Backing Up a Mac with Carbon Copy Cloner
Please read our tutorial on Professional-Grade Backup Plans before proceeding with this article.
Of all the lessons in digital photography, nothing is as important as learning to protect your files using multiple external hard drives and good backup software. To keep my backup disks up-to-date, I rely on Carbon Copy Cloner, a “donation-ware” program. If you like it, please send its creators a generous donation. I will happily pay for a program that has saved me from data loss disaster!
There are lots of ways to configure this wonderful utility; what matters most is that your backup disks mirror your primary storage hard drive(s) and that your backup gets updated on a regularly basis. If the two drives are identical and one of the primary disk fails, then you haven’t lost anything! This video tutorial demonstrates how I backup my primary photo storage disk to a rotating pair of external hard drives using Carbon Copy Cloner v3. I rotate through my backup disks on a weekly basis. The “idle” backup disk, the one that I am not using this week, is stored out in my garage. A bank’s safety deposit box would be an even better choice, but getting the idle backup drive out of my office, and out of the house, adds a significant layer of protection to my backup plans.
Building two backup jobs is the best way to protect my images. As you can see in the video, I have trained Carbon Copy Cloner to make Daily Backups and to also run a Weekly Error Checking Backup job. I have taught the software to update my backup drive every night using these settings for the “Source” and the “Destination.” Source, in this context, means the drive that you want to protect. The Destination is the name of your backup disk. Backup disk rotation is easy with this software as long as both backup drives have the exact same name.
Carbon Copy Cloner Backup Source and Destination Configuration Screen
Using the factory-default “Maintain a backup (Archive modified & deleted files)” is probably an adequate choice for most users. I like to customize these settings so that Carbon Copy Cloner automatically maintains 5 GBs of free space on my backup drives. You could probably skip this step, but I like to know that all of my hard drives have a little bit of free space. Five gigabytes is a completely arbitrary choice, so please pick your own “overhead” threshold if you use these settings. Remember that completely filling up any hard drive can cause you unnecessary troubles.
My Carbon Copy Cloner Daily Backup Custom Settings
Once you have defined the appropriate settings for the Daily Backup job, use the Schedule this task… button. In the video tutorial, I defined a daily backup schedule in the first tab and turned off the use strict volume identification for the destination volume option. Turning off this option is crucial if you are rotating through a set of backup disks. I did not mess with any of the other settings, although I do like the power management controls in the Before & After tab.
My Carbon Copy Cloner Daily Backup Task Schedule
I use similar settings for my Weekly Error Checking Backup job, but I have to adjust one switch inside of the Advanced Settings menu. To get to this menu, go back into the initial “Source and Destination” screen, press the Custom Settings button, then hit the Advanced Settings button.
My Carbon Copy Cloner Weekly Backup Advanced Settings
The last step is to define a schedule for the Weekly Error Checking Backup and to disable the strict volume identification switch if you are rotating through your backup disks.
My Carbon Copy Cloner Weekly Backup Task Schedule
Again, there are many ways to configure this software. Conduct your own experiments and make sure that your backup configuration is working properly before a disaster strikes!
Related Tutorials:
Filed Under: (02) Backup Advice • (12) FAQ • Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Tutorials
About the Author: David Marx is a digital photography instructor whose engaging teaching style inspires photographers of all skill levels. David is an Adobe Certified Lightroom Expert. To learn more about David's Adobe Photoshop Lightroom software training seminars and digital photography field workshops please visit 
Hi David,
I’m in the process of setting up a backup system and your advice is very clear and straightforward. However, you don’t mention bootable clones, something CCC can do. Is that something you don’t consider useful?
Dear Jean-Claude,
I love bootable clones. It is one of the reason’s why I prefer Carbon Copy Cloner over Time Machine. But to be bootable the clone must mirror the internal hard drive. For some of my readers the image storage disk and the internal hard drive are one and the same. But for others, myself included, I use a separate primary image drive. This drive gets cloned with Carbon Copy everyday. The clone protects my images but since the backup does not contain the OS it is not bootable. It’s image protection for that drive only.
My advice: make bootable clones of your internal disk. If that also protects your photos great! If not make a daily backup of the internal disk and a separate backup of your image storage drive. The important part is to protect everything. Every day.
