICON on the desk top when you log-in? If not you need to format it for your system to recognize the device as an external drive device. Then its a matter of drag and drop.

wtompkins Loc: Northern Michigan

I transfer mine, and then just delete the ones I've transferred.

Dlevon Loc: New Jersey

Copy them to the My book and then delete them from the Mac. Just make sure that they have been copied to the My book before deleting.

Jdrew Loc: Sweden/Cape Coral, FL

That easy hu? Ok i will try this and thanks for replirs? Jen

Dlevon Loc: New Jersey

If you're really anxious about losing your photos, copy them to a flash drive too or a DVD. It's good to have them, in two separate places!

brucewells Loc: Central Kentucky

You've gotten responses that will remedy your situation, but I wanted to suggest that you go back and get another of these drives and use it as a backup to the one you have. Your stomach cramps really, really badly at the moment you realize that drive just failed and you don't have those photos anywhere else. I personally have 4 copies of all my photos on these drives. One of them stays at my office (away from the house, in case it burns) and I bring it home once a week to perform the backup, then it goes back to the office with me the next morning.

VietVet Loc: Brooklyn, NY

All good responses. I have a MacBook Pro and this is what I do,
After a shoot I transfer my images from camera to an external portable hard drive using Lightroom. I than do some pp in Lightroom than copy them from portable drive to my six terabyte desktop drive, then I remove the images from my camera. when I get to my office the images are than again backed up to a four terabyte drive in the office giving me a total of three sets of my images. I do not store any images on my laptop. A little redundant but if you've ever had a drive crash with all your images you will never let it happen again. I recently had my office drive crash, just bought a new one backed it up with my desktop unit and all is good.

saichiez Loc: Beautiful Central Oregon

Bruce makes an excellent point. Getting the files OFF your iMac does not constitute a back up of the images. You are still at risk if the MyBook fails, which is just as possible as a computer hard drive failure.

Backing up data is NOT about the location of files. It is about the redundancy, or how many copies you have of your files.

Bruce is right that at the very least you need to have another external drive that mirrors the location of your files, if you are storing them OFF the computer to keep the originals.

There is one more tip to be aware of.

When you do post processing on your files, it's best NOT to edit them from the location on the external drive.

When you post process (edit) an image, you should move the file being edited back into your computer, either in a "work" folder or on a second hard drive INSIDE the computer.

Working with a file across an external interface like the one to your MyBook (USB??) slows down the editing because of the constant reads and writes of post processing across a slower interface than the internal bus of the computer.

So, there is nothing wrong with what you are doing because of limited space on your hard drive, you are still not "backing up" your date until you have at least one level of redundancy, which would take a second drive, or other location. Also, if you do your post processing by moving the PP file into the primary hard drive, or a second hard drive on the interface inside your computer, if it is possible to do that with your computer. That may not be possible, but it's a common practice with computers that will accept another internal hard drive.

Suggestion:

Remove all unnecessary programs on your computer. Get the hard drive gleaned down for more space, or consider a larger hard drive in the computer. Then keep your photos on the computer, and use the new MyBook for a "real" backup or redundant copy of your files.

Cost may be a factor, but I agree with Bruce on this. One external drive with your files on it, and no image files in the computer still leaves you at risk for data loss of your files.

I've seen more external drives fail as a result of too much activity over the slower interface (post processing over the slow interface) and the extra circuitry of the electronics in the external drive enclosure. This over 25 years of working on PC's......

I keep my files on my computer for the most part, using a large internal drive

I use three external drives, two synchronized to duplicate, which I rotate at home, and the third kept off site and updated quarterly.

I do not, and will never use Optical Media... CD's or DVD's for archived permanent storage, as well as I will not use Cloud Storage. Again, have seen many lose archived data on those operations. Cloud storage is only as good as the financial stability of the web sites hosting the stored data. Those web site come and go, often without warning and with no access to data post-disappearance.

And YES, I would not tell this story unless I had personally lost data (image files), or clients have lost data, from the closure of web hosts that did not survive on the internet.

My one rule...You cannot pass the responsibility for your data to another party without increasing your risk of loss!!!
:!:

JaiGieEse Loc: Foxworth, MS

When you drag the images from your iMac's internal to the external MyBook drive, OSX will NOT erase the originals from the imac. And it should not. When you're dealing with irreplaceable images, it is always best to be safe rather than sorry. So drag copy the images to the external and then check them to see that they're intact and uncorrupted, THEN erase the original files from your iMac's internal.

Me, I drag-copy my fresh NEF images from the D7000's SD Card to a folder in my Images partition - on my iMac's internal. Then I copy these as DNG to Lightroom. This places the DNG's into a folder in my Lightroom Library folder. At this point, I now have two copies of the original image. Lightroom works on the DNG files, in a non-destructive manner.

Both the Lightroom Library folder and the folder with the NEF files are backed up to my Time machine drive, so now I have four copies of each image.

Once the NEF folder on my external is of a DVD size, I burn them to a DVD ad then I store that disc off-computer, and I remove the NEF folder from my external. This means that in some cases, I have five copies of each image, so long as I carefully maintain my Time Machine backup.

Sounds like a lot of copies, but standard hard drives are manufactured in multiples of terabyte sizes these days and they are relatively inexpensive.

And I've never lost an image.

JaiGieEse Loc: Foxworth, MS

One thing. The internal drive on your computer can fail as easily as can an external drive. It's happened to me. MULTIPLE archived copies, always.

saichiez Loc: Beautiful Central Oregon

Absolutely... All drives are subject to failure. In my experience, externals have more circuitry because of the interface (sometimes very low quality, such as LaCie) added inside the enclosure, and a propensity for overheating, because of the lack of cooling or ventilation IN the enclosure. Spend more money on quality and cooling on externals if you can. (Unfortunately LaCies are very expensive, relative to their "fail rate" )

So, these are my two "fail points" leading me to say that the slower interface, low quality of circuitry and overheating, favor failure of external drive. Otherwise external drives are the same mfrs as used inside the computer, with subsequent no favorable fail rate for the drives themselves.

But you are right to note that internals fail as well. They are the same, but being on the BUS (direct connect to the motherboard) along with cooling fans in the computer, if kept clean, they should last longer. The move to SSD drives removes the moving hardware components, but as new as they are, are still a bit sketchy.

I have had three SSD drive failures in one year. Two on OEM MFR computers and one on a custom built computer with all Intel certified network components.

I never meant to imply that drives inside the computer do not fail. I was referring to the original post and subsequent posts.

This is what makes having REDUNDANCY X 3 or more the key point of backups. You CAN NOT buy a drive that will not fail at some point.... even SSD. The common frailty of all hard drives is that they are engineered and constructed by man, and often used improperly by other men (men being gender neutral in this usage!)

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

Sweden and Florida. Interesting. Sweden in the winter and Florida in the summer? :D

Jdrew Loc: Sweden/Cape Coral, FL

No Jerry, I immigrated to Florida from Sweden 1996 and had lived here ever since. I go back home every year as all my family is still there and I miss it :)

saichiez Loc: Beautiful Central Oregon

Sweden is the best, particularly in the Spring, when the weather warms up and the Halter Tops emerge from the heavy coats.