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External HD full all my photos are stored - using new Ext HD not moving files

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Neptoone

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Mar 3, 2011
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I could use some help please. I have Google it over and over, but I'm still getting the wrong responses. I either get How to "Move" and not "Copy" the files, or moving from an Int HD to and an Ex HD.

My current situation is as follows:
I use an Ext HD exclusively to stored all of my photos, using LR 4. The Ext. HD is now full, and I have decided that it would be best to Copy the all "photo folders", to the new Ext HD. Please note I said copy, not move

I am using Lightroom 4. I have over 5k images in my photo folder. I shoot mostly RAW, but also combination of other format as well. Yes, I do have back up copy (s). But this is very critical to me I don't want to jeopardize the current workflow, or having any difficulty getting access to my photos using LR 4 once I copy the photos to the "New Ext. HD". Thanks for all your help
 
If you want to Copy then your only option is to use the filesystem Copy function in Explorer/Finder. Then you will need to relink the image folders in the LR Folder panel to the new copy.
In LR you can only relocate (Move) images to a different folder. Lightroom uses the same filesystem file functions (Move, Rename or Delete) that is used by Explorer/Finder. Copy is not an option in LR since LR can only reference an image in one location. There is nothing in a MOVE operation to jeopardize your file whether you use Explorer/Finder or LR to do the move. A filesystem MOVE function is two filesystem function — COPY followed by DELETE. So, your filesystem always makes sure that your data is safe at the new location before deleting it from the old location.
 
If you copy images from one disk to another you always copy them. Moving them would mean you delete the images from the current disk after copying. The question is why you ask this. Do you want Lightroom to manage both copies? That would not be a good idea, because that would mean that every image has a duplicate for no reason at all. Do you want to 'reconnect' Lightroom to the images on the new disk? That is a standard procedure. Right-click on the top folder in Lightroom, choose 'Update Folder Location' and navigate to the folder on the new disk. Select it and you're done.
 
Your strategy to copy all the images from one HD to the new HD is, I believe, the safest way start using a new larger HD. While you can use the operating system to accomplish this the error detection is minimal in both MacOS and Windows. I would suggest that you may want to invest in a file copy tool such as ChronoSync for the Mac that has the option to verify files as it copies. I think an equivalent for Windows is SyncToy.

Just a technical note on the underlying move operation. As you note Lightroom implements the OS move command when you drag and drop between folders. There is a big difference when the source and target are on the same or different hard drives. When the source and target are on the same HD only the filesystem pointers are changed and the underlying data is not touched. This is why in LR you can move a large number of images very quickly.

However, if the source and target are on different hard drives the move command has to first copy each file to the target and then delete it on the destination. And in if done from Lightroom the catalog has to be updated. This is a long and complicate process especially if you try to do it for all of your whole images. If this process is interrupted for any reason it can lead to problems. This is the reason that when moving to a new HD it is always recommended to copy your images first, preferably using a validated copy method, and then tell Lightroom where your images are now located.

It would be helpful if you were to update your forum profile with at least the OS and LR versions that you are currently running so that we can better target our responses.

-louie
 
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