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

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?

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 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

d

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

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

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