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MiniD3

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Mar 9, 2013
733
264
Australia
Hi Guys,
Had Aperture, just finished changing over to LR
Now have all my LR images on an external USB3 4TB HDD,
Have another external USB3 4TB HDD ready for backup of that drive,

I am using TM for my "normal" backup to 2 other drives,
Would like to make a second copy of the LR 4TB drive,
Whats the best software for the task?

I have my LR catalog on the iMac but all images are now on external drives
.......Gary
 

MCAsan

macrumors 601
Jul 9, 2012
4,587
442
Atlanta
If you talking a one-off occasional backup, use Finder to copy the top level folder(s) to the backup drive. After the copy is done you either need to either eject that drive or have TM exclude it. Otherwise will be backup up the both the drive with the original images and the drive with the copies. Not much point in two backups to the same TM drive.

If the images are critical to you and/or your business, do the TM backup and consider rotating the TM drive off campus at least once a week. Also consider an online backup service.

BTW, make sure that you have LR backup the catalog (database, edits, previews) to the media drive every time you close LR. That gives you 3 copies....on your main drive, on your media drive, and on your TM backup.
 
Last edited:

MiniD3

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Mar 9, 2013
733
264
Australia
Tks for your reply,

I've actually got the Catalog backup sorted,
Just want to clone the image backup
......Gary
 

deeddawg

macrumors G5
Jun 14, 2010
12,223
6,351
US
Define "best"... What's important to you?

CCC and SuperDuper are typically the top two drive copy/clone applications - both have trial versions if I remember correctly, so see which works best for you.

Also be sure to consider your offsite backup mechanism - how you'll guard against losing everything in a "someone stole all your stuff" or "house burnt down" scenario.
 

Weaselboy

Moderator
Staff member
Jan 23, 2005
34,071
15,494
California
Would like to make a second copy of the LR 4TB drive. Whats the best software for the task?

You already have it... just open Disk Utility and go to the restore tab and drag the source drive into the source field and the destination drive into the destination field then click restore and one drive will be cloned to the other.
 

MiniD3

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Mar 9, 2013
733
264
Australia
Thank you,

You already have it... just open Disk Utility and go to the restore tab and drag the source drive into the source field and the destination drive into the destination field then click restore and one drive will be cloned to the other.

Not that confident but will give it a go today,
Question,
If the first drive blows up, I'm all good with the second?
......Gary

All done!
Thank you for your help, much appreciated!
 
Last edited:

ChrisA

macrumors G5
Jan 5, 2006
12,541
1,653
Redondo Beach, California
Hi Guys,
Had Aperture, just finished changing over to LR
Now have all my LR images on an external USB3 4TB HDD,
Have another external USB3 4TB HDD ready for backup of that drive,

I am using TM for my "normal" backup to 2 other drives,
Would like to make a second copy of the LR 4TB drive,
Whats the best software for the task?

I have my LR catalog on the iMac but all images are now on external drives
.......Gary

Yes you can simply (1) erase the drive in Disk Utility then (2) drag all the files to be backed up to the now employ drive. This works 100%

But if is SLOW. Most of the data has not changed between backups. So a few decades ago some one wrote "rsync" that only copies over the differences and brings one disk up to date with the other. Rsync is fast and its free (and ships with Mac OS X, so you already have it.) but it requires the user to type in the terminal. Today many people can't do that. But if you look around using Google there are quite a few apps that make rsync easy to use.

Both super duper and CCC are rsync-like apps

Any of these is better then the erase and copy method because it is faster and gives the same result.
 

MiniD3

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Mar 9, 2013
733
264
Australia
Tks Chris,

It transferred over 9000 images in about 5 minutes
Tks for the heads up on the Rsync
......Gary
 

ohbrilliance

macrumors 65816
May 15, 2007
1,010
355
Melbourne, Australia
I backup my LR photos from one external drive to another using rsync.

rsync -rltoDv --exclude .DS_Store /Volumes/WD/Photos/ /Volumes/Media/Photos/

This is for devices named 'WD' and 'Media'. For convenience, I have a small AppleScript file that performs the task, which I can access via a menu item.
 

