# Should I keep my Lightroom Catalog Backup on a separate drive?



## John Cicchine (Aug 23, 2021)

Hello,

I recently saw a video on YouTube stating that it is best if I store my Catalog Backup on a seperate drive from the drive where I keep my catalog. Currently I store my photos on 2 external hard drives and my catalog and the catalog backup on a 3rd. external hard drive sperate from where my photos are stored. But this video states that it is better to put the catalog backup on a 4th. seperate external hard drive. My questions are as follows...

-Since all 3 of my external hard drives are backed up to another hard drive using "Super Duper" to copy each drive and I am in the process of backing the drives up to the cloud with 
 "Backblaze" am I not already safe if there were to be a problem?

-In the video it shows where to tell Lightroom to store my Catalog Backup (see screenshot) so I know how to do that but should I change my location first then let Lightroom backup to
 the new location and then move the existing backups to the new location or should I move my existing backups first to the new location then have Lightroom do a new backup to the new 
 location? 

-How do I move my existing backups to the new location and make sure that Lightroom knows where they are located? Should I open 2 Finder Windows and click and drag the existing 
 backups to the new folder in the new hard drive or is there something else I need to do? 

-If I change the location of my catalog backups will Lightroom know to automatically relocate my existing backups without me having to move them manually myself? 

I am running Mojave 10.14.6

I included several screenshots that show my Catalog Backup structure. It me look a bit messy but that is the best I can do so far. I have at least one or two other catalogs that may be corrupted and I need to locate some photos in a few other catalogs I was previously using but I plan to do that at a future date. Any help on this thread I posted is as always greatly
 appreciated. Thank You Very Much.

John


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## Jim Wilde (Aug 23, 2021)

It obviously makes more sense to have the catalog backups on a different drive to the original catalog, as you would have immediate access to the backups in the event of a failure of the original drive.

There's no reason why that separate drive shouldn't be one of the images drives, if you have the space I'd think using a 4th drive would be overkill.

If you do decide to transfer the catalog backup from the current catalog drive, it makes no difference if you move the existing backups before you switch or after you switch. Classic does not manage catalog backups, or remember previous catalog backup locations, so moving existing backups is entirely a manual user thing (i.e. if you change the backup destination drive when you exit Classic and make a backup, Classic will not know that you have a bunch of existing backups in the old location, so it will forget the old location and will simply start using the new location).


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## John Cicchine (Aug 23, 2021)

Hi Jim,

Thank You Very Much for the information. I guess I will purchase another external hard drive and change my backup location to a folder on that drive as soon as I can. I really appreciate your help.

John


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## clee01l (Aug 23, 2021)

I have several old volumes that might be 10 or more years old.  They have not failed yet.  Sometime back I decided tp put them to use to hold  Lightroom Backup files and "Make a second copy..." files.   I hopefully should never need these files.  So, if these disks crash it won't be a great loss.  It is unlikely that the master volumes would fail  and need a catalog back up at the same time the backup volume fails. 
The reasoning is that I can let the (1TB) volumes fill up and not need to manage the backups up till the disk is full.   Over the years, I have accumulated about 8 such disks.  I would not trust any disk over 5 years old for critical user data, and at 1TB in size they are too small to serve their original purpose.   You may have some similar SATA disks kicking around that you could use for this purpose.


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## Johan Elzenga (Aug 23, 2021)

John Cicchine said:


> Hi Jim,
> 
> Thank You Very Much for the information. I guess I will purchase another external hard drive and change my backup location to a folder on that drive as soon as I can. I really appreciate your help.
> 
> John


Jim just explained that it sounds like overkill to purchase a 4th drive just for your catalog backups...


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## Denis de Gannes (Aug 23, 2021)

I save my Catalog backups in a specific sub folder within My Pictures folder. All my image files are stored in the My Pictures folder which is backed up via ChronoSync Express on to an external drive.  The external drive is copied regularly to a second external drive.


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## John Cicchine (Aug 24, 2021)

clee01l said:


> I have several old volumes that might be 10 or more years old.  They have not failed yet.  Sometime back I decided tp put them to use to hold  Lightroom Backup files and "Make a second copy..." files.   I hopefully should never need these files.  So, if these disks crash it won't be a great loss.  It is unlikely that the master volumes would fail  and need a catalog back up at the same time the backup volume fails.
> The reasoning is that I can let the (1TB) volumes fill up and not need to manage the backups up till the disk is full.   Over the years, I have accumulated about 8 such disks.  I would not trust any disk over 5 years old for critical user data, and at 1TB in size they are too small to serve their original purpose.   You may have some similar SATA disks kicking around that you could use for this purpose.


Hi clee,

Good to hear from you. So Lightroom has a "Make a second copy of files" option? I assume it's in the Library Module. If I am wrong please let me know. I will check it out next time I open Lightroom. I wish I had an olser disk that I could use but I don't but thank you for your advice. 

John


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## John Cicchine (Aug 24, 2021)

Johan Elzenga said:


> Jim just explained that it sounds like overkill to purchase a 4th drive just for your catalog backups...


