External Hard Drive for Photos: I want to use a 2TB hard drive to store my photos as a backup source. The two external hard drives I have are for backup and automatically want to back...

Old Redeye Loc: San Mateo, CA

I want to use a 2TB hard drive to store my photos as a backup source. The two external hard drives I have are for backup and automatically want to back up my entire hard drive. That's fine for one of the drives, but I want the second just for copying my photos to it for safe-keeping. Anyone know how to get it to stop auto-backup of my entire hard drive? I don't want to waste all that space on other data. The one I want to use is a Seagate GoFer.

MT Shooter Loc: Montana

Old Redeye wrote:

I want to use a 2TB hard drive to store my photos as a backup source. The two external hard drives I have are for backup and automatically want to back up my entire hard drive. That's fine for one of the drives, but I want the second just for copying my photos to it for safe-keeping. Anyone know how to get it to stop auto-backup of my entire hard drive? I don't want to waste all that space on other data. The one I want to use is a Seagate GoFer.

Just do NOT run the backup software. If you have already done that, you might have to reformat the drive, but I am not sure. If you are buying a new one just plug it in, if it pops up a window for the backup software, just decline the installation.

Sing141 Loc: NoWhere, LA

I've had the same problem. You will have to delete the backup software from the external hard drive that you want to just copy your photos to. Then use Windows explorer (or equivalent for your operating system)to move the photos you want to backup to the external hard drive. Some external hard drives come preloaded and automatically want to backup everything on your computer and constantly update the backup. They usually get in the way or slow things down even though they say their backup will stop while you are using the computer.

Some backup software does the same thing and can only be used as a constant backup. "Rebit" is one of these,as is Timeline.

If you use Lightroom you can set it up so that as you load photos to Lightroom it also does a backup to an external hard drive (or a second internal hard drive). I like a backup software called SyncBackPro by a company called 2BrightSparks. It can be set up to backup just what you want backed up and when you want to back it up. They have a 30 day trial version so you can check it out.

sarge69 Loc: Ft Myers, FL

I backup my email and finance files along with photos using a backup program called Acronis. you can choose incremental or differential. It looks at the source and if something has changed, size or names, it backs up to the backup location.

You choose the time frame for the backup.

Sarge

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

Old Redeye wrote:

I want to use a 2TB hard drive to store my photos as a backup source. The two external hard drives I have are for backup and automatically want to back up my entire hard drive. That's fine for one of the drives, but I want the second just for copying my photos to it for safe-keeping. Anyone know how to get it to stop auto-backup of my entire hard drive? I don't want to waste all that space on other data. The one I want to use is a Seagate GoFer.

As Sarge69 said, Acronis is a good backup program that lets you control what files you backup. The advantage of a program like this is that the files become much smaller than the photos on your original drive.

I use Acronis for backing up my important files. I do a backup of My Files, My Pictures, etc. I keep each one as a separate backup.

Old Redeye Loc: San Mateo, CA

Thanks everyone. This drive automatically backed up the entire computer immediately upon being plugged in, without asking. I can't find the application for the backup (I'm guessing it's a hidden file). Do you think formatting it and then installing a controllable backup program (like Acronis) would work. I almost hate to do that. It took more than 5 hours to backup my photos!

jimmya Loc: Phoenix

I use double externals also. It takes a little longer but I don't use backup software, I do it manually. For me that does two things.

One. I keep my original size on all my photos and two I
have full control of what is backed up and what isn't.

It works for me.

The only Seagate software I use for my externals is the controls because I get real tired of the drive shutting down to "sleep" because I keep all my other data on one of them and just backups on the other. I only turn on the second
external when backing up and then shut it down.

Again, it works for me. Good Luck, Jim

brucewells Loc: Central Kentucky

jerryc41 wrote:

The advantage of a program like this is that the files become much smaller than the photos on your original drive.

Just a thought . . . .

While it seems very advantageous to have the backup software compress your files to save space on the backup drive, there are serious caveats.

Software that uses compression will many times use a catalog file that is needed in the event you must restore. Unfortunately, the reason we many times need to restore is because our hard drive crashed, taking with it all those catalogs. Additionally, that now means you MUST have that software to get those files back at all.

I choose not to use compression, or any special handling for that matter. I use SyncBackSE (free) to do a simple copy of files to my backup drives, one of which I keep off-site. I can plug either of those drives into any PC and get directly to the files I need in an uncompressed state. So, if someone slips in and steals my entire computer, I still have my data I can get to from any other PC.

As I say . . . it's just a thought.

English_Wolf Loc: Near Pensacola, FL

Windows has a free backup option. Try it, you will be surprised by its flexibility.
Acronis is good but you need to understand backup policies to make the best use of it. Otherwise you backup disk maybe full of backup files that will quickly stop to make any sense to you. (That goes with almost, if not all serious back-up software titles).

A simple 'Click-select-copy-ignore duplicate' is still the best tool you have. Avoids many pitfalls.

jimmya Loc: Phoenix

Good thinking Bruce, at least as I see it.

We've all had crashes over the years either a hard drive goes down - software fails, virus, you name it.

Sometimes you can restore Windows from the restore function on either XP or 7... I know, I've done it several times as perhaps you have.

However at times it's necessary to start from the ground up. Format the c:\ drive and re-install Windows from the beginning. The time consuming part is re-installing all your programs but I've done it and have been pleased with the out come.

Now comes the big advantage. Every time I've had to do a ground up restore I've just turned off and unplugged my
externals... the computer doesn't know they exist.

After the re-store fire them up and wala - there's all your data just as it was... now that's why I used externals.
Bruce, like you, I don't use software... I just copy / paste all the data and material I wish to back up.

Besides, all my data, including photos, is on an external.
I only use the c:\ for Windows and programs - not data.

MizSchmidlap Loc: Austin, TX

brucewells wrote:

quote=jerryc41 The advantage of a program like th... (show quote)

I have purchased an external hard drive but haven't used it. I'd like to use it for photos and ancestry.com files.... sounds as if your suggestion would be the simplest for me (I need simple.....for a simple mind!)

:mrgreen:

billybob40

THE SIMPLE WAY FOR MY SIMPLE MIND>.
My PC is a 1TB and I have a 1TB exteral havd diver. I down load my photos from a card reader to my PC (dated photo file on the hard dive). Then copy that file, go to my computer look up file the exteral hard drive open it up find the file I would like to put it in and paste it. YOUR DONE.

Old Redeye Loc: San Mateo, CA

brucewells wrote:

quote=jerryc41 The advantage of a program like th... (show quote)

This is actually what my original plan was...to save the new photos to the external HD directly, rather than backup. So, does it make sense to now format that drive and copy the files?

billybob40

I put most on my PC HD, external HD, some on a 500GB ext HD. And some on www.snapshots2010.com (my smugmug.com account). This is what your going to have to work out best for you.

CeriThurston Loc: London, UK

I only ever use explorer to copy my files. I always create a date-stamped directory and then immediately copy that to an external drive before deleting the files from the CF card.

Also, beware of overwriting. Always save to a different (but hopefully connected to the original) file name.

Many programs, including the built-in ones, allow one to take account of the "archive" or "modified" switch on the file. Look at explorer and you can display this.

Sorry to all you Mac users, I only use Windows but I am sure there are similar facilities on the Mac.