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David Marx
David, maybe I’m missing something huge, but I have a question that I don’t think I asked clearly enough before. I see the tutorial for backing up your drive via CCC. What I am trying to learn, is if there is a way to set up Lightroom and/or CCC to back up my Lightroom/Photoshop files ONLY, to an external drive. I will have Time Machine, or if it’s so much better,CCC, back up the entire iMac to a different drive. I havent started working with LR yet so I don’t yet have a dedicated photo drive. Whew!!!! Sorry for duplicate questions, I just want to set this up right so I can concentrate on learning LR. Thanks again- Jerry
Dear Jerry,
TimeMachine is a good tool for backing up your iMac’s entire internal drive to another external disk. TimeMachine’s strength is that it backs up everything on a regular schedule and that it prunes out older archived copies. But configuring it to backup a specific folder–your Lightroom Catalog folder and your photo storage folder–to another disk and on a separate schedule is beyond its abilities.
For this kind of control software like Carbon Copy Cloner, or SuperDuper, is the superior tool. Carbon Copy Cloner, and the like, are superior tools because they allow you to choose a specific folder(s) on the source drive and specify exactly where its clones will go and when they will go there.
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David Marx
David- Thank you. Ironically, I discovered that I can not back up iphoto to my raid1 via CCC. I have to back it up to the other drive, so one question is this- does it make sense to back up both iPhoto files AND Lightroom files to the other drive via CCC? If so, I just am not sure exactly what I am asking CCC to clone and back up. Anothe question- is there any need to somehow partition that drive or do you think separate folders for iPhoto and Lightroom/photoshop are the way to go. I do intend to use photoshop with Lightroom so I dont know if I have to add files for that also. Your guys have been great. Thank you.
Dear Jerry,
Apologies but I have completely lost track of what you are trying to accomplish here. Please tell me why Carbon Copy Cloner cannot copy files from your internal drive, or a regular external disk, to the RAID? Why is this part giving us trouble?
If your goal is to protect your photography–all of it including Lightroom and iPhoto–then why not back everything up to the RAID 1 disk and to another hard drive? Keep the RAID 1 in your office and put the other disk somewhere safe outside of your home. Bring that drive back on a regular basis and update its backup. With a copy onsite (the RAID) and one off-site you actually have a secure robust backup system. Backing up to a RAID 1 disk is great but the same power surge that fries your computer is likely to fry all of the disks in that array. For more backup advice see Professional-Grade Backup Plans again. If Carbon Copy Cloner cannot handle this job then what about TimeMachine or another backup utility like SuperDuper?
I cannot see any reason why you need additional disk partitions to keep Lightroom and iPhoto separate. Those two programs do not interact in anyway nor does your iPhoto interact with images that are not added into its Library. Photoshop is an image enhancer that could care less where / how you store your images so I can’t see why that justified an additional partition.
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David Marx
Hi- I asked a question earlier, but perhaps it was more complex than it had to be.
1- I have a main ,full computer backup to a Raid1 system. OK, I think.
2- The real question is , maybe via CCC, Can I create a backup to another standard HD, for my Lightroom images, catalog and any other relevant files like a can in your tutorial video for backing up an entire drive? The video seemed clear enough, Its just that I want a totally separate backup of just my photos and needed files to this stand alone drive. Hope this makes sense. I’m trying to make the right choices before I begin working with LR. Thanks in advance.
David: You’ve been a big help so far. However, when I purchased my copy of Carbon Copy Cloner last month and used it, apparently the process corrupted my lrcat (catalog files) and I lost my main catalog file in the process. I copied over the entire content of an external hard drive (including my photos and my lrcat and backup files to a second external drive. When I booted up lightroom today, the catalog file was not to be found or corrupt and I didn’t have a catalog anymore, nor in the backups. I can’t figure this out. Just an FYI. Maybe you have heard other stories about newer versions of Carbon Copy Cloner. I spent $40, and the Adobe forum discussion folks said NEVER use the product with any LR file. So I’m out $40 and wasted a day because of something that didn’t work. I can’t say what went wrong, though. But the catalog I had vanished and I’m SOL.
Dear Rudy,
I am sorry to hear of your troubles. I can empathize with your feelings of loose and frustration but I am not sure that I understand how Carbon Copy Cloner would have harmed your Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Catalog. Carbon Copy Cloner merely copies data from point A to point B. The key word here is data– 1 & 0s. It does not care whether the files are photographs, documents, movies, etc. Using Carbon Copy Cloner, or any other backup utility, to mirror the files on one disk to the files on another disk should have absolutely no effect on the source files!
