How do you manage your data

[JamesMay82]

Just curious how people are managing data these days with such small internal drives on Macs…especially music and photo libraries.

Are most people keeping large libraries on external SSDs and only plugging them in when needed? Or relying more on cloud storage now?

I’m not really a fan of cloud storage because I worry accidental deletions or sync issues can spraed across devices. But external drives can be a pain too ans easy to forget, and they seem to complicate backups.

Interested to hear what setups are working well for people.

 

[Mrbobb]

I data backup to HDD on my LAN. a few times a year is enough, my data is not business-critical and don't need to be current by the day. The HDD sit on in a 4-bay USB enclosure with the HDD easily shapable. If your data is critical, then you may want to backup more often and store it off-side, like cloud, or use another family member's house for backups.

Data backup and Disaster recovery are 2 separate things and another topic.

 

[jz0309]

Just curious how people are managing data these days with such small internal drives on Macs…especially music and photo libraries.

Are most people keeping large libraries on external SSDs and only plugging them in when needed? Or relying more on cloud storage now?

I’m not really a fan of cloud storage because I worry accidental deletions or sync issues can spraed across devices. But external drives can be a pain too ans easy to forget, and they seem to complicate backups.

Interested to hear what setups are working well for people.

I got my M1Max Studio with a 4TB drive as I wanted to have my photo library on the main drive, currently using ~ 1.7TB so I have still room to grow.
My movies/music are on an external 2TB SSD (never gets unplugged) that is close to 1.9TB now, but I have not added much in the past couple years, so I might just delete some of the movies I don't like to get me more space if needed.
I spec my main drive to my needs, it's worth it to me.

 

[eyoungren]

Well, my youngest Mac is a 2011 MBA and it already has a small drive. I use it as a utility tool to to clone backups, figure out issues, format drives, etc. It's running High Sierra so it's a decent bridge between newer Macs and my older Macs (PowerPC and Intel). It has a dock connected that has a Firewire port so I can boot PowerPC Macs in Target Disk Mode.

I have three NAS devices and several external drives. All computers under my control in the house backup daily to one of the NAS devices and weekly to the Dropbox folder on my Mac Pro.

Currently, I have several empty drives I'm trying to fill because I have more GB than I can shake a stick at. I always try to buy larger drives any time I need to replace an old one.

My music library is on my NAS and depending on the Mac I am using, there are three different apps I use for playing music. All three are capable of detecting any changes to my music folder and will reflect those changes on the fly. This lets me maintain ONE music folder between every single computer.

I do have a 2TB iCloud sub that is shared between my family members, but for me it is simply a matter of convenience. There is almost nothing stored on my devices that could not be replaced from a backup. For the stuff that can't, it's not valuable enough to me for me to care about losing it.

 

[Ben J.]

I have a 512GB internal and use it for apps and user accounts primarily. A few apps installed a lot of data that is almost never used, and by using DaisyDisk to find that data (~230GB), I have moved it to an external drive, and replaced the folders with symlinks. Simple, one time procedure, basically. This way, my internal is mostly around 50% free space or more.

I have two 4TB and one 2TB ssd in 40Gbps external enclosures that are connected all the time, with both photos/videos/sample libraries/projects etc., and backups - so that if any drive should fail, I can replace it and restore its contents quickly.

I also have 3x2TB 2.5" SATA ssds with clones of everything, stored at my neighbour's house and updated every other week, in case of total disaster.

 

[Ben J.]

But external drives can be a pain too ans easy to forget, and they seem to complicate backups.

I can't help you with forgetfulness but I find it really easy. I use Carbon Copy Cloner to keep a volume on a different physical drive to reflect another.

You can create 'volumes' on APFS drives, which is much like partitions but much easier to manage, and they don't have to have a fixed size, they 'share the free space' with other volumes on the drive.

So, I have a volume that I want to be backed up regularly, I create a volume on a different drive, and tell CCC to clone it, and do it each night f.ex. It will only update modyfied and new files. I can also tell it to create snapshots.

 

[JamesMay82]

I can't help you with forgetfulness but I find it really easy. I use Carbon Copy Cloner to keep a volume on a different physical drive to reflect another.

You can create 'volumes' on APFS drives, which is much like partitions but much easier to manage, and they don't have to have a fixed size, they 'share the free space' with other volumes on the drive.

