Photolady2014 Loc: Southwest Colorado

I have a couple questions about storage and computers. Please know I’m not technically inclined, have basic understanding, but don’t know some ok many technical terms etc. My computer is 4TB, but I’m closing in on being full!
First, I have moved many of my folders with my raw files onto an external hard drive and I moved them there through LIghtroom. Meaning I plugged in the 5TB external hard drive and while in LR moved them drag and drop, to the hard drive which moved them off my Mac with the LR edits onto the hard drive. This means if I misplace the hard drive or it goes bad all my Raw files and edits are gone.
Is there a way to put them onto another hard drive as well and have the LR edits as a backup? I’m also thinking I would not mind if the files I have moved onto the external hard drive were a different catalogue. LR keeps telling me my catalogue is too big. No I don’t do different catalogues just one. But for the ones that are on the external hard drive I might consider making them a different catalogue, but don’t know how when they are already on the external HD.

Second question I think I will make another post as it is asking for an EASY program to backup to the cloud. I think my IMac backs up to the cloud, but I have no idea how or where to find my photos and does it back up LT edits? Anyway, I know many back up photos to a cloud. Another post…..

Thanks and be gentle, I know computer minded people get frustrated with those of us who are not…

morkie Loc: Simi Valley CA

Your Mac already has Time Machine for backups. Suggest 2 steps. First get an 8 or 10 Tb external hard drive and backup your 5tb to it with Time Machine. Second look for a cloud backup service such as Backblaze or drive and back up your Mac and 5 tb to the cloud. Research this in you tube etc. easy to do geek squad could help etc.

bsprague Loc: Lacey, WA, USA

There are a lot of ways to manage backups. My choice is a program called "GoodSync". It is an efficient way to update the backup copy drives from your primary drives.

AzPicLady Loc: Behind the camera!

I'm on Windows, not MAC, so this may not be helpful. I don't have a really good back-up system, but it works for me. I find the cloud really slow, as I have thousands of images (as do you, I'm sure). I have lots of 4-5 Tb external drives. I title them as to what's on them. I have one named "Direct Downloads." When I download images from my cameras, the images all go into the folder for that camera on that drive. Then I choose one of my other drives to use for storing and working with those images and download the images to an appropriate folder on that drive. (Now I have two copies.) I open the second copy with LR and do my adjusting and make subfolder for worked images. If I decide to actually do something with any of them (make bookmarks, cards, upload to website, etc.), then those images go to their separate hard drives. For example, I have a bookmark drive, and a "final images" drive from which I upload to my website and/or make large prints. On the Final Images drive, the images are in folders by subject (flowers, cactus, landscapes, etc.). I also purchase large external hard drives that plug into both the computer and power (WD books), and do backups of the individual external hard drives from time to time. That's sort of my last step and one I don't do very often.

I was burglarized some years back, and they stole my computers and ALL of my hard drives. And I was gone for just the day! I get a little paranoid about them now. When I leave for extended periods, I try to hide everything as well as possible. I've even been known to take my externals with me!

The only time I had difficulties moving files was when I tried to do it from inside LR! So if I need to move something, I just do it, then redirect LR as to where the files now reside.

Photolady2014 Loc: Southwest Colorado

Thank you, I do have a LaCie that my time machine backs up to, but it won't have the stuff that is on the external hard drive on it. I'm not sure what you mean by back up my 5TB external to another one via Time Machine....The stuff on the external 5TB is not anywhere on my main computer.

Photolady2014 Loc: Southwest Colorado

I will look into it. Thank you

Photolady2014 Loc: Southwest Colorado

Ok, wow that is a lot of stuff! As you know I have a hard time with what photos are best etc. I don't think I could separate stuff out that well. I just have things by year and some like Yellowstone, Africa and Alaska in their own folders. I have, not recently, but have just put the worked photos onto a couple other hard drives so if the one with the RAW files goes away, I will at least have my worked photos. I have also copied and put some of the RAW folders on other hard drives so I would at least have them, but they would not have any LR edits.

cbtsam Loc: Monkton, MD

I've been using Backblaze for several years now. It's not very complicated, and it can back up all of your hard drives - internal and external - except your operating system - whenever your computer is on and connected to the internet. About two years ago, I experienced a catastrophe: an external drive with my most recent images failed at the same time that my on-site backup drive failed. I nearly lost my mind. Then, I used Backblaze to order the full 4 TB of lost info, and it was delivered on a 4 TB hard drive in less than a week. I'd already purchased new drives, so I send their 4 TB drive back to them and it all cost me next to nothing, just some shipping. It was a pretty difficult week, not really trusting any of it, but then I was magically relieved.

tomc601 Loc: Gilbert, AZ

I'm on MAC. I have 3 external drives. One for Time Machine, one for my photos and the third is a clone of the photos drive. External memory is cheap and easily replaceable.
When I take new photos I import them into Lightroom and have Lightroom add them to my photos drive. My Lightroom catalog lives there as well. I then sync the two photo drives so that everything is backed up and up to date.

jcboy3

My first advice is this: backup backup backup. You need to back up everything. I recommend that you have a backup drive as well as backing up to the cloud.