Hi Johan,

Good to hear from you as always. I feel basically the same. Especially since this Covid situation my wedding and event photography is basically zero and I am hardly adding any photos to my Lightroom Library. I hope to have my small tabletop studio set up in our apartment and I can then do some still life photography since there is virtually no on location work right now. Still Life is the only genre I can focus on for the near future until I can do some travel again. Thanks again for your help my friend.

John


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## John Cicchine (Aug 24, 2021)

Denis de Gannes said:


> I save my Catalog backups in a specific sub folder within My Pictures folder. All my image files are stored in the My Pictures folder which is backed up via ChronoSync Express on to an external drive.  The external drive is copied regularly to a second external drive.


Hi Denis,

Thank You for your help with this matter. I never heard of ChronoSync Express and I plan to check the software out. It sounds to me like what I am thinking about doing with Super Duper. That is if I do purchase another hard drive just to store my Catalog Backup I would backup that hard drive to another hard drive but with Super Duper. Thanks again Denis. I really appreciate your help as well as the help of others on this Forum.

John


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## Jim Wilde (Aug 24, 2021)

John Cicchine said:


> Hi clee,
> 
> Good to hear from you. So Lightroom has a "Make a second copy of files" option? I assume it's in the Library Module. If I am wrong please let me know. I will check it out next time I open Lightroom. I wish I had an olser disk that I could use but I don't but thank you for your advice.
> 
> John


It's an option in the Import dialog, not in the Library module. It's basically designed to make an additional immediate copy of the images when importing from a camera card, the idea being that with two copies on the system that will allow the camera card to be reformatted for next use. Note that it's really intended as a security backup pending the user eventually incorporating the new images in their normal backup routine, it's not really intended to be the user's primary backup.

Like Cletus, I also use that option when importing. Whenever I remember I will sometimes delete some of the very old "second copies" (usually when I'm cleaning out old catalog backups), but because they're on a drive with plenty of space I can leave that clean-up for years if needed.


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## clee01l (Aug 24, 2021)

Jim Wilde said:


> Like Cletus, I also use that option when importing. Whenever I remember I will sometimes delete some of the very old "second copies" (usually when I'm cleaning out old catalog backups), but because they're on a drive with plenty of space I can leave that clean-up for years if needed.


This is why I use a  drive that I is too small and too old for critical data.   I don't bother with housekeeping chores such as deleting older files until the volume is full.  And like Jim,  that can be years.


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## John Cicchine (Aug 27, 2021)

Jim Wilde said:


> It's an option in the Import dialog, not in the Library module. It's basically designed to make an additional immediate copy of the images when importing from a camera card, the idea being that with two copies on the system that will allow the camera card to be reformatted for next use. Note that it's really intended as a security backup pending the user eventually incorporating the new images in their normal backup routine, it's not really intended to be the user's primary backup.
> 
> Like Cletus, I also use that option when importing. Whenever I remember I will sometimes delete some of the very old "second copies" (usually when I'm cleaning out old catalog backups), but because they're on a drive with plenty of space I can leave that clean-up for years if needed.


Hi Jim,

Sorry for the delay in writing back. Thank You for the suggestion. I may give it a try in the near future. I am looking forward to getting my tabletop studio up and running since I have no wedding or event stuff going on since Covid. As always I appreciate your help and everyone on this Forum.

John


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## John Cicchine (Aug 27, 2021)

clee01l said:


> This is why I use a  drive that I is too small and too old for critical data.   I don't bother with housekeeping chores such as deleting older files until the volume is full.  And like Jim,  that can be years.


Hi Cletus,

Sorry for the late reply. Been a bit busy. I remember now I do have and older G Tech drive sitting around and it needs an external power supply. If I can find one I may try as you suggested. I think my next priority is finding missing photos and getting my catalog situation corrected. I cannot seem to find any advice online that will help me locate my missing photos. Whatever I tried so far hs not worked. I know I did not delete and orignals on my hard drives so they must still be there. I will be posting some question on this as soon as I can at a later date and thanks again for your help on this catalog backup issue.

John


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## PhilBurton (Aug 27, 2021)

Let's simplify a bit.  Your catalog backup drive should be on different physical drive than your catalog, regardless of your storage plan for your production catalog and images.

Phil Burton


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## John Cicchine (Aug 30, 2021)

PhilBurton said:


> Let's simplify a bit.  Your catalog backup drive should be on different physical drive than your catalog, regardless of your storage plan for your production catalog and images.
> 
> Phil Burton


Hi Phil,

Once again my apologies for not writing back sooner. Still trying to get caught up here. I see your point and as of now that is what I will do. Just as I saw in the video. BTW the video was by Anthony Morganti. I watch his YouTube Videos quite often and I have learned quite a bit from him. And of course the assistance I receive from everyone here is immearsureable for me. I guess I should also purchase another hard drive to back that up up too. Then that is what I will do once I purchase the hard drives. Ok for now my friend. Once again a BIG THANK YOU to you and everyone on this Forum.

