Saving all photos to one drive: Organizing photos six or seven hard drives into one. the best program or way to organize and many duplicates I have YEAR,MONTH,DAY,TOPIC eg 2020-12-27...

john glinske Loc: Penna 19040

Organizing photos six or seven hard drives into one.
the best program or way to organize and many duplicates
I have
YEAR,MONTH,DAY,TOPIC
eg
2020-12-27 HappyBirthdayMOM
a lot of pictures on 6 drives and many duplicates
need a safe, sure way of transferring all to one drive

11bravo

john glinske wrote:

Organizing photos six or seven hard drives into one.
the best program or way to organize and many duplicates
I have
YEAR,MONTH,DAY,TOPIC
eg
2020-12-27 HappyBirthdayMOM
a lot of pictures on 6 drives and many duplicates
need a safe, sure way of transferring all to one drive

I recommend the freeware version of TeraCopy

https://www.codesector.com/teracopy

Turn on verification; it will do hashes to make sure the copy is identical. Note: Copy copies all the files, then does the verify, leaving the originals in place. Move does the verify individually, verifying then deleting the original if and only if the hashes match.

Any problem files will not stop the copy/move; errors are written to a log so you can correct later. Being once burnt by a windows explorer copy that didn't, I've used Teracopy for over a decade. I use it every day to move files around.

For identifying duplicates, I use Heatsoft Clone Cleaner Lite 2.01

http://www.clonecleaner.com/

I have both a paid version and the freeware version (Lite is the freeware). Paid will find duplicates across drives, Lite only works on one drive. It uses hashes to find exact duplicates (clones), and I really appreciate its SmartMark capability.

Screenshots of Clone Cleaner:

https://www.uglyhedgehog.com/tpr?p=11375407&t=654553

https://www.uglyhedgehog.com/tpr?p=11509403&t=661642

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

I organize by subject. I can never remember when I did what, but I can remember the what.

Consolidation is time consuming.

ncribble Loc: Albuquerque, NM

John you and I are close in title. Mine would be 20201024.Location(i.e.ABQ).Mom'sBirthday. My mind works in years so it is quick to reference.

photoman022 Loc: Manchester CT USA

I don't know of a program that will do it, but be sure to have more than one external drive. They will eventually fail and you want more than one when that happens.

DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

Longshadow wrote:

I organize by subject. I can never remember when I did what, but I can remember the what...

+1

JOHNERIKSSON Loc: CENTRAL WISCONSIN

DONT DO IT. Your pictures are a lot safer on multiple drives. Make a copy sure, there are lots of programs to remove duplicates, but dont erase your hard drives

Picture Taker Loc: Michigan Thumb

Now that you put them on one drive. Take an other hard drive and duplicate it. You should have it backed up if a drive fails you may not be able to recover all. All drives fail sooner or later. Most may out last us, but if they don't you have a copy to back up again.

DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

JOHNERIKSSON wrote:

DONT DO IT. Your pictures are a lot safer on multiple drives. Make a copy sure, there are lots of programs to remove duplicates, but dont erase your hard drives

Your photos (and other files) will be safe on one working drive as long as you duplicate everything onto additional drives for backup/archival purposes. Cloud storage is recommended in addition to local storage for enhanced safety. Local storage should be primary.

https://www.uglyhedgehog.com/user-page?upnum=2995

Kozan Loc: Trenton Tennessee

john glinske wrote:

Organizing photos six or seven hard drives into one.
the best program or way to organize and many duplicates
I have
YEAR,MONTH,DAY,TOPIC
eg
2020-12-27 HappyBirthdayMOM
a lot of pictures on 6 drives and many duplicates
need a safe, sure way of transferring all to one drive

Once you reach a certain limit, one drive will ask for money. That's why I stopped using One Drive and DropBox. If you are happy paying for the extra space, have at it.

DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

Kozan wrote:

Once you reach a certain limit, one drive will ask for money. That's why I stopped using One Drive and DropBox. If you are happy paying for the extra space, have at it.

The OP planned to merge several drives into one.
Not the same as using OneDrive.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

JOHNERIKSSON wrote:

DONT DO IT. Your pictures are a lot safer on multiple drives. ...

Really?
I keep them all in one top level directory for ease of access (organization), and they are all backed up in three places.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

DirtFarmer wrote:

The OP planned to merge several drives into one.
Not the same as using OneDrive.

One as in "single".

Picture Taker Loc: Michigan Thumb

I do my storage on two drives as taken, by date (201014 today) then after processing I have another storage (2 duplicating drives) by title. The title system is as we use to file in a filing cabinet (Barns, or state or family etc.)
The date I must admit I only went back to once, when I remembered a shoot from way back that I wanted to revisit (it was interesting to see the good and the bad from shooting years earlier, It was a great re-trip seen my old to new skills)
THE MOST IMPORTANT POINT IS HAVE TWO SETS< WE NEED BACK UP-- IM lost a drive abbot 20 years ago with no back up/

DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA

Longshadow wrote:

One as in "single".

One drive ≠ OneDrive