I don’t work for Bombich software, the company that makes Carbon Copy Cloner, nor do I work for Adobe. I have no vested interest in defending either product but this just doesn’t sound right. May I ask a couple of additional questions. First, where were you storing your Lightroom Catalog when all of this happened? Was the Catalog stored on your internal hard drive or was it stored on an external disk?
Second, if you do a search for all of the files in your computer, and / or external drive, that end with the .lrcat extension what do you find? These are Lightroom Catalog files and I am hoping that one of them is the Lightroom Catalog that you are currently missing.
Third, what is currently on the drive that you used for the Carbon Copy backup? Hopefully this disk has a copy of all your photos and potentially a functional copy of your old Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Catalog. If there is indeed a Lightroom Catalog on your backup disk will it load without corruption if you double-click on it.
Again, I sympathize with your frustration and I would like to do whatever I can to help.
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David Marx
David: Thanks for your feedback. I have to agree with you re that the software should have no affect other than moving files. But, it’s the best guess I have. I did have a backup lrcat file of my catalog on my cloned copy drive. I searched and opened every lrcat file on my primary external drive and upon every occasion, the files and folder structure did not appear (not even as shaded with question marks). The last lrcat copy on my backup disk required me to do the find and connect function, cause all of them were shaded and had question marks, and were reconnected manually. I’m going to check one more time today. Now I could have deleted the lrcat file (the original), but I doubt it. All of the backup files I had run on my primary exernal drive also failed to open up and show me my folder system I had created in LR (not using my OS). (I don’t know why they didn’t open up to show me that last setting I had with the folders visible). The only other odd possibility is that when I downloaded (right before this happened) the 4.3 plugin to my 4.3 purchased copy something happened, but that seems odd since I was using your good instructions and created the catalog and backup files on my external drive. I also boot from the desktop icon of the source lrcat file I dragged to the menu of my Mac desktop, and always boot from that primary file (stored on my external drive). 95 percent of the time human error is responsible, but occasionally, things are impacted by software, or my failure to run carbon copy cloner correctly. I will run several dummy attempts today to determine if that could be a source of the issue? The good news is I simply was able to convert my backup to my primary and will convert my primary now to my backup. Hopefully the migration originally caused no corruption and the files are intact. Overall I checked, and all is good. I don’t know why the folks on the Adobe forum said “never” let Carbon Coby Cloner touch any LR files. It could be a precautionary principle? Thanks, David.
I’ve been reading through your posts and trying to get all of this straight in my mind before making the Big Move so please tell me if this sounds right/wrong/somewhere in between.
I use an older (black) MacBook (with upgraded RAM and a 500 gb HD). Right now all of my pictures and LR catalog live on the MacBook itself (I import and do the work only on that computer for LR). I back up the whole shebang to a 1TB desk-top drive weekly using Time Machine. I also manually copy my entire Pictures folder to a 500 gb portable and, less frequently, to the old 250 gb HD that used to be the computer’s drive. I also just got a new 1TB portable that I’ve been cloning (with CCC) my computer’s drive to all day (USB 2…).
At this point I want to/need to move my image files to an external drive since my internal drive is bursting at the seams.
I’m now trying to figure out what I will need for external drives and how to manage them. One will be dedicated for only the image files and will be the one that I use consistently for that. (I’m thinking that should be the OWC drive, right?)
But here’s my real question – do the 2 back up drives (as in the 2 that you swap out weekly) only have image file and catalog backups? Or do they back up the entire computer? On CCC can you choose both the image drive and the internal drive as sources to go to one destination in the same backup?
If they are only backups for the image files and catalog, what is your arrangement for backing up 1-2 copies of the rest of the computer?
Thanks for everything you do!
Dear Julie,
Sorry about the delay answering your questions. I applaud you for doing your research and for thinking through your image storage and backup plans. I am guessing from your questions that you have already read my post on My Photo Storage System: Multiple External Hard Drives so I will jump right into dishing out advice.
For your primary storage I would recommend using a high-quality high-speed external hard drive. I use an OWC Mercury Elite-AL Pro Mini (7200rpm Version). See Recommended External Hard Drives for more advice on why I like this particular drive. This disk contains my Lightroom Catalog and all of my images.
As you point out, I back up this disk to a pair of rotating external hard drives. For a Mac users like you, I would go for something like a pair of Western Digital My Book Studio 2 TB FireWire 800 External Hard Drive for my backup set. Depending upon the size of your image library you have two choices. Option 1: Partition your backup drives and use one partition to hold a daily backup of your images and the other for a daily backup of your Mac’s internal hard drive. Partitioning the disk into two separate regions keeps the backup clean and reduces confusion. With a partitioned backup drive you can use software like Carbon Copy Cloner to protect your photos and then build a second backup job to protect your internal hard drive.