John


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## PhilBurton (Sep 1, 2021)

John Cicchine said:


> Hi Phil,
> 
> Once again my apologies for not writing back sooner. Still trying to get caught up here. I see your point and as of now that is what I will do. Just as I saw in the video. BTW the video was by Anthony Morganti. I watch his YouTube Videos quite often and I have learned quite a bit from him. And of course the assistance I receive from everyone here is immearsureable for me. I guess I should also purchase another hard drive to back that up up too. Then that is what I will do once I purchase the hard drives. Ok for now my friend. Once again a BIG THANK YOU to you and everyone on this Forum.
> 
> John


John,

The drive for backoimng up your catalog can be used for other applications also.

Phil Burton


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## Rob26 (Sep 1, 2021)

I think this topic might become of much more importance as the new Apple M1 computers gain a wider use. I am seriously planning to do it
since I only have a 512gb drive. At the present time my research is into the best external drive to use with the USB4 port available. The speed 
advantage seems to be great. The issue at the moment is the lack of external drives clearly dedicated as USB4. Only found a couple, OWC has one. Plenty available USB C and Thunderbolt, but I hope to be able to take advantage of the greater speed of the newer ports.
With the help of this site I will, once funds are available transfer Lightroom over and possibly the Apple Photos then I can reduce my cloud storage which I will not really need once sorted. I take very few iPhone pictures. But did for a while put my pictures in Lightroom and Photos, a very bad move on my part.

Rob


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## ddement (Sep 3, 2021)

I'm chary of using "second copy." As Julianne Kost has pointed out, those copies won't be organized (or edited, of course), and using them will set you back enormously to Square One. For that purpose, I use large camera cards and keep many recent past shoots on them - not formatted - as my immediate backup. That's as easy - doing nothing - as clicking the Second Copy box in Import (which takes time and disk space for raw-sized files).

What's important to back up are the image files that contain your work - both the culled ones (many) and the final ones (fewer JPGs) in a subfolder. In my workflow they all get backed up locally continuously, and near-continuously on Backblaze where I have 15 TB of edited files for 19c a day - all automated. So there are the card originals, the original raws as working files, and the latter being both locally and remotely backed up - the 1, 2, 3 system with one in the Cloud. I delete the card files as necessary.


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## John Cicchine (Sep 3, 2021)

PhilBurton said:


> John,
> 
> The drive for backoimng up your catalog can be used for other applications also.
> 
> Phil Burton


Hi Phil,

Yes I agree and I was thinking the same. Looking into the near future I hope to purchase some other software and perhaps I can use the drive for that. I guess I should just need to make a partition on the drive. I like to maximize the utilization of my storage. Thank You Very Much  for your suggestion Phil.

John


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## John Cicchine (Sep 3, 2021)

ddement said:


> I'm chary of using "second copy." As Julianne Kost has pointed out, those copies won't be organized (or edited, of course), and using them will set you back enormously to Square One. For that purpose, I use large camera cards and keep many recent past shoots on them - not formatted - as my immediate backup. That's as easy - doing nothing - as clicking the Second Copy box in Import (which takes time and disk space for raw-sized files).
> 
> What's important to back up are the image files that contain your work - both the culled ones (many) and the final ones (fewer JPGs) in a subfolder. In my workflow they all get backed up locally continuously, and near-continuously on Backblaze where I have 15 TB of edited files for 19c a day - all automated. So there are the card originals, the original raws as working files, and the latter being both locally and remotely backed up - the 1, 2, 3 system with one in the Cloud. I delete the card files as necessary.


Thank You Very Much for your advice. We all know this is a very impotant matter and I appreciate the advice I am receiving. 

John


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## clee01l (Sep 3, 2021)

Rob26 said:


> The issue at the moment is the lack of external drives clearly dedicated as USB4. Only found a couple, OWC has one. Plenty available USB C and Thunderbolt, but I hope to be able to take advantage of the greater speed of the newer ports.


USB4 is still only 20GB/s where as TB3 and TB4 are each 40GB/s. USB-C, USB4, TB3 and TB4 all use the same port type.  All are backward compatible to older specifications.  You probably won't need to add two external monitors but only TB4 can accommodate more than on monitor.

OWC has a TB3 EHD enclosure that provides gigabit ethernet, USB3 ports and one monitor port as well as 2 TB3 ports.
https://www.owcdigital.com/products/mercury-elite-pro-dockI have a 2nd monitor, TB2 EHD, two TB3 EHDs and a USB3 EHD all attached to my M1 iMac via the TB4 port. 

You also can get adapters to connect your older USB devices through your TB4 port on the M1 iMac.


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## PhilBurton (Sep 3, 2021)

ddement said:


> I'm chary of using "second copy." As Julianne Kost has pointed out, those copies won't be organized (or edited, of course), and using them will set you back enormously to Square One. For that purpose, I use large camera cards and keep many recent past shoots on them - not formatted - as my immediate backup. That's as easy - doing nothing - as clicking the Second Copy box in Import (which takes time and disk space for raw-sized files).
> 
> What's important to back up are the image files that contain your work - both the culled ones (many) and the final ones (fewer JPGs) in a subfolder. In my workflow they all get backed up locally continuously, and near-continuously on Backblaze where I have 15 TB of edited files for 19c a day - all automated. So there are the card originals, the original raws as working files, and the latter being both locally and remotely backed up - the 1, 2, 3 system with one in the Cloud. I delete the card files as necessary.