So, I have a volume that I want to be backed up regularly, I create a volume on a different drive, and tell CCC to clone it, and do it each night f.ex. It will only update modyfied and new files. I can also tell it to create snapshots.

View attachment 2631529

Thanks for the replies guys.

I meant forgetfulness in the sense of having the external drive with me for viewing files..

For example if I just sat down on couch and wanted to look at old family videos and I left the drive upstairs or in diff room it’s that minor inconvenience that I think would get on my nerves.. plus it’s a paid for couch viewing with an external drive dangling over n the side..

 

[JamesMay82]

I got my M1Max Studio with a 4TB drive as I wanted to have my photo library on the main drive, currently using ~ 1.7TB so I have still room to grow.
My movies/music are on an external 2TB SSD (never gets unplugged) that is close to 1.9TB now, but I have not added much in the past couple years, so I might just delete some of the movies I don't like to get me more space if needed.
I spec my main drive to my needs, it's worth it to me.

Yeah I went 2TB and wish I went 4TB but it’s so expensive.

I have 2 TB studio, 2TB MacBook Air, 2 TB iPad Pro… not all bought at same time but because I no longer have a work from home job the studio is rarely used and in hindsight wish I’d just got a 4TB laptop now.

 

[Fishrrman]

"Just curious how people are managing data these days with such small internal drives on Macs…especially music and photo libraries"

Well, you need to have some foresight and get a larger internal SSD to begin with.
That simplifies things.

From my early days on the Mac (1980's), I've segregated my data from the OS, whenever possible. I still do that today on my 2024 m4 Mini.

In fact, I'm the only person in the world who has partitioned the m4's internal SSD into "hard partitions" (not APFS), with three HFS+ partitions on it.

Looks like this:

m4 boot - the original OS APFS volume, as you would see on any Apple Silicon Mac
m4 main - my "main" data files (HFS+)
m4 media - photos, videos (HFS+)
m4 music - music (of course) (HFS+)

I keep my actual [large] music archives on an external SSD (that is backed up in two other places).
Same for film/video archives.

In "the old days", we kept data on a separate hard partition (or even a separate drive) to protect against OS crashes. Of course, the modern Mac OS doesn't crash (at least mine doesn't), but the "old ways" persist, at least with me. Getting close to 80 now, and I'll keep goin' the way I go 'til the time runs out...

 

[Alameda]

Just curious how people are managing data these days with such small internal drives on Macs…especially music and photo libraries.

Are most people keeping large libraries on external SSDs and only plugging them in when needed? Or relying more on cloud storage now?

I’m not really a fan of cloud storage because I worry accidental deletions or sync issues can spraed across devices. But external drives can be a pain too ans easy to forget, and they seem to complicate backups.

Interested to hear what setups are working well for people.

Storage is like money: It takes no talent or skill to use it all up. If you collect a lot of video, you can fill up terabytes.

I had 512GB for years and now I have a 1 TB Mac, but nothing has really changed for me: I am an avid photographer and I often take 50 GB of photos at a time. This would rapidly fill up a 1 TB drive.

What I do is copy the card to the Mac Desktop, do my edits, and then I MOVE the folder to a 4 TB external SSD. Then, I COPY that folder to my NAS, which has RAID 5 and automatic backup.

Network attached storage has pros and cons. The biggest con, for me, is that it is slow. I will invest in a faster unit later this year. They are expensive, of course, and can be complicated to set up, but only if you want to do a lot of fancy stuff. Besides that, they have a lot of advantages.

But no matter what, if you don't have an offsite backup, you are vulnerable to theft or fire destroying all of your data.

 

[chown33]

Thanks for the replies guys.

I meant forgetfulness in the sense of having the external drive with me for viewing files..

For example if I just sat down on couch and wanted to look at old family videos and I left the drive upstairs or in diff room it’s that minor inconvenience that I think would get on my nerves.. plus it’s a paid for couch viewing with an external drive dangling over n the side..

Sounds like NAS would solve that. It would move one of the limiting factors away from "is the drive connected" and onto "is the WLAN fast enough", so in some sense it's just trading one set of limits for another. Life is filled with tradeoffs.

 

[Ben J.]

To answer you question more directly; "how do I manage my data (my previous post was more about the storage and backup):

Mac Mini 512 GB internal
macOS, apps, library, user accounts - all the basics for running the mac.