Option 2: Use a separate set of rotating external hard drives to backup your internal hard drive. In this setup you would use one set of disks to protect your images and a separate set to protect your internal hard drive. This is the option that I chose so that a: my image backup disks have more storage space and b: it is a good use for my old, slow, less fancy external hard drives. For this job an old slow USB disk is just fine and the backup pair do not even have to be the same brand or model of disk!
I hope this advice helps and apologize again for the delay getting back to you.
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David Marx
I’m still a bit confused on back ups. You state that “The problem is that changes to the primary image, the file that is referenced by your Lightroom Catalog database, are not automatically added to its duplicate. Since the copied files are never updated, returning to these files after a major disaster might be crushing setback. If you had to resort to using these files after a major disaster then you might have to do all of your Photoshop Lightroom work over again!”
My question is if the image files are duplicated on import to a 2nd ext. back up drive and if LR. back up duplicates the lrcat to that 2nd drive after each working secession wouldn’t I be safe? As I understand it no changes are made to the image file only to the data or lrcat. So why does the image file (negative) have to be updated?
Dear Blaine Ellis,
You might be safe this way as long as you never change your file names. If the file name that the Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Catalog references no longer matches the name of the file on the external drive then your Catalog is full of “missing images.” You could manually reconnect each and every file that you have ever renamed but it is going to be a tedious nightmare. In addition, the second drive will potentially contain a ton of files that you have deleted off the primary. Once Adobe Photoshop Lightroom makes that “2nd copy” it never touches these files again. This is not necessarily a bad thing but it means that if you had to restore from this drive that you will potentially find hundreds or thousands of images that you never wanted to keep!
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David Marx
With the newer version of CCC (3.4.2) how do you configure an “incremental backup” as demonstrated in your tutorial?
Thanks for all your helpful instruction.
d
Dear Dirk,
I will have to re-record this video. Carbon Copy 3.4 introduces a lot of changes and whole new set of buttons. Until I get too it see http://help.bombich.com/kb/overview/hey-where-did-my-settings-go-interface-changes-in-ccc-34 for more on how the program has changed.
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David Marx
Dear Dirk,
Apologies for the ridiculous delay. I have finally updated my Carbon Copy Cloner backup tutorial so that it covers the latest version and my new backup system.
Happy New Year,
David Marx
I just switched to the Mac this week and thanks to your great video tutorial on CCC, I am easily able to backup my photos! There is a new version out that has different options, but after some custom settings and a few test runs, I’m good to go! Now the fun process of converting all those external hard drives so the Mac can read them…
Dear Jamil,
I am glad you found the tutorial useful. I switched to the new version of Carbon Copy Cloner a few days ago too….. Guess I need to redo this tutorial!
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David Marx
just finished using carbon copy clone and there seems to be a problem 4.3 g did not make it over to my back up disk. u know why. the photos files on both disks seem to match as does the catalog file but the main disk seems to be larger. by 4.3 g.
Dear Martin Weber,
Disk size calculations from an internal to an external disk are often different. I would not sweat the gigabyte differences as long as you can see all of the files on both disks. If Carbon Copy Cloner is properly configured, and if the backup ran successfully, then you should be all set even if the file count or disk space usage indicators differ. Still, it is definitely worth double checking.
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David Marx
Hi David
Thanks for your response regarding backup, your help has been greatly appreciated!
I have a few more issues which i’m having trouble with in order to set me on the right track with Lightroom.
I’m currently in the process of switching from Aperture 3 to Lightroom 3, so i hope to move all my photos from one to the other. I’ve only moved a couple of folders so far and think i’ve made a bit of a mess of things.
To start with i had exported 2 folders out of Aperture on to an external hard drive with jpegs & Raw files (masters). I also made sure to create IPTCXMP sidecar files in the process. I’m not sure if this was the correct thing to do?
I then imported these into the default Lightroom lrcat file stored on my mac’s internal drive (this was before i had watched your tutorials on how to get started right in lightroom).
The next step i made was to set up my formatted photo storage drive with import/metadata presets as suggested in your tutorilals. I then tried to move the 2 folders from my original lightroom catalog onto my formatted photo storage drive but found that lighroom had only preserved changes that i had already made on some of the photos. The only other thing i did in my original lightroom catalog was convert the RAW files to DNG . Did this stop me from preserving the metadata?