I've always regarded "second copy" as short-term protection.  In case I have screwed up an import and already erased the memory card, I can still start over.  Delete the most recent import from disk, and then do a new import.

I do keep my "2 star" images, which weren't quite good enough to be included in an album or photo export, or were the inputs to an HDR image.  However, the truly bad images, the photos of my shoes, etc., those get deleted pretty quickly.

And of course, all my photos (on my E: Media drive) are backed up along with my D: Data files.


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## John Cicchine (Sep 8, 2021)

clee01l said:


> USB4 is still only 20GB/s where as TB3 and TB4 are each 40GB/s. USB-C, USB4, TB3 and TB4 all use the same port type.  All are backward compatible to older specifications.  You probably won't need to add two external monitors but only TB4 can accommodate more than on monitor.
> 
> OWC has a TB3 EHD enclosure that provides gigabit ethernet, USB3 ports and one monitor port as well as 2 TB3 ports.
> https://www.owcdigital.com/products/mercury-elite-pro-dockI have a 2nd monitor, TB2 EHD, two TB3 EHDs and a USB3 EHD all attached to my M1 iMac via the TB4 port.
> ...


Hi Clee, I’m still a bit behind on writing back to everyone here for which I apologize. Thank You for this information.  It’s a big help for me. I will review it all and write back as soon as I can. Thanks again my friend!

John


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## John Cicchine (Sep 8, 2021)

PhilBurton said:


> I've always regarded "second copy" as short-term protection.  In case I have screwed up an import and already erased the memory card, I can still start over.  Delete the most recent import from disk, and then do a new import.
> 
> I do keep my "2 star" images, which weren't quite good enough to be included in an album or photo export, or were the inputs to an HDR image.  However, the truly bad images, the photos of my shoes, etc., those get deleted pretty quickly.
> 
> And of course, all my photos (on my E: Media drive) are backed up along with my D: Data files.


Thank You Very Much Phil for your advice. I still a bit late in writing back to everyone and again my apologies. Also I am having difficulty typing because I am using temporary glasses at the moment while I wait for my new glasses. So I appreciate everyone”s patience with me as well as all the kind help I am receiving. I will get back on this after I get my new glasses and then my next project is to find my missing photos! In the meantime thanks again for your help Phil.

John


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## edo-sky.plala.or.jp (Sep 9, 2021)

After coming across this last night I share my thoughts. I keep my Lightroom catalogue and all my photos together on the SAME external disk. That disk is ritualistically  backed up to another external disk by Super Duper clone software after EVERY session and BEFORE erasing my card. Usually I have a third copy of the same disk as well. This way you can move to another computer with your catalogue AND photos all on the same disk. If the disk is a 2.5 inch size its easy to take your whole library on a trip in case you get a request for something when on the road. If one disk goes down you have one or two more to be up and running quickly. So I don't run Backups of my catalogue only within LR. Maybe I am wrong but this works good for me and feels safe. Photos and catalogues are on 2TB disks. Movies and connected catalogue are separate set of 2 2TB disks. (I separated the photos and movie a few years ago. LR is mostly for organizing the movie clips and marking the best ones before taking them to Final Cut Pro etc) 

My main photo Lightroom FOLDER on the external disk (not catalogue) is 43 GB and contains all the presets ect as well as the newest and older catalogues.


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## John Cicchine (Aug 23, 2021)

Hello,

I recently saw a video on YouTube stating that it is best if I store my Catalog Backup on a seperate drive from the drive where I keep my catalog. Currently I store my photos on 2 external hard drives and my catalog and the catalog backup on a 3rd. external hard drive sperate from where my photos are stored. But this video states that it is better to put the catalog backup on a 4th. seperate external hard drive. My questions are as follows...

-Since all 3 of my external hard drives are backed up to another hard drive using "Super Duper" to copy each drive and I am in the process of backing the drives up to the cloud with 
 "Backblaze" am I not already safe if there were to be a problem?

-In the video it shows where to tell Lightroom to store my Catalog Backup (see screenshot) so I know how to do that but should I change my location first then let Lightroom backup to
 the new location and then move the existing backups to the new location or should I move my existing backups first to the new location then have Lightroom do a new backup to the new 
 location? 

-How do I move my existing backups to the new location and make sure that Lightroom knows where they are located? Should I open 2 Finder Windows and click and drag the existing 
 backups to the new folder in the new hard drive or is there something else I need to do? 

-If I change the location of my catalog backups will Lightroom know to automatically relocate my existing backups without me having to move them manually myself? 

I am running Mojave 10.14.6

I included several screenshots that show my Catalog Backup structure. It me look a bit messy but that is the best I can do so far. I have at least one or two other catalogs that may be corrupted and I need to locate some photos in a few other catalogs I was previously using but I plan to do that at a future date. Any help on this thread I posted is as always greatly
 appreciated. Thank You Very Much.

