Using Two Externals for Backup

[shira]

All my picture folders (390gb) are stored on the hard disc so it is also almost full. MY first external disc drive is getting full (Time Machine). So I've purchased and mounted a second external drive. My objective is to move my picture files onto the new external drive so that LR will know that they are now stored on the new external. At that point I would delete them from the hard disc and rely on the backup disc and the second external for storage and backup. This is the solution the Apple folk recommended. They, of course, did not say how to do the transfers.
I am not an advance computer player so any help would be greatly appreciated,
David

 

[erro]

I don't use Mac myself, but isn't Time Machine itself a backup? Meaning: you probably don't want to move your originals to your backup disk? Because then you don't have a backup?

Or are you planning on using you existing Time Machine disk as your new working disk? And then use the new external disk as your new Time Machine backup disk?

Either way: moving photos when using LR should be done from inside LR.

 

[clee01l]

All my picture folders (390gb) are stored on the hard disc so it is also almost full. ... I've purchased and mounted a second external drive. My objective is to move my picture files onto the new external drive so that LR will know that they are now stored on the new external. At that point I would delete them from the hard disc ...

Welcome to the forum.

Time machine is your backup. The second External HD is your "expansion" drive. Calling it a backup is not proper terminology. You can mount this drive in OSX and use the LR folder panel to located it. Then use the folder panel to move the files from your Pictures folder on the local drive to a new folder on your expansion drive. That would be the simplest but might be time consuming if you have 390GB of images.

Or you can mount the expansion drive in OSX and copy the Pictures folder to the expansion drive. If you have a parent folder for your LR images in Pictures, you can just temporarily rename is before starting LR . LR will then report "Missing Files and Folders" and you can reorient LR to point to the Expansion drive location of the copied parent folder.

If Time Machine external is getting full, you may need to replace the HD inside with a larger one. The problem will only get worse as you start to fill up the new expansion drive.

 

[shira]

two externals

I am not sure I understand what you are saying; how do you use the LR folder panel to locate the expansion drive? How do you use the folder panel to move the file etc etc.?

Welcome to the forum.

Time machine is your backup. The second External HD is your "expansion" drive. Calling it a backup is not proper terminology. You can mount this drive in OSX and use the LR folder panel to located it. Then use the folder panel to move the files from your Pictures folder on the local drive to a new folder on your expansion drive. That would be the simplest but might be time consuming if you have 390GB of images.

Or you can mount the expansion drive in OSX and copy the Pictures folder to the expansion drive. If you have a parent folder for your LR images in Pictures, you can just temporarily rename is before starting LR . LR will then report "Missing Files and Folders" and you can reorient LR to point to the Expansion drive location of the copied parent folder.

If Time Machine external is getting full, you may need to replace the HD inside with a larger one. The problem will only get worse as you start to fill up the new expansion drive.

 

[clee01l]

• On the Folder panel header right side is a (+). Click on it and a context menu opens
• Choose {Add Folder...} from the menu
• In the OS system dialog that opens navigate to the folder in the expansion drive that you want to be the parent folder for all of your folders that are currently showing in the Folder view of the local drive.
• Choose this folder, Click OK and it then shows up in your Folder panel view along side your local drive folders.
• If you only have one parent folder showing in the Folder panel view of your local drive, the rest is easy.
• If not, just repeat the following step until all folders are moved to the expansion drive.
• Final Step: In LR, drag (and drop) the parent folder(s) from their loaction on the local drive to the new location on the expansion drive.

 

[shira]

Thanks

Cletus;
Thanks, it worked!! Appreciate your efforts, including "the correct terminology".
David

• On the Folder panel header right side is a (+). Click on it and a context menu opens
• Choose {Add Folder...} from the menu
• In the OS system dialog that opens navigate to the folder in the expansion drive that you want to be the parent folder for all of your folders that are currently showing in the Folder view of the local drive.
• Choose this folder, Click OK and it then shows up in your Folder panel view along side your local drive folders.
• If you only have one parent folder showing in the Folder panel view of your local drive, the rest is easy.
• If not, just repeat the following step until all folders are moved to the expansion drive.
• Final Step: In LR, drag (and drop) the parent folder(s) from their loaction on the local drive to the new location on the expansion drive.