I’m sorry to bombard you with so many questions but i don’t want to make a big mess of things. Ultimately i want to gradually move all my photos from from aperture to lightroom on my formatted photo storage drive. Would i have to export them all as masters (with XMP sidecar profiles) to my “photos go here” folder then import them into my lightroom catalog? Is there a more streamlined way of moving my photos from Aperture to lightroom directly or would i still have to export them first?
Finally, on a different note, do you ever run lightroom courses in the Uk or Ireland as i’d love to sign up?
Thanks again for all your help,
Regards
Dan
Dear Dan Cutting,
Sorry about the delay. To move from Aperture to Lightroom you need to export all your files as masters with XMP sidecar files. Once exported you need to import these files into your Lightroom index. If I were in your shoes I would consider exporting copies from Aperture to your new external hard drive and then importing these files using the Import with Add to Catalog Command in Lightroom. Alternatively, you could export all of the files to your desktop and then use the Import with Move Command. This route gives you more options and more controls but you will need to specify the external disk as the new storage destination for your files.
I would love to run a Lightroom class in the UK or Ireland. Someday….
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David Marx
Hi David,
Firstly, I just want to say what a fantastic job you’ve done with your tutorials.
I have set up lightroom as your videos suggest, with a formatted external drive and have all my import/metadata presets ready to go. I’m now ready to set up a proper backup system. I’m currently running a time capsule with time machine to backup my internal drive. I was intending to also use time machine to back up my formatted photo storage drive by making sure it’s included in my backups in time machine preferences. Is this a viable option to backup a lightroom catalog or would I be better off with carbon copy cloner? Also if I do use CCC, would I have to format the 2nd drive in the same way (ie, would i format it with exactly the same name as my primary hard drive)?
Thanks
Dan
Dear Dan Cutting,
Good questions. Time Machine and Carbon Copy Cloner are both excellent backup utilities so there isn’t a single definitive answer to your question. I prefer to backup one external drive to another via Carbon Copy Cloner. I find that mixing an external drive and my Mac’s internal drive together into a Time Machine backup is messy and it’s harder to control the backup schedule. One of Carbon Copy Cloner’s greatest features to me is the ease of scheduling backups so that they only run after my work day ends or as soon as my drive is reconnected. That said Time Machine’s versioning system– the ability to go back to any day, hour, etc.–is a big plus. So each has its strengths and merits.
What you don’t want to do though is give the second drive the exact same name as the primary. Giving two drives identical names might confuse the Mac and it is guaranteed to confuse you. Give them similar names but make it clear to yourself which one is the primary and which the backup. In my world, my primary disk is “Photo Storage” and the backup is named “Photo Storage Backup.”
Way to plan ahead too for that really bad day when something vital stops working!
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David Marx
David,
Thanks again so much for this tutorial.
I would like to use a portable HD at time connected to a lap top but generally use my external HD on my desktop machine.
All I should have to do is to disconnect the external and change the name on the portable and then it would work as the external drive with all photos and Library. Is that correct?
A clear explanation would be helpful to me.
Thanks,
tom
he. Carbon Copy Cloner does not support exFAT disk
Hi David
Thanks for all the helpful info. A bit of start-up advice if possible!
I have a macbook which is 3 years old and needs some more memory to run Lightroom properly. I have just purchased Lightroom as it was on special offer, but I have yet to activate it (because of the memory issue).
However, it is already installed on my mac, as I downloaded the free 30day trial. I was going to just reactivate this after I install the extra memory I need, but after reading your advice about starting with the catalog and photo library stored together on an external drive I am wondering if I should just uninstall Lightroom and start from scratch, or can I easily move the catalog already in existence to an external drive? I didn’t import very many images in the trial period.
As my laptop is small I already transferred my photos to a external drive, and import new photos to this. But it has a USB connection – is this not fast enough?
Thanks!
Elizabeth
Dear Elizabeth,
Common confusion: Lightroom is both the name of the program (an application in Mac speak) and the default name for your catalog. Uninstalling the application will not remove the Lightroom catalog files that the trial version created from your Pictures folder. This is a good thing too because it means that you can un-install, re-install, etc if you the source code gets corrupted without automatically loosing the index of your photography and all your hard work.