John


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## John Cicchine (Sep 20, 2021)

edo-sky.plala.or.jp said:


> After coming across this last night I share my thoughts. I keep my Lightroom catalogue and all my photos together on the SAME external disk. That disk is ritualistically  backed up to another external disk by Super Duper clone software after EVERY session and BEFORE erasing my card. Usually I have a third copy of the same disk as well. This way you can move to another computer with your catalogue AND photos all on the same disk. If the disk is a 2.5 inch size its easy to take your whole library on a trip in case you get a request for something when on the road. If one disk goes down you have one or two more to be up and running quickly. So I don't run Backups of my catalogue only within LR. Maybe I am wrong but this works good for me and feels safe. Photos and catalogues are on 2TB disks. Movies and connected catalogue are separate set of 2 2TB disks. (I separated the photos and movie a few years ago. LR is mostly for organizing the movie clips and marking the best ones before taking them to Final Cut Pro etc)
> 
> My main photo Lightroom FOLDER on the external disk (not catalogue) is 43 GB and contains all the presets ect as well as the newest and older catalogues.


Hi edo- sky.plata, 

Thank You Very Much for your advice. Once again I apologize as I have to others here for not replying sooner. I’ve been a bit busy here and having difficulties with my eyeglasses. But I see what you are saying but I cannot tell you how many times I have heard especially on YouTube that you should keep your LR Catalog and your Photos on 2 separate hard drives. And so I took that approach a long time ago. But also as you said you back up to another drive with Super Duper as I do so there should not be a problem if the original drive fails. But I think I will stick with the way I have been it for now. I’m glad that my thinking was correct and if there is a proper backup there should not be a problem. As always I am open to any advice that someone has. I truly appreciate your help and the help of others here and I thank you very much.

John


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## PhilBurton (Sep 20, 2021)

Sometimes I think that people over-think this issue.  Ideally you have an internal SSD to store your catalog, for best performance.  If not, an external SSD.  You probably need a much larger spinning HDD to store actual photo files.  

You should use a separate drive (not just a drive partition) for backups of both the catalog and actual photo files.


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## John Cicchine (Sep 24, 2021)

PhilBurton said:


> Sometimes I think that people over-think this issue.  Ideally you have an internal SSD to store your catalog, for best performance.  If not, an external SSD.  You probably need a much larger spinning HDD to store actual photo files.
> 
> You should use a separate drive (not just a drive partition) for backups of both the catalog and actual photo files.


Hi Phil,

Thank You Very Much. My External Hard Drives are G Tech Drives and they are rated at 7200 RPM. Also I do not have any partition on them. Only 1 of my External Drives has 2 Partitions. It is a Back Up Drive I use with Super Duper and because it is a 10 TB Drive and the Drives it backs up are smaller. 
Thanks again my friend!

John


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## edo-sky.plala.or.jp (Oct 1, 2021)

John Cicchine said:


> Hi edo- sky.plata,
> 
> Thank You Very Much for your advice. Once again I apologize as I have to others here for not replying sooner. I’ve been a bit busy here and having difficulties with my eyeglasses. But I see what you are saying but I cannot tell you how many times I have heard especially on YouTube that you should keep your LR Catalog and your Photos on 2 separate hard drives. And so I took that approach a long time ago. But also as you said you back up to another drive with Super Duper as I do so there should not be a problem if the original drive fails. But I think I will stick with the way I have been it for now. I’m glad that my thinking was correct and if there is a proper backup there should not be a problem. As always I am open to any advice that someone has. I truly appreciate your help and the help of others here and I thank you very much.
> 
> John


No problem on speed of reply. And we all back up and work the way that is best for us. Staying backed up is the keyword.


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## edo-sky.plala.or.jp (Oct 1, 2021)

PhilBurton said:


> Sometimes I think that people over-think this issue.  Ideally you have an internal SSD to store your catalog, for best performance.  If not, an external SSD.  You probably need a much larger spinning HDD to store actual photo files.
> 
> You should use a separate drive (not just a drive partition) for backups of both the catalog and actual photo files.


I admit my method above is not the best one for performance, but I am not usually in a big hurry  Finally moved all my LR to SSD and that did help.


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## PhilBurton (Oct 2, 2021)

John Cicchine said:


> Hi Phil,
> 
> Thank You Very Much. My External Hard Drives are G Tech Drives and they are rated at 7200 RPM. Also I do not have any partition on them. Only 1 of my External Drives has 2 Partitions. It is a Back Up Drive I use with Super Duper and because it is a 10 TB Drive and the Drives it backs up are smaller.
> Thanks again my friend!
> ...


John,

Regarding your external drives.  Depending on your file sizes, 7200 rpm may provide some performance gain over 540 rpm drive, but that also depends on the connection type (USB vs Thunderbolt, etc).

Your G Tech drives certainly came with one partition, occupyng the entire drive.  Without a partition, you can't drive any data to a drive.

Just be sure that your 10 TB backup drive doesn't have any Lightroom or photo files on it.  I don't know anything about MacOS or Mac storage architecture, but there should be a way to reallocate the disk space used by each partition.