4 TB, 40 Gbit/s Tunderbolt:

Neptun volume:
Top level of my prioritized data:
Folders:
Photo
(Everything photo; myphotos, old family albums, scannings, projects etc.)
MAX folders
(All the large folders rom MAX boot volume replaced with symlinks, like mentioned above.)
Studio
(30 years of music creation, recordings etc.)
Video
(Basically, all my family home videos.)

Jupiter volume:
Next level of prioritized data:
(Movies, commercial music, copies of archives uploaded to the web, disk images from old macs etc.)

Venus volume:
Second next level of prioritized data:
Virtual instruments sample libraries

4 TB, 40 Gbit/s Tunderbolt

Saturn volume
A volume for short term storage and files of less importance, and also several hundred GBs of sample libraries that I know I can redownload should I need to. Not backed up.
CCC MAX volume
CCC Neptun volume

2 TB, 10 Gbps USB-C
CCC Jupiter volume
Install macOS 15.7.5 partition

2 TB, 10 Gbps USB-C
CCC MAX 2 volume
CCC Venus volume

External backup next door:

2 TB Samsung:
CCC MAX 3 (External)
CCC Neptun (External)
2 TB 870 EVO:
CCC Jupiter (External)
2 TB LaCie USB-C:
CCC Venus (External)

I could, of course have had all the data of Neptun, Jupiter, and Venus in one single volume, but splitting it up like this, it gives me more flexibility when using CCC to clone to smaller than 4TB volumes.

 

[JamesMay82]

To answer you question more directly; "how do I manage my data (my previous post was more about the storage and backup):

Mac Mini 512 GB internal
macOS, apps, library, user accounts - all the basics for running the mac.

4 TB, 40 Gbit/s Tunderbolt:

Neptun volume:
Top level of my prioritized data:
Folders:
Photo
(Everything photo; myphotos, old family albums, scannings, projects etc.)
MAX folders
(All the large folders rom MAX boot volume replaced with symlinks, like mentioned above.)
Studio
(30 years of music creation, recordings etc.)
Video
(Basically, all my family home videos.)

Jupiter volume:
Next level of prioritized data:
(Movies, commercial music, copies of archives uploaded to the web, disk images from old macs etc.)

Venus volume:
Second next level of prioritized data:
Virtual instruments sample libraries

4 TB, 40 Gbit/s Tunderbolt

CCC MAX volume
CCC Neptun volume

2 TB, 10 Gbps USB-C
CCC Jupiter
Install macOS 15.7.5 partition

2 TB, 10 Gbps USB-C
CCC MAX 2
CCC Venus

External backup next door:

2 TB Samsung:
CCC MAX 3 (External)
CCC Neptun (External)
2 TB 870 EVO:
CCC Jupiter (External)
2 TB LaCie USB-C:
CCC Venus (External)

I could, of course have had all the data of Neptun, Jupiter, and Venus in one single volume, but splitting it up like this, it gives me more flexibility when using CCC to clone to smaller than 4TB volumes.

For photos is that in a library like Apple photos/lightroom or do you stick to finder folder structures? Same question for your family videos?

 

[jz0309]

For photos is that in a library like Apple photos/lightroom or do you stick to finder folder structures? Same question for your family videos?

you didn't ask me, but I strongly suggest to use folder structure(s) for photos/videos vs using anyones app/"database".
I manage my ~100k photos/videos in LRC that way

 

[eyoungren]

For example if I just sat down on couch and wanted to look at old family videos and I left the drive upstairs or in diff room it’s that minor inconvenience that I think would get on my nerves.. plus it’s a paid for couch viewing with an external drive dangling over n the side..

That is one reason I made networking all the Macs/PC I own a thing in 2003 and got my first router in 2004. It's why I have three NAS boxes and a 24-port Gig-E switch. It's a reason there's a cable run to the garage for another 8-port Gig-E switch and why I have Gig-E wireline devices to reach upstairs (where more switches are connected).

It's why I have multiple networked drives load on boot on most of my Macs.

I want to be anywhere in my house with any computer and able to simply click on a mounted network drive and get what I want. No carrying around stuff - that's insane.

 

[Ben J.]

For photos is that in a library like Apple photos/lightroom or do you stick to finder folder structures? Same question for your family videos?

I use Lightroom Classic to browse and make 'collections' of everything photo, I have playlists of my videos in TV app, all music in Music app playlists, and so on. I just 'point' these apps to the folders on the external drives. I seldom dive into these folders in Finder, and if I need to, I often option-click the photo or the song and choose 'select in Finder'.