For you it means that uninstalling the old trial version and reinstalling will not change the fact that you already have an Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 3 catalog in your pictures folder. Reinstalling with the most up to date version of the application might fix some bugs but it won’t wipe out or automatically move your catalog. Fortunately moving your existing Adobe Photoshop Lightroom catalog from drive to drive is easy. Once moved you could rename your .lrcat and previews files too so that they have a more meaningful name then the factory default “Lightroom Catalog.” After the move be sure to set your preferences and back everything up.
USB is the slowest type of connection for a modern external hard drive but its adequate. Firewire 400 is better. Firewire 800 is excellent and eSATA can be blazing fast. Unfortunately, I don’t think that you have any of these fast options on a three year old macbook :<. My advice would be to use the USB drive that you already have for now but when purchasing additional external hard drives, either for backup or primary storage, get something that can run USB and Firewire 800 so that you are ready when your next computer comes along.
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David Marx
Just wanted to say thanks for your walkthrough video.. your tutorial answered all my questions (which I couldn’t find an answer to, after searching high & low). I am in the process of moving my 400GB iPhoto library to an external hard drive and wanted to know what steps to take to back up the photo library (on a 2nd external drive). Your scenario is exactly like the one I had envisioned, but wasn’t sure I was heading down the right path. Then, your last post (dated Nov. 7, 2010) above hit it on the nail with Time Machine on a 3rd external drive for other Mac files (iTunes, documents, etc). Now, all i need is a 4th drive to store OUTSIDE the home, perhaps in a safe deposit at a bank somewhere! Yes, after almost losing 2+ months worth of photos (JUST 3500 photos) due to a HD failure on my iMac, I can only imagine what I would do with myself if I ever lost my 5+ year collection spanning over 40,000+ photos chronicling the birth and growth of my two kids, and other important family events. Paranoia is good
Thanks David!
Dear David,
If I will use ccc to back up my photos and catalog to my external HD which from now on will be dedicated to my photos and LR stuff, what should I do with all the time machine backups locted on it and how will I ack up the rest of my system files, music etc?
Alon
Dear Alon,
You need to add at least one more external hard drive! There should be a backup disk, or a dedicated partition, for every hard drive that you use for primary file storage. If all your files live inside your mac then using TimeMachine and a single external disk is a fine way to protect yourself. But once you start storing your photographs on an external hard drive, like I do, then you need yet another drive to backup the primary external storage.
In my office I have one external disk that backs up my computers internal drive. Time Machine is just fine for this task. I have a high-speed RAID 0 stripped external disk that stores my photographs and my Adobe Photoshop Lightroom catalog. This external drive, which I call my “PHOTO LIBRARY,” gets backed up every day to another external using Carbon Copy Cloner.
This way I will be protected in case the computer’s internal drive fails and I am protected if my photo library, my holding tank for all things photographic, also fails. Since the backups are on separate disks I am dispersing the risk that one drive failure could wipe out everything. I even have a backup of the photo backup drive that I update weekly and that store outside the house just in case of house fire, power surge, etc. I also backup my most important documents online! Call me paranoid, but all disks eventually fail and I don’t want my business to be wiped out by a hard drive crash.
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David Marx
I have transferred my Pictures with sub folders from my PC to my mirrored raid 1 external drive.On exiting LR I back up the catalog to the external drive. I import pictures to LR with a copy to the pictures sub-folders on the same external drive.However, I understand that if you export a picture from LR to Photoshop for editing and save it back to LR, this newly created picture is not backed up.Is this correct because when I view the relevant pictures subfolder on my external drive, I can see the newly edited image?
If it is not backed up,how do you set Acronis True Image to back up these additional pictures without duplicating the LR backup? I also understand that if your computer crashes,the computer disks,Photoshop and LR software as well as plugins will all need to be reinstalled so that a full system back up is pointless as well as taking up a lot of space.Can an incremental back up track editing changes in LR?
Thanks
David
Dear David Malkin,
First, I have to point out that this post is for Mac users. You can find our post on backing up a PC using Acronis True Image here. I hope that you will find answers to your Acronis questions and what an incremental backup can do for you there. That said, I think that you are a little confused about how Adobe Photoshop Lightroom’s catalog backup feature works and about what your RAID 1 mirrored external hard drive is really doing.