 

[57Andrew]

I am looking at a similar issue. My HD is filling up so I have connected an external HD (1 TB) and started using this for new images. I also copied all my old images to this drive but left them on the built in HD too so I don't have to redirect. I back up my built in HD using TM to a separate external HD - have been doing this for 2 years without problem. What I want to do now is back up all the incremental files on the new external HD to a 2nd external HD. I explored this in a Flickr Forum and people were very helpful but I am not convinced that I have a workable solution yet. I found one possible route, I thought, here: http://blog.mattbostock.com/post/13166170399/lightroom-tip-backup-your-photo-archive-with-lr3s
This seems to use the Publish feature in LR3 to archive work and updates when you republish. However having re-read it I think this only works from the built in HD to an external HD, not between two external HDs. Can I adapt this method or is there a simple work around I can use?

 

[shira]

Two Externals

57Andrew;
A very large large word of caution. This was probably the worst undertaking I've gone through. Nothing was straightforward, logical or clear. I followed Cletus, Clee01's advice and direction. It did work, after a fashion. I had to manually moved each file to the expansion disc and coordinate it/synch with LR. It was and is a horror. In the end, I did get what I wanted but with excrutiating pain. What I do remember is creating a new folder IN LR on the expansion disc and then moved all the sub folder to it. I have a catalogue for each year, one for vacations and one for my portfolio. All the shoot events are located within the catalogues. But I now have duplicates of each catalogue and I can't tell which is the most current except by manual checking. Pure awful nonesense.
So best of luck.
David

 

[57Andrew]

Thanks for the warning, David. I am extremely cautious because I wouldn't know how to undo a mess if I created one. I am still considering the best route to go.

Andrew

 

[clee01l]

Andrew, Is it your intention to keep all of your original images on the external 1TB HD? I don't think using a HD publish service as a BU facilitator is a very good way to manage backups of your master images. First it is a manual process and you need to remember to press the {Publish} button to run it. Second, I think it creates a lot of overhead in LR. Utilizing a complete 'real' system wide backup is really the the route that you ought to be taking.
By leaving the old images on the built in HD so you don't have to redirect is really creating more problems than it solves.

Here's my approach: I keep my most recent images (the ones likely to get current attention in LR) on the (fastest) internal HD. The images that are older than three months or so are located on an External USB drive with a volume name of "Archive". All of these are managed in one master catalog and both drives show up in my Folder panel.

I've been an iMac owner for about 1 week, 15 minutes ago, i initiated my first TimeMachine to a USB External HPFS 1TB HD it is not big enough to hold my backup of my internal HD and 269GB of older master images stored on my External USB drive with a volume name of "Archive". Soon I'll figure out how to use Time Machine to manage both the StartUp volume and the volume labeled "Archive" Probably by the time this thread comes to completion, we will both know how to achieve the same backup solution.

BTW, Did I provide an answer when you posted in the Flickr LR group?

 

[57Andrew]

BTW, Did I provide an answer when you posted in the Flickr LR group?

Not that I can see but there were some helpful ideas but then I see disagreements between other forum members and it makes me nervous. I was hoping to find a simple(r) solution here.

I was not planning to keep all my images on the external HD. I was planning to leave the old ones where they are. I am so nervous about messing things up I don't want to get into having to redirect LR incase I lose the connection completely and there are 12,000 images filed by date so it would be a big exercise.

I hope you are right, Cletus, that a solution will flow from this thread. When I asked I did not realize it was so complicated.

Best wishes,

Andrew

 

[clee01l]

then I see disagreements between other forum members and it makes me nervous. I was hoping to find a simple(r) solution here.

