# Workflow with Chronosync



## martha2 (May 9, 2018)

MacBook Pro OS, High Sierra 10.13.4

I am just learning how to do things correctly so please be patient with me.

I am importing photos just fine. I have the LR catalog on my MacBook of course and my primary photo library is on a NAS. The Catalogue is backed up every time I exit LR. I save roughly the last 10 catalogues and I periodically go in and delete those that are aged 20 days or more. All of this is working perfectly; I’ve never had any problems.

I was using LR “Save a Second Copy to” on import assuming that I was making a good back up copy. Discussion in the Forums here has persuaded me that I should be using Chronosync. What I do not understand is where in my workflow do I place the Chronosync back-up? Or is it an entirely separate process? I have 2 large hard drives sufficient to hold my entire photo library for the foreseeable future. My plan is to backup to both of these using Chronosync and store one offsite which I would periodically bring up to date with new photos.

Can someone tell me where in my workflow I should execute the Chronosync back-up process? Are the photos on the NAS the source for Chronosync?


----------



## BarrySchwartz (May 9, 2018)

My workflow is similar to the advice you've been given - sort of.   I always make a 2nd copy through LR on import, and I always make sure I have two copies before re-formatting my cards.  After editing, I use Chronosync to backup my main photo drive to two other drives, meaning I typically have three copies of every photo.  Lightroom itself on import does a good job of verifying that the data (photos) are accurately copied on import.  But there's no reason to use LR to make the data copies, and Chronosync is great, and also verifies the copies are accurate.  It's a solid program, and you can save "templates" to use over and over, as long as you don't change the names of the hard drives.


----------



## martha2 (May 9, 2018)

Thanks for your reply. LRQ has stated elsewhere that the backup copy that LR makes on import is not a good copy to restore from. That is why I had planned to do this differently --- But I am not sure how or where in the process!


----------



## BarrySchwartz (May 10, 2018)

So another part of my workflow is to do a bootable backup of my computer using SuperDuper; very easy and reliable.  It provides, then, the backup of my catalogue, which is on my primary hard drive (1 TB).  I don't have much data on the drive, mostly operating system and software, so the catalogue (about 2 GB), and previews (about 100 GB), don't take up a whole lot of room.   However, for me, I'm not likely to need to backup based on import, since as soon as I do my initial edit, I convert to DNG, finalize my metadata, re-name, export, and re-import.  After that, I remove the original folder that contains the imported photos from the card.  It's a little complicated, but I rarely ever lose anything.


----------



## Jim Wilde (May 10, 2018)

martha2 said:


> MacBook Pro OS, High Sierra 10.13.4
> 
> I am importing photos just fine. I have the LR catalog on my MacBook of course and my primary photo library is on a NAS. The Catalogue is backed up every time I exit LR. I save roughly the last 10 catalogues and I periodically go in and delete those that are aged 20 days or more. All of this is working perfectly; I’ve never had any problems.



I keep more than that. Typically I will retain say a dozen of the recent backups, then at least one per month going back at least a year (though I probably have more than that). That's to protect against "stupid user error" (such as deleting keywords from a couple of thousand images) that I might not discover for months.



> I was using LR “Save a Second Copy to” on import assuming that I was making a good back up copy. Discussion in the Forums here has persuaded me that I should be using Chronosync. What I do not understand is where in my workflow do I place the Chronosync back-up? Or is it an entirely separate process? I have 2 large hard drives sufficient to hold my entire photo library for the foreseeable future. My plan is to backup to both of these using Chronosync and store one offsite which I would periodically bring up to date with new photos.



I also use the "Make Second Copy" during import, which I also recommend to others....that gives you two immediate copies (which should be on different drives) following the import. No matter that it's not in the same folder structure as the main copy, it'll do for me in an emergency until my "proper backups" are run. Chronosync is part of that, but we really should focus on a system-wide backup process, not just focus on photography.....there's probably plenty of other non-photography data on our systems which should also be backed up.

So my backup system is in 3 parts:

1. I use Time-Machine to do a persistent system-wide backup, i.e. it runs in the background backing up all changes and new data (so new photos get backed up automatically). As you're using a Mac, I would think that's the first backup procedure you should implement, especially as it's free.

2. I also use Crashplan, which is a cloud-backup system, much like TM it runs persistently in the background doing its thing.

3. And I use Chronosync at least once per week (more often if I have a lot of new data such as photos). That creates backups of all my specified "important data" to 3 separate drives (two of which are connected only for the backup and disconnected immediately after).

Probably overkill, but it works for me.

So answering your question about Chronosync.....it's not an integral part of my Lightroom workflow, rather it's an integral part of my system-wide backup routine.


----------



## BarrySchwartz (May 10, 2018)

Agree with Jim - his description (a bit clearer than mine) is pretty much what I do, with the addition of SuperDuper.  I have a Time Machine disk also always attached.  A saying I once read on Luminous Landscape says it all: Storage is cheap, regret is expensive.


----------



## martha2 (May 12, 2018)

Thanks for the very useful information you folks have shared! I have to give thought to my backup processes!


----------



## rob211 (May 12, 2018)

My backup is very similiar to Mr Wilde's as well, although I use different cloud storage and rotate drives for offsite storage. But it starts with Time Machine; it's dead easy, and one of the easiest backup programs to restore from.

I use ChronoSync for backups and syncs (which are sorta backups, but more for copying some stuff from say desktop to laptop or keeping both in synch). But more for folder-level items I want to copy to specified locations, since in some instances it just works better for me than Time Machine for those tasks. For example I use it to copy a set of Lr keywords I periodically export to both my laptop (for use with a catalog there), and also so I can import those keywords into Photo Mechanic, which I use for ingesting images. I've also used it to copy Lr/Ps presets over to my other computer as well.


----------