MiniD3

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Mar 9, 2013
733
264
Australia
I backup my LR photos from one external drive to another using rsync.

rsync -rltoDv --exclude .DS_Store /Volumes/WD/Photos/ /Volumes/Media/Photos/

This is for devices named 'WD' and 'Media'. For convenience, I have a small AppleScript file that performs the task, which I can access via a menu item.

Thank you but I'm sure this is out of my comfort zone, (and skill level)
As long as the "agricultural" drag and drop just updates files I'd be happy
Had a google of rsync, don't understand it yet
......Gary
 

dimme

macrumors 68040
Feb 14, 2007
3,001
27,058
SF, CA
I backup my LR photos from one external drive to another using rsync.

rsync -rltoDv --exclude .DS_Store /Volumes/WD/Photos/ /Volumes/Media/Photos/

This is for devices named 'WD' and 'Media'. For convenience, I have a small AppleScript file that performs the task, which I can access via a menu item.

I have been told that RSYNC does not copy the OS X metadata. I know this is different that the metadata that tif, jegs and Lightroom uses. I need to sync images across my network, and because of the size some sort of syncing tool would work the best. I have a few hundred gigabytes worth of data to sync. Superduper is great for local drives but does not work well over the network with individual folders.

So if I use rsync am I loosing information?
 

alphaod

macrumors Core
Feb 9, 2008
22,183
1,245
NYC
I use ChronoSync. It's not free, but it works great. I use it to back up Lightroom and iTunes libaries to external drives. Basically I have about two ready to use backups of each library (apart from the one already attached to my computer).

I also have upload my media to Amazon Glacier Storage. It's pretty cheap.
 

Weaselboy

Moderator
Staff member
Jan 23, 2005
34,071
15,494
California
I have been told that RSYNC does not copy the OS X metadata. I know this is different that the metadata that tif, jegs and Lightroom uses. I need to sync images across my network, and because of the size some sort of syncing tool would work the best. I have a few hundred gigabytes worth of data to sync. Superduper is great for local drives but does not work well over the network with individual folders.

So if I use rsync am I loosing information?

Yes, if you use the version of rsync that comes on your Mac you will lose metadata. The problem is, due to some licensing issues, the version of rsync that ships with OS X is ancient (2.6.9 from 2006) and it does not properly support OS X metadata. This was fixed in later versions of rsysc, so if you update to a newer version of rsync you should be okay.
 

dimme

macrumors 68040
Feb 14, 2007
3,001
27,058
SF, CA
Yes, if you use the version of rsync that comes on your Mac you will lose metadata. The problem is, due to some licensing issues, the version of rsync that ships with OS X is ancient (2.6.9 from 2006) and it does not properly support OS X metadata. This was fixed in later versions of rsysc, so if you update to a newer version of rsync you should be okay.

Thanks,
If I am working in lightroom and I use the old version of RSYNC just what am I losing? I convert my raw files to dng so the metadata in in one file.

This also has me wondering if I have a backup of my images on a Linux machine I use as a file server for archiving photos, do I need the OS X metadata?
 

Weaselboy

Moderator
Staff member
Jan 23, 2005
34,071
15,494
California
Thanks,
If I am working in lightroom and I use the old version of RSYNC just what am I losing? I convert my raw files to dng so the metadata in in one file.

This also has me wondering if I have a backup of my images on a Linux machine I use as a file server for archiving photos, do I need the OS X metadata?

I have never tested it with photos, so don't know the answer to your question. But the older rsync will not carry over metadata or HFS+ resource forks. You can read a bit here for examples of what kinds of data that might be.

The simplest solution if you want to use rsync is just install a newer rsync binary and not worry about this.
 
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