The very nature of the current computing environment is that there are always going to be a multi directional approach to the final solution to a problem. Lightroom is not a "one size fits all" application. And online advisors are like attorneys, there's always n+1 opinions.

FWIW, I managed to exclude enough of my "Archive" USB External HD to include it in TimeMachine's backup schedule. So, I now have all of my critical data being backed up with TimeMachine.

I would encourage you to move your older images to the EHD, keeping just the more recent (and most active) images on the faster local drive. And dedicating the other 1TB EHD exclusively to TimeMachine. It is not complicated. I have over 14000 images on my "Archive" volume and 647 on my local startup drive.
My "Archive" folders started out on my Windows C:\ drive, were moved to a NAS drive and then back to a second internal windows Drive (A:\). When I got the iMac last week, I first put the 'Archive' folders on the local startup drive alongside the current work in "pictures". That filled up my 1TD startup drive so I then moved the 'Archive" folders off to the 1TB USB that I attached to the iMac to free up space. As you can see, those 14000 original images have been around. And with a RAID1 NAS server, there has always been redundancy.

If you would like I will help you set up your HDs to maximise your storage spage utilization and facilitate your LR workflow.

 

[57Andrew]

Hi Cletus, this is very kind of you. I have moved all my images to the external HD so the only argument for keeping them on the internal drive is a) avoiding having to redirect LR. I may do a test with an old folder and see if that works. As I have the folders arranged chronologically I am hoping that if I delete the folder January 2011 off the internal drive I only need to redirect to this file on the external HD i.e. all the dated (day by day) sub-folders automatically follow. That is a much more manageable task and less intimidating to me. Does that work for a start? I would still have a back up of the work to date because I have backed up regularly on TM but I would then not have any future work backed up until I back up the archive drive and I am still trying to get my head around whether TM would back up both the local drive and the archive drive because the 2nd external HD is only 1TB and I read that you need double the disc capacity for TM to function well. This has been fine to date as my 2+ year old macbook pro has a 500GB local drive and my old back up drive is 1TB. I would effectively have 1.5TB of local + archive but only 1TB of the TM back-up. Does this make sense :-(
Thanks for your help. Very much appreciated.

Andrew

 

[erro]

But what is the point in having copied the images from internal to external, if you still have them on the internal, and LR is still using the internal? What are those images on the external used for?

 

[57Andrew]

But what is the point in having copied the images from internal to external, if you still have them on the internal, and LR is still using the internal? What are those images on the external used for?

To have all the images archived in one location. Ideally I would remove them from the internal HD but am loathe to delete them without being sure I can reconnect LR to the moved images. i would then have the archive backed up to the second external HD - which is what I am trying to achieve. End result, a local drive that has much more free capacity and hopefully runs a lot faster than it does now. In any case at the rate I am going the local drive will fill up this year.

 

[Jim Wilde]

If you have the same folder hierarchy duplicated on the external drive, simply Ctrl-click on the top level folders showing in the Folders Panel and choose "Update Folder Location" and in the resulting browser window find the equivalent folder on the external drive, select it and click OK. Repeat for any other top level folders. Job done. Delete files from the internal at your (later) convenience.

N.B. If your folder hierarchy has a single top level folder, make sure it's showing in the Folders Panel (Ctrl-click on next level down and choose Add Parent Folder if needed), and do the Update Folder Location on that single folder and all the rest will be sorted automatically.

 

[clee01l]

To have all the images archived in one location. Ideally I would remove them from the internal HD but am loathe to delete them without being sure I can reconnect LR to the moved images.

As I said in my earlier post, the bulk of my LR images have been moved at least 5 times to different drives without incident. I am so certain that you can reconnect the images without a fear that I volunteered to help walk you through it. Jim has described in his post how to do it painlessly.

So 'dive-in', the waters fine!