 

[JamesMay82]

I use Lightroom Classic to browse and make 'collections' of everything photo, I have playlists of my videos in TV app, all music in Music app playlists, and so on. I just 'point' these apps to the folders on the external drives. I seldom dive into these folders in Finder, and if I need to, I often option-click the photo or the song and choose 'select in Finder'.

Oh that’s interesting about the tv app as I’ve been undecided on family videos. We have loads and multiple videos of our kids. We’ve not really edited any together and we quite like just viewing the individual clips of them big moments like learning to walk etc the problem is I have learning to walk attempt 15 etc so I never know how to organise them in the tv app.

How do you do yours? Also is there not a danger of tv app corrupting video even if it is just in finder folders?

 

[ProbablyDylan]

I built an Unraid NAS before the AI nonsense took off. It's great - 24TB to house all my nonsense, and a 1TB write cache makes putting stuff on it super quick. The parity feature is nice, too.

 

[dead flag blues]

20TB Synology NAS has been great for the past 5 years. A tad slow in the Ethernet department. It’s backed up to iDrive and a local HDD. I’ll likely get new hardware this year, and use the old hardware as an offsite backup. My MBP has a 2TB SSD, and I’ll replace it with the same storage when the M6 machines come out.

 

[nappes]

You can move your photos (and documents and desktop) folder to an external drive. Ie the system looks for the external drive at login not just a copy

This (for me) is a pain in the ass but it’s great for a backup
I have two accounts on macbook for the same Apple ID

(1) everything on the main drive, but the photo library is set for iCloud optimize storage (so I only essentially have Thumbnails of everything )
(2) have the photo drive set to an external ssd with full download. About once every 3 months I connect this up and download all photos to the external drive so I have. Safe backup

A week ago I just got a MacBook with 2TB so I no longer need to do #1 but I’ll always continue to do #2

 

[JamesMay82]

You can move your photos (and documents and desktop) folder to an external drive. Ie the system looks for the external drive at login not just a copy

This (for me) is a pain in the ass but it’s great for a backup
I have two accounts on macbook for the same Apple ID

(1) everything on the main drive, but the photo library is set for iCloud optimize storage (so I only essentially have Thumbnails of everything )
(2) have the photo drive set to an external ssd with full download. About once every 3 months I connect this up and download all photos to the external drive so I have. Safe backup

A week ago I just got a MacBook with 2TB so I no longer need to do #1 but I’ll always continue to do #2

Good idea for nunber 2 but so you not worry about photo library corrupting with it being a package file? I started keeping my photos in finder by year and month to be on safe side

 

[nappes]

Good idea for nunber 2 but so you not worry about photo library corrupting with it being a package file? I started keeping my photos in finder by year and month to be on safe side

Not really, I hadn't really considered that. I'm not sure quite what you mean. The two versions are separate it's not really different from having two Macs and having the library on each.

But I'm not two worried anyway for a few reasons
(1) I assume I'd notice 1 copy was corrupted before I destroyed the other
(2) Entire if the database part of iCloud library was corrupted the actual files are still there. It would be a bit of a pain to get them out but would be possible
(3) I ALSO backup ~80-90% of this to Google Photos as well.

 

[jerryjohnson]

I keep my photo/music libraries on an external SSD, but use cloud only as a secondary backup. Fast enough for daily use, cheaper than upgrading internal storage, and avoids relying entirely on sync services.

 

[NeonNights]

I have a collection of old HDDs, SSDs, and NVMe ranging from 160GB on up to 4TB, but I'm increasingly relying more on my 10gbe network connected to a 40TB NAS. The NAS serves as my personal cloud that I can access from anywhere in the world, and the data is backed up to a second NAS so no fear of permanently deleting anything. My next plan is to relocate the backup NAS to my parents' house for off-site recovery.

 

[Traverse]

My MacBook Pro has a 2TB drive where my core computing life is. It backs up via Time Machine to a 4TB SSD connected to a Mac mini server and also backs up via Carbon Copy Cloner to a 4TB T9 SSD mounted to the back of my display.

My media library (Plex and iTunes) and archived files are saved to two 8TB SSDs connected to that Mac mini server. These are mirrored to two more 8TB SSDs via CCC.

Lastly, both the MacBook Pro and the two 8TB server drives (not the additional two redundant ones) are backed up via Backblaze.