A RAID 1 mirrored setup means that anything and everything that store on this device is automatically written to both drives. You are essentially getting two copies of every file that you put on the RAID 1 disk even though you can’t see the two drives separately. It’s a redundant form of data storage which is wonderful protection for your files should one of those spinning ceramic platters (ie. the hard drives inside the box) fail. A RAID 1 Mirrored disk though offers you no protection should from power surges, or corrupt files, since the power surge would fry both disks. Likewise, corrupt data is simultaneously written to both disks. I don’t mean to scare you. I love Mirrored drive systems but we have to be clear about the types of protection that these system offer.
When you use Adobe Photoshop Lightroom’s internal catalog backup feature you get a second copy of your Lightroom catalog file (the one whose extension ends in .lrcat.) This file is very a great way to recover from catalog corruption but it does nothing to protect your actual images. It’s excellent protection for the work that you have done that exists only at the Lightroom catalog level– Unsaved Metadata, Virtual Copies, Collections, Pick / Reject Flags, and the Copy Name Metadata Field. But again this feature does nothing to protect your images!
Sending an image from Adobe Photoshop Lightroom to Adobe Photoshop for further editing does not change where the file is stored. In your case, if the original capture is on your RAID 1 External then the -Edit file that Lightroom / Photoshop creates will also be on the external. Since it’s a mirrored drive this means that the file is automatically written to both disks in the array and the file is automatically added into your Lightroom index. So in your case these files are automatically “backed up” since they now exists on both disks! This good but again I have to point out that this system offers little protection from threats like data corruption, a power surge, a house fire, etc.
My suggestions is to keep making those Lightroom catalog backups and store them on your external drive. In addition, I urge you to regularly back your RAID 1 mirrored disk using software like Acronis True Image to yet another external hard drive. Do this say once a week and then get the backup disk out of your house. Store it at your office, at a friends house, or in a bank safety deposit box. Bring it home once a week and update it’s backup then take it away! Read this article on backup strategy from the American Society of Media Photographers for more advice on this level of data protection.
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David Marx
David,
I use a 400gb external for my main photo storage.It comes with me wherever me and my macbook pro go. I just purchased a 1TB WD drive and set it up for time machine which I leave home and backup daily. When I use it with CCC will it delete my time machine backup. How can I solve this without partitioning the drive?
thanks
bryce
Dear Byce J,
I have to ask why not re-partition the drive? Ideally, we want one partition for the photo storage drive backup (using Carbon Copy Cloner) and another for Time Machine. If you don’t do this then I think that Time Machine will quickly fill up the entire drive with its hourly backups and soon there won’t be any room for your Carbon Copy Cloner backup. Time Machine is a nice program but it is designed to completely monopolize whatever drive it uses for the hourly backups.
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David Marx
David-
I have done exactly what you suggest–backing up my “Photo Library” on my raid drive to an external HD. Carbon Copy Clone worked perfectly. But how do you solve this problem: the Catalogue on the cloned external HD, when launched, cannnot find the photos in the library, because they are pointed to the old location (my Raid Drive). I can double click on the Question Mark, and LR will locate the image on the external and the nearby images, but I have over 200 folders, and this would have to be done for each folder. Any way to point this cloned catalogue to the images on the Back-up HD?
Dear Harvey Wang,
The secret to success in life is to right-click! You need to right-click on one of your folders and then select the “add parent folder option.” Parts of my video tutorial on moving folders from place to place using Adobe Photoshop Lightroom might help. In the system that I teach in my workshops and on this blog, the parent folder is called the “PHOTOS GO HERE” folder but its name is not important. What’s important is that you add this into your folder drill down. You need to add it in so that you can right-click on it and then use the “locate missing folder” option. Lightroom will fix the path for your 200+ sub-folders as soon as you update the location for the parent folder!
The question that puzzles me though is why are you using the catalog on your backup drive? I would only open this catalog if my primary disk completely fails. If, or perhaps I should say when, this disaster strikes. I throw the dead hard drive away and promote the backup drive. The backup becomes the new primary storage and when I promote it I change the drive’s name so that it matches the old primary. If the drive name (and drive letter in the windows world) match the old disk then there is no need to relocate all of your folders. But again, I only do this after a catastrophic event that wipes out the primary….
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David Marx
David,
I think the greatest disappointment with the Time Machine is that you cannot, like we both mentioned, select which folders to backup.
I think this Time Machine Scheduler is a nice addition. 1 hour is far too frequent in my eyes.
If someone could devise a way to backup select folders — that’d be awesome!
Thanks for all of your help David.
I think all of you who spend countless hours sharing your knowledge online are very UNDERAPPRECIATED.