If you have a 4TB internal drive, and an 8TB external drive for your photos, then get a 12TB drive for backup and partition it into 4TB and 8TB partitions. Then set up automatic backups from the drives to the corresponding partitions. Get a cloud account that will backup up 12 TB, and set it up to automatically back up as well.

Get good quality drives for this; do not get a cheap portable drive. They will fail.

LR is not telling you your catalog is too big; it is telling you that it must be handled differently when it makes its own backups. This is not an issue; you can ignore it.

Personally, I keep my LR catalog on my primary drive, and my photos on a separate drive. The catalog gets lots of changes; the photos change rarely (adding or deleting files, not from edits). Unless you are using separate sidecar files; but those are small and quick/easy to backup.

There are a lot of backup solutions, including Time Machine. Personally, I use Carbon Copy Cloner for disk backups. I schedule backup tasks to occur very late at night, and they will run as soon as I start up if I shut the computer down. But I tend to leave my computer on for extended periods, so that cloud backups run as well.

TriX Loc: Raleigh, NC

Cloud storage from a major provider is the answer. If you have slow internet, pick a service that will let you”seed” the cloud with a loaner HD. Then you only have to upload incremental additions, if you need to restore, you can receive your data on a loaner HD. That would have saved you from the past burglary, and implementing it now will save you from any future one as well as any number of disasters (fire, flood, lightning hits, power surgeries, etc, etc, etc.)

ArcticTrails Loc: Valdez Alaska

[quote=Photolady2014]I have a couple questions about storage”
Take a look at this Scott Kelby video: https://www.bhphotovideo.com/explora/videos/photography/organizing-in-lightroom-with-scott-kelby?BI=572&gad_source=1&gclid=Cj0KCQjwy4KqBhD0ARIsAEbCt6jeY5R9qDTPhDYoWwgrLngo_fstdRH98xhoAVDdzrY-mtB9bbUXe48aAiMhEALw_wcB I think he proposes a pretty good system to keep every thing organized and backed up.

Good luck,
Kai

jims203 Loc: Connecticut

Otherworld computing owc
Sells a dual drive doc that accepts bare sata drives which are less expensive as they are often installed inside a machine. You can copy from one drive to another and also keep a copy off site for safety. Your mac will work fine with them. Owc.com

Red6

I cannot help very much in selecting backups for all your images but I have to ask if you do very much culling of the images you take. If I go on a shoot and take 100+ raw images, I probably cull this to no more than 12-15 that are keepers. During and after post-processing I probably cull that 12-15 down even more.

I know this is hard to do sometimes but there is no reason to keep every image you take. Besides, will you even be able to find a particular image in the thousands of megabytes of images and thousands of files and file folders that you are storing on all those terabyte drives?

I have been shooting seriously now for 10 years or more and I have not even filled up my two terabyte backup drive. Memory storage is pretty cheap now but not free. Besides, things stored and never used, or even remembered, are a waste of your time and money.

I think many of us like to think our images will be viewed and treasured by those who follow. For the majority of us that is probably not the case and our computers and their terabytes of data will probably go to a thrift store or landfill after we are gone.

Hip Coyote

Greetings! 4TB? My computer has 500 gig hard drive and I have a half used 1TB SSD card attached to it....that's it. I back up my catalog to dropbox and keep a copy of my photos on a separate portable ssd drive and I use carbonate to back all that up as well.

While I am sure I do not take the number (and quality!) of photos you take, it is my recommendation that you create a viable file organization protocol for ALL photos THEN use the x and p feature of LR to select the photos you want to keep and those you want to (meaning NEED TO) delete forever. And learn to curate, curate, curate your photos. For instance, how many photos do you have left from your Africa trip? 2 or 3000? If so, that is about 2500 too much. Believe me when I say that only 500, if that, are keepers. Have 50 pics of an elephant in the grass? I guarantee only, maybe, 5 are keepers. Trash the rest.

Get rid of unnecessary files such as when you edit, a tif file is created and then edit again and a second or third tif file is created. The first tif needs to get trashed! Export an edited raw file into a very small jpeg for posting or emailing? Trash it. I am even further starting to curate my pics..artistic photos that I may edit again in the future or I want to work on extensively in LR or Topaz, I keep the raw file. But a snap shot of my wife at dinner on vacation and we have the photo in a book? I keep the jpeg file and am getting rid of the raw files. I will never touch the raw file again, even if I had it in my hard drive. And I assure you my heirs do not want raw files nor do they now what to do with them. (This is all good in theory...I too am a work in progress!)

There are a videos avail on setting up a file structure. I suggest you find one that you like. Write it down, kind of like a mission statement, and adhere to it. LR is a very robust database that allows the user to sort and filter photos in nearly infinite ways. Learn to use and rely on that feature as well.

Good luck.