bettis1 Loc: Texas

I've recently moved my images from my MacBook Pro (OSX Yosemite 10.10.5) to an external SSD. I am looking for software to backup that ext. drive to another ext. drive. I have looked on line at Carbon Copy Cloner, Chronosync, Vice Versa Pro, and SyncBack. I would be interested in anyone's experience with any of them or, if you have another which works well for you, I would appreciate your views.

Thanks,
Bob

blackest Loc: Ireland

remote sync, rsync, is a reliable choice for copying large amounts of data. You can prepare the command and perform a dry-run before committing to the copy; add --dry-run to simulate the copy.

Your final command will be fairly simple:

sudo rsync -vaE --progress /Volumes/SourceName /Volumes/DestinationName
The flags are:

v increases verbosity.
a applies archive settings to mirror the source files exactly, including symbolic links and permissions.
E copies extended attributes and resource forks (OS X only).
progress provides a count down and transfer statistics during the copy.
sudo, is used to ensure rsync has appropriate rights to access and read all files on your drive regardless of owner. This also allows rsync to write the files to the new drive recreating the original owner information.

rsync is likely the best choice because it can be rerun in case of problems, offers detailed logging, and is as fast as can be while remaining safe.

OSX comes with an outdated version of rsync which does not support all the switches that the GNU version has. There is a more modern version in homebrew which can be installed with

brew install https://raw.github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-dupes/master/rsync.‌​rb

This uses the Terminal on OSX but its not that difficult

If you look at your Mac harddrive in finder you will see a bunch of folders for example one is called Users and inside that will be your home directory in that pictures movies downloads and the rest of your folders.

One folder in your mac hard drive is called volumes and this is where osx mounts your external drives

sudo rsync -vaE --progress /Volumes/SourceName /Volumes/DestinationName

your external drives can be called anything you like but lets call the sourcedrive peter and your files are in a folder called lightroom we will call the destination mary its easier if your drives are not called noname as that can be confusing.

so you want to backup the folder called lightroom on peter to lightroom on mary

sudo rsync -vaE --progress /Volumes/peter/lightroom /Volumes/mary/lightroom

sudo asks for root privileges so you will be asked for your password in this case you probably will not need sudo
so

rsync -vaE --progress /Volumes/peter/lightroom /Volumes/mary/lightroom

is probably fine.
and your copy will begin the --progress option will tell you what it is doing.

rsync is like copy but more powerful for one thing if a copy command stops for some reason you may not be sure what has been copied and what hasn't copy will overwrite files even when the file in the destination is the same as the source.

rsync is smart it check sums the files it transfers over and can compress them so it passes less bits over and unpacks them on the destination drive, not that there is much point with a local file system it helps a lot when transfering files between servers.

if rsync stops running the command again it picks up where it left off and if a file already exists in the destination it skips over that one and moves on to the next. If you have a 1000 GB of photo's this will take some time.

now the really clever bit if in a weeks time you have added say around 2 GB of photo's to your source drive if you issue the exact same command
1000 GB of photo's is already on the destination these will be skipped and just the 2GB of files will be copied over. If you edit a file on your source drive and save it when rsync gets to that file it see's it has changed and copies just that 1 changed file.

you can run that as and when you feel like daily, weekly, monthly and each time it will sync the backup folder with your source folder.

google rsync for further details

bsprague Loc: Lacey, WA, USA

Add GoodSync to your list. For free, is Microsoft's SyncToy. There was a thread going here about a week ago on syncing software.

Be sure you not only back up your photo files, but also the Lightroom files that have your adjustment work in them. The procedures are a little different, but you need both if you have a full disaster.

Gene51 Loc: Yonkers, NY, now in LSD (LowerSlowerDelaware)

I am on a PC and have been using syncback since forever. Version 1. It always works as expected. So do other automated applications, and a simple manual drag and drop. What's nice about the automated ones is that it looks at the archive bit in each file and copies/syncs/backs up only the files that have been changed/added and when syncing, deleted, since the last time you ran it.

ejrmaine Loc: South Carolina

Bob, why not use Time Machine? It will back up your MacBook Pro and your external drive and it's free.

bettis1 Loc: Texas

ejr,
Sorry that I didn't mention that I am using Time Machine. I just wanted another level of redundancy. I was using Carbonite but when I moved the image files to the ext. drive I discovered that they don't include even a single ext. drive in their personal program. You have to purchase their Carbonite Pro to get that service so I am just exploring the options for securing another possibility.
Bob

Martino Loc: Northwest Florida

I used Carbonite, but as you found, they did not include external drives. I switched to Backblaze which I've found to be very good.

whitewolfowner

Use time machine, it is already on your computer, comes with the operating system. It is the clock image at the top right of your screen next to the speaker icon.

bettis1 Loc: Texas

Thanks. But see above. I am using Time Machine.

Bob

davidcaley Loc: Utah

I use Carbon Copy Cloner for backing up external hard drives with images for years. I also use it to clone my MacMini periodically for safety reasons.

Dngallagher Loc: Wilmington De.

on my Mac, I make use of the following to backup my externally stored lightroom files:

Time Machine
CrashPlan
Chronosync

Time Machine of course is the free software built into OS X, I get a backup of everything on my Mac, including my external disks to an external Time Machine 4 TB disk connected via USB 3.0 interface

Crashplan is a cloud based backup that backs up everything on my Mac, including all my external drives (except for my Time Machine disk of course)

Chronosync I use automatically daily to keep my music files backed up from one external to another, and monthly to keep a mirrored copy of all my Lightroom images, the monthly copy gets disconnected and stored in a fireproof box. I have Chronosync set to launch the monthly backup whenever I connect the monthly external drive. It is very quick & efficient.

I have had Chronosync for some time and used it on several Mac's now - it has never failed me.

bettis1 Loc: Texas

Thanks to everyone who has responded. It sounds like we have a number of good applications to choose from. My wish is that, at the end of this day of Thanksgiving, one of the small things for which you can thankful is that you haven't had to activate the "restore" function of your chosen program.

Bob

Dngallagher Loc: Wilmington De.

crphoto8 Loc: Anaheim, California

I'm using Microsoft's SyncToy which I installed just the other day based on a recommendation in a recent topic here.
It's free, easy to use, intuitive. I'm backing up data, mostly images from internal drives to external ones including right now to the WD MyCloud.
I like it, each backup is clearly named (Images E to N, for example) so there's no confusion. I have plenty of images so the backups take a long time
but this is a one time event. Later on the software will just update whatever has changed.

Dickwood33 Loc: Alberta, Canada

l use Sync Toy which is a Microsoft program. Read the directions carefully. I do backups manually periodically. Work's like a charm.