So: thanks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Robert
Hi David,
I feel a little out of the loop here. I just recently began with Lightroom 3.0. I have an iMAC and a 1GB External WD Drive. I have Time Machine running. It backs ups every hour or so. I wish Time Machine could be configured so it only could backup certain folders [Photos, MP3s, Lightroom Catalogs] but it doesn’t.
Seeing as it is, all of my photos and Lightroom Catalogs are being backed up.
Not enough?
Wouldn’t my Internal HDD *and* External have to go kaput for me to experience a disaster?
Tell me what I am missing here.
Thanks!
Dear Robert Gomes,
You are right that Time Machine will backup your entire internal hard drive to your external disk every hour. Time Machine is a great way to protect your computer’s internal disk but it is not very flexible. As you pointed out, you cannot tell it which folders to exclude from its hourly backup. Worse, you cannot use it to backup one external disk to another without combining that disks contents in with the contents of your external hard drive. This becomes a big problem when your image library exceeds your internal hard drive’s storage capacity. Time Machine is not ideal for photographer’s like me who use separate external disks for both my primary storage system and for my backups. See http://thelightroomlab.com/2009/05/my-photo-storage-system-two-external-hard-drives/ for more details.
If you are going to keep your images on your Mac’s internal hard drive, and if you are going to use Time Machine to backup the whole disk, then you might want to check out a handy little utility called Time Machine Scheduler. Time Machine Scheduler allows you to change the amount of time that passes between each incremental backup. I appreciate Apple’s interest in backup up your entire computer every hour but that seems a little excessive for most users.
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David
Thank you SO much for your reply. I was not familiar with Drive Genius. I did not want to run Windows on my new Mac, due to virus concerns. I did read, and follow, your post on formatting external drives (along with many of your other posts). And I decided to format the drives for the Mac, so I am glad to hear that MacDrive has caused you no problems, although I haven’t yet had to hook them up to the windows machine. The ability to use CCC was an important factor in deciding to format them the way I did.
I did not know that the drives could be daisy chained, so again, thank you for that information.
Now, I return to “Getting Started with Lightroom 3″ . . . .
In order to use CCC, must your drives be formatted HFS+? Do you ever use your photo library on a PC? If so, do you use MacDrive? And if you do, what has been your experience with that? I read your post where you say you can use either MacDrive on the PC, or the Paragon driver on the Mac to read/write to NTFS — but if you do that, is there anything you can run on the Mac to clone one external drive to another? Finally, when you run CCC, how are your hard drives connected? One firewire, one usb? Or some more exotic solution? I’m trying to set up two hard drives for the first time to use on both PC and Mac, with the Mac the primary computer, and every “solution” seems to have some serious difficulty. Cloning one drive to the other seems particularly problematic. Thanks in advance.
Dear jehannebc,
Sorry about the delay. With all the new Lightroom 3 questions this one slipped by me. To use Carbon Copy Cloner your drives must be formated HFS+ (aka Mac OS X Extended.) I do sometimes use them on a PC and find that they work just fine when connected to a PC using the MacDrive software. See my how to format an external hard drive post for more details. Assuming that both your primary and backu drives are formatted OS X Extended (HFS+) then Carbon Copy can clone them. If you are looking to clone NTFS drives with a Mac I would try either a robust disk management program like Drive Genius or using Windows.
Yes, I said use Windows on your Mac. You could use either Boot Camp or a virualization program like VM Fusion and then a Windows disk cloning / backup utility. The question that I have though is it worth all this hassle?
As far as how to connect the drives to the Mac you could go with one connected to a USB port and the other to the Firewire port but this will make the backup take a lot longer then if you connect both drives via Firewire. Firewire devices are meant to be daisy chained together which is why they almost always have two firewire ports. Connect the two drives to each other with one cable and then use another cable to connect one of them to the Mac.
I hope this helps and sorry again about the delay.
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David
Good question, Patti. I’m sure David will chime in shortly, but it’s vital that you understand what the backup features in Lightroom actually do. There are two main ways that Lightroom helps with backups:
The take-home point here is that there is much more on our drives than just our images or just our Lightroom Catalog file. Having a proper backup of the entire drive will save you countless hours (perhaps days) of heartache down the road.
Remember: Hard Drives have a 100% failure rate. All hard drives will fail…it’s just a matter of time. Be prepared for that inevitable moment.
-Scott
I am assuming that you do not use the backup feature in Lightroom if you are backing up the eternal hard drive with Carbon Copy Cloner. Is that correct?