 

[erro]

To have all the images archived in one location. Ideally I would remove them from the internal HD but am loathe to delete them without being sure I can reconnect LR to the moved images. i would then have the archive backed up to the second external HD - which is what I am trying to achieve. End result, a local drive that has much more free capacity and hopefully runs a lot faster than it does now. In any case at the rate I am going the local drive will fill up this year.

Well, right now you have two copies of your photos. Your originals (that LR refers to) on your internal. And extra copies on your external. These extra on the external are however not used in any way? LR doesn't know about them? So if you for some reason decide to do anything to your originals in LR (rename for example) that will be done on the photos on your internal disk. So then your "backups" on the external no longer match your originals on the internal.

As others said: bite the bullet and redirect LR to look at the photos on the external disk. Originals should only be in one place, and right now you have some strange mixup of originals and backups in different places.

Once you have all photos where you want them to be, then make sure you have a backup strategy to back everything up. Original photos, LR catalog file(s), other important documents and whatever.

 

[57Andrew]

If you have the same folder hierarchy duplicated on the external drive, simply Ctrl-click on the top level folders showing in the Folders Panel and choose "Update Folder Location" and in the resulting browser window find the equivalent folder on the external drive, select it and click OK. Repeat for any other top level folders. Job done. Delete files from the internal at your (later) convenience.

N.B. If your folder hierarchy has a single top level folder, make sure it's showing in the Folders Panel (Ctrl-click on next level down and choose Add Parent Folder if needed), and do the Update Folder Location on that single folder and all the rest will be sorted automatically.

When I do this it says : The selected folder or one of its subfolders is already in Lightroom. Do you want to merge these folders?

The options are Cancel or Merge.

Do I merge?

Thanks,

Andrew

 

[clee01l]

When I do this it says : The selected folder or one of its subfolders is already in Lightroom. Do you want to merge these folders?

The options are Cancel or Merge.

Do I merge?

Thanks,

Andrew

I think the answer to that is Yes, but I'd be more comfortable saying that if I could see a screen shot of your folders panel showing the top level folders on C: (the older images) and your EHD containing the newer images. Here is mine for an example: Note that I have a 2011 folder in both the Local HD and the "Archive" EHD. If I were to copy the contents of the "2011" folder from the local drive using Finder (Like you did), and then proceeded to use LR to "Find Folder" I would get an option to cancel or merge. Merge would be the valid response

 

[57Andrew]

Here are the 2 screenshots: First the internal HD. I Control clicked on Lightroom Pictures which contains the whole file hierarchy. This is not the full image but shows how the sub-folders are under LP and then by date in each sub-folder.



The External HD looks like this:



Essentially this is an exact mirror of the local HD.

There are files on the external HD that do NOT sit on the local drive - they have been added since I bought the new HD ten days ago and stopped adding new files to the local drive. As an example the folder iPhone images is on my EHD but not my local HD.

Regards,

Andrew

 

[Jim Wilde]

So, just to confirm (as we can't see it from your Folders Panel screenshot), the external drive already appears in the Folders Panel? If so, could you retake the screenshot after collapsing the Lightroom Pictures hierarchy on the internal drive so that we can see the external drive as well?

Also, when you did the 'Update Folder Location' command, which folder on the internal drive did you select?

 

[57Andrew]

Jim,

here is the local drive collapsed but showing both it and the new drive I captioned Photos Red. I clicked on Lightroom Pictures on the Macintosh HD when I got the response.



Thanks again,

Andrew

 

[Jim Wilde]

Thanks. Presumably when you Ctrl-click on any of those sub-folders on Photos Red and choose "Add Parent Folder", and repeat as needed, you'll get to the point that they'll all be listed under Lightroom pictures? If so, this explains the 'Merge' message....so I would take a catalog backup as a pre-merge restore point in case something goes wrong, then proceed with the merge.

 

[57Andrew]

Ok Jim, I have backed up the catalogue and done "add parent folder". I am not sure how long the merge will take but in for a penny.... should I then end up in the desired position of all the files merged on to the external HD and the local drive with all the files removed and not duplicated?

Thanks

Andrew