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## John Cicchine (Oct 7, 2021)

edo-sky.plala.or.jp said:


> No problem on speed of reply. And we all back up and work the way that is best for us. Staying backed up is the keyword.


Hi edo-sky.plata,

Very well said. "Staying backed up is the keyword". That's absolutely correct and I guess in what ever way works best. Thanks again my friend.

John


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## John Cicchine (Oct 7, 2021)

PhilBurton said:


> John,
> 
> Regarding your external drives.  Depending on your file sizes, 7200 rpm may provide some performance gain over 540 rpm drive, but that also depends on the connection type (USB vs Thunderbolt, etc).
> 
> ...


Hi Phil,

Thank You Very Much. Actually my 10 TB External Hard Drive has 3 partitions. 1 for my Internal Drive Back Up and the other 2 are to back up my 2 other External Drives that contain my photos. So they do have Lightroom photos on them but this is only for back up. Also all my drives are 7200 RPM. As always I appreciate your advice very much again I apologize for the delay in writing back.

John


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## clee01l (Oct 7, 2021)

John Cicchine said:


> Hi Phil,
> 
> Thank You Very Much. Actually my 10 TB External Hard Drive has 3 partitions. 1 for my Internal Drive Back Up and the other 2 are to back up my 2 other External Drives that contain my photos. So they do have Lightroom photos on them but this is only for back up. Also all my drives are 7200 RPM. As always I appreciate your advice very much again I apologize for the delay in writing back.
> 
> John



There is no benefit in the modern computer environment to creating partitions. You might also need to recognize that when this 10TB EHD fails, you will lose all three partitions. Your backup software should be able to backup all of your disk drive onto one EHD large enough to hold all of the data and versions. 


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


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## PhilBurton (Oct 8, 2021)

clee01l said:


> There is no benefit in the modern computer environment to creating partitions. You might also need to recognize that when this 10TB EHD fails, you will lose all three partitions. Your backup software should be able to backup all of your disk drive onto one EHD large enough to hold all of the data and versions.
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


Cletus,

In a Windows environment, there is some operational benefit and simplicity to matching the source partitions with the backup drive partitions.   Consider all the various drive/folder synchronization utilities, e.g. Goodsync, File Sync & Backup Software | GoodSync  I use the paid version, which is totally worth the cost.

I can't speak for MacOS.

Phil Burton


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## John Cicchine (Oct 9, 2021)

clee01l said:


> There is no benefit in the modern computer environment to creating partitions. You might also need to recognize that when this 10TB EHD fails, you will lose all three partitions. Your backup software should be able to backup all of your disk drive onto one EHD large enough to hold all of the data and versions.
> 
> 
> Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


Hi Cletus,

Thank You Very Much. I always thought partitions were fine to use. Since it is getting harder to find another drive that is what is considered now as a bit small in size 2TB-4TB I thought it would be good to just but one larger drive and partition it and store the smaller drives on it. I do see what you are saying of course. Also I am planning to purchase another 10TB Drive and make another exact copy and store it someplace remote. And I am backing up to the Cloud using Backblaze so shouldn't I then have enough redundancy? Thanks again for your advice Cletus.

John


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## John Cicchine (Oct 9, 2021)

PhilBurton said:


> Cletus,
> 
> In a Windows environment, there is some operational benefit and simplicity to matching the source partitions with the backup drive partitions.   Consider all the various drive/folder synchronization utilities, e.g. Goodsync, File Sync & Backup Software | GoodSync  I use the paid version, which is totally worth the cost.
> 
> ...


Hi Phil,

Thank You Very Much. I just wrote to Cletus and I said that as far as I knew partitions are fine to use in both Windows or MacOS. Of course I am always open to any advice someone has. Also I am planning to make another backup similar to my 10TB Back Up Drive and storing it remotely and I am also backing up to the cloud with Backblaze so I should be safe I would think. But as I said I am always open to suggestions and appreciate the help I receive here very much. I am thinking that I may put this matter off to the side for a while because I want very much to figure where my lost photos are. Not that I have many but I still would like to know where they are. But of course backing up remains a priority for me as it does for everyone who cares about their images. Thanks again my friend!

John


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## camner (Oct 9, 2021)

If one uses cloning software such as Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper! to backup multiple source drives to a single target drive, I find it convenient to partition the target drive (1 partition for each source drive to be backed up).  If one formats the drive as APFS, then one doesn't have to worry about figuring out how much to allocate to each partition because MacOS will dynamically change the size of each partition to match the storage space needed. There is some performance hit for using APFS with a spinning hard drive, but since the drive is for backup, that doesn't matter so much.

My $.02 worth is that if you are regularly backing up your system drive and data (external) drives to a 10TB backup drive AND using BackBlaze, then it is a bit of overkill to have a second backup drive to backup the first backup drive. If you have a primary drive fail AND the 10TB backup drive fail, you have BackBlaze to come to the rescue.  If the 10TB fails and the source drives do not, you just go out and buy another target drive and make new backups of your primary drives.


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## clee01l (Oct 9, 2021)

PhilBurton said:


> In a Windows environment, there is some operational benefit and simplicity to matching the source partitions with the backup drive partitions.


