I have a iMac with a 500G HD that is almost full.. I want to add an external drive and move all my photos to it.. I have over 300G of photos and shoot in RAW.. I import in iPhoto but do editing in Photoshop Elements 12.. I backup using Timemachine and would like to setup the HD so that its works like the original HD.. Any suggestions and directions on how to do this would be appreciated..
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Add a external drive for additional storage
- Thread starter hrlazar
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You will need to make a clone, which Timemachine does not do. Use either Carbon Copy Cloner or SuperDuper, you can set them up to backup nightly.
Just copy your iPhoto library from your Pictures folder to a folder on the external drive. Then hold the option key the next time you start iPhoto and choose the new library location as your default.
Time Machine by default will exclude external drives from backup, so make sure you go into your Time Machine settings and remove the external with the photos from the exclude list.
Yes you can. Might want to wait until you are sure the data on the external made it into at least the first Time Machine backup though before you do that.
Did you read the document from Apple called iPhoto '11: Move your iPhoto library to a new location ?
Also keep in mind (if you ever go the SSD route) the article How to move an iTunes library to an external drive.
Also keep in mind (if you ever go the SSD route) the article How to move an iTunes library to an external drive.
Thanks to all for your response on this question... Now I would like to expand this and move all of the folders and files that appear in the photos folder over to the external drive.. think that there is 300G in total including iPhoto.. can it be done the same way?
WHY???
Just plug in the new drive, move your iPhoto library and then tell iPhoto where you moved it. That's it.
OK, you may want to add a larger Time machine drive. The drive you use for TM should be at least 1.5x or 2x. You can have two or even more TM drives. So add the larger one iff need be (I'd just go and get a 4TB drive for TM and a 2 or 3 TB drive for your photos.)
The drive four photos should be as fast as you can afford and speed does not mater for the TM drive