I use Acronis Cyber Protect Home Office as one of my two System back up Apps.  In one backup I can back up several Disc drives onto one single partition EHD.   Acronis comes in both Windows and MacOS flavors.   From the backup, I can restore any portion of the backup from a single file or folder to a whole disk partition to the whole backup over several disks.   My TimeMachine system backup does the same.   I see no operational benefit.  In fact I see an operational benefit for using a single partition and a single backup process for all mounted disks.


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## clee01l (Oct 9, 2021)

John Cicchine said:


> Thank You Very Much. I always thought partitions were fine to use. Since it is getting harder to find another drive that is what is considered now as a bit small in size 2TB-4TB I thought it would be good to just but one larger drive and partition it and store the smaller drives on it.


At one time The Windows filesystem was limited to 4TB(?) However, the size of the disks them selves were being produced in much larger sizes  for other operating systems.  Partitioning was the only option for Windows users.  The big problem with partitions is the single source hardware.  When that fails,  All partitions are irrevocably lost.   It is for that reason that I recommend one partition per disk. If you have one disk with multiple partitions, and assign one partition to data and another to backup, where do you back up the data partitions?  If you backup the data partition to the backup partition, the you lose both when the disk fails. 

Currently I have EHDs consisting of 3, 8TB; 1, 6TB; and 1, 4TB.   Two of the 8TB disks are dedicated to system back up of the primary disk and several of the other critical data disks.  

Multiple partitions on one disk are fine, however they offer limited benefit in a modern operating system environment  Each partition takes up some overhead on the disc and if you want to preserve the maximum space on the volume for data, then one large partition provides the largest space for storage.   There is even a RAID partitioning scheme to span multiple disks with a single partition. Called Just a Bunch Of Disks (JBOD).  It is of some use where data is larger than the available single disks.  However if any one of the disks in the JBOD fail the whole partition is unrecoverable.


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## camner (Oct 9, 2021)

clee01l said:


> I use Acronis Cyber Protect Home Office as one of my two System back up Apps.  In one backup I can back up several Disc drives onto one single partition EHD.   Acronis comes in both Windows and MacOS flavors.   From the backup, I can restore any portion of the backup from a single file or folder to a whole disk partition to the whole backup over several disks.   My TimeMachine system backup does the same.   I see no operational benefit.  In fact I see an operational benefit for using a single partition and a single backup process for all mounted disks.


I think this is an excellent solution!   I have never investigated Acronis for Mac, although I do use it on my wife's PC to backup her machine to an external drive. IIRC, Acronis does use a proprietary format for storing the files on the target, which some folks consider a disadvantage over storing files as they would be stored in Finder/Explorer, but many others do not find that to be an issue at all. Personally, I am agnostic on this point.


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## clee01l (Oct 9, 2021)

camner said:


> I think this is an excellent solution! I have never investigated Acronis for Mac, although I do use it on my wife's PC to backup her machine to an external drive. IIRC, Acronis does use a proprietary format for storing the files on the target, which some folks consider a disadvantage over storing files as they would be stored in Finder/Explorer, but many others do not find that to be an issue at all. Personally, I am agnostic on this point.



Acronis, like many system backups stores a compressed version of the files in the backup. There will be several versions of the same file in the backup if changes or deletions have occurred between backups. Cloning systems which are not true back ups usually lack version control and often do not retain deleted files.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk


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## GaryG (Oct 11, 2021)

I've used Acronis for over 10 years, but I wouldn't recommend it now because of all the security bloat they've added and because of their terrible support.  I believe they are currently focused on the security aspect of the product and not improving the backup software.  
I'd suggest doing a trail of Acronis and other backup solutions, then determine what is the best solution that works for you.

The product that I will probably switch to is Macrium Reflect.


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## PhilBurton (Oct 13, 2021)

clee01l said:


> At one time The Windows filesystem was limited to 4TB(?) However, the size of the disks them selves were being produced in much larger sizes  for other operating systems.  Partitioning was the only option for Windows users.  The big problem with partitions is the single source hardware.  When that fails,  All partitions are irrevocably lost.   It is for that reason that I recommend one partition per disk. If you have one disk with multiple partitions, and assign one partition to data and another to backup, where do you back up the data partitions?  If you backup the data partition to the backup partition, the you lose both when the disk fails.
> 
> Currently I have EHDs consisting of 3, 8TB; 1, 6TB; and 1, 4TB.   Two of the 8TB disks are dedicated to system back up of the primary disk and several of the other critical data disks.
> 
> Multiple partitions on one disk are fine, however they offer limited benefit in a modern operating system environment  Each partition takes up some overhead on the disc and if you want to preserve the maximum space on the volume for data, then one large partition provides the largest space for storage.   There is even a RAID partitioning scheme to span multiple disks with a single partition. Called Just a Bunch Of Disks (JBOD).  It is of some use where data is larger than the available single disks.  However if any one of the disks in the JBOD fail the whole partition is unrecoverable.


Cletus,

I don't mean to dive head-first into a deep rabbit hole here.  I'll just say that for Windows (since I know zilch about MacOS), it makes sense in some cases to have multiple partitions, in other cases not.  It's also a matter of "personal IT style."

I always have data and media collection partitions that are separate from my Windows (C drive) partition.  When (not if) Windows fails, I haven't lost any data because I never stored any there.  I can do a wipe and a clean install of Windows, if desired, without worrying about any of my data files.  When I need to upgrade my drive subsystem, it's easier to move data partition by partition.

Regardless,  it is ALWAYS a bad idea to have a backup partition (or folder) on the same physical drive as any form of data files.  We are in violent agreement on that point.


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## clee01l (Oct 13, 2021)

PhilBurton said:


> I always have data and media collection partitions that are separate from my Windows (C drive) partition. When (not if) Windows fails, I haven't lost any data because I never stored any there. I can do a wipe and a clean install of Windows, if desired, without worrying about any of my data files. When I need to upgrade my drive subsystem, it's easier to move data partition by partition.


I don't disagree that it is a "Personal IT style."   And in fact some corporate IT shops might require it.   I disagree however on failing hardware and multiple partitions.   If the hardware fails, then every partition on that hard ware is lost.  As for your "clean wipe" on the Windows partition,  my IT experience suggests this is a quick solution in the corporate world where users ofter botch up their Windows environment to the point that it saves IT management time to do a clean install.    In my Windows experience,  I never needed to resort to a "clean wipe" to set things right.   And It might be a "Windows thing" but  I have always upgraded Mac versions without having to separate the data from the OS.   Even when  Apple switched from HFS+ to APFS filesystems, the filesystem got changed with out having to copy the OS and data elsewhere. 

Enough though, we are well of topic.


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## John Cicchine (Oct 15, 2021)

clee01l said:


> At one time The Windows filesystem was limited to 4TB(?) However, the size of the disks them selves were being produced in much larger sizes  for other operating systems.  Partitioning was the only option for Windows users.  The big problem with partitions is the single source hardware.  When that fails,  All partitions are irrevocably lost.   It is for that reason that I recommend one partition per disk. If you have one disk with multiple partitions, and assign one partition to data and another to backup, where do you back up the data partitions?  If you backup the data partition to the backup partition, the you lose both when the disk fails.
> 
> Currently I have EHDs consisting of 3, 8TB; 1, 6TB; and 1, 4TB.   Two of the 8TB disks are dedicated to system back up of the primary disk and several of the other critical data disks.
> 
> Multiple partitions on one disk are fine, however they offer limited benefit in a modern operating system environment  Each partition takes up some overhead on the disc and if you want to preserve the maximum space on the volume for data, then one large partition provides the largest space for storage.   There is even a RAID partitioning scheme to span multiple disks with a single partition. Called Just a Bunch Of Disks (JBOD).  It is of some use where data is larger than the available single disks.  However if any one of the disks in the JBOD fail the whole partition is unrecoverable.


Thank You Clee.


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## John Cicchine (Oct 15, 2021)

clee01l said:


> I don't disagree that it is a "Personal IT style."   And in fact some corporate IT shops might require it.   I disagree however on failing hardware and multiple partitions.   If the hardware fails, then every partition on that hard ware is lost.  As for your "clean wipe" on the Windows partition,  my IT experience suggests this is a quick solution in the corporate world where users ofter botch up their Windows environment to the point that it saves IT management time to do a clean install.    In my Windows experience,  I never needed to resort to a "clean wipe" to set things right.   And It might be a "Windows thing" but  I have always upgraded Mac versions without having to separate the data from the OS.   Even when  Apple switched from HFS+ to APFS filesystems, the filesystem got changed with out having to copy the OS and data elsewhere.
> 
> Enough though, we are well of topic.


Thank You Clee.


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## John Cicchine (Oct 15, 2021)

GaryG said:


> I've used Acronis for over 10 years, but I wouldn't recommend it now because of all the security bloat they've added and because of their terrible support.  I believe they are currently focused on the security aspect of the product and not improving the backup software.
> I'd suggest doing a trail of Acronis and other backup solutions, then determine what is the best solution that works for you.
> 
> The product that I will probably switch to is Macrium Reflect.


Thank You  Gary.


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## John Cicchine (Oct 15, 2021)

camner said:


> If one uses cloning software such as Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper! to backup multiple source drives to a single target drive, I find it convenient to partition the target drive (1 partition for each source drive to be backed up).  If one formats the drive as APFS, then one doesn't have to worry about figuring out how much to allocate to each partition because MacOS will dynamically change the size of each partition to match the storage space needed. There is some performance hit for using APFS with a spinning hard drive, but since the drive is for backup, that doesn't matter so much.
> 
> My $.02 worth is that if you are regularly backing up your system drive and data (external) drives to a 10TB backup drive AND using BackBlaze, then it is a bit of overkill to have a second backup drive to backup the first backup drive. If you have a primary drive fail AND the 10TB backup drive fail, you have BackBlaze to come to the rescue.  If the 10TB fails and the source drives do not, you just go out and buy another target drive and make new backups of your primary drives.


Thank You Camner.


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