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Author Topic: LR backup software  (Read 26764 times)

KevinA

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LR backup software
« on: November 19, 2015, 03:47:29 am »

New to LR after Aperture.
I am dedicating a large drive to LR, I will be adding identical drives for backup. Which software for backing up the drives are preferred? I was using the Aperture vaults, very simple so not easy to get it wrong.
I'm hoping there is something easy and simple. Suggestions please, thanks.
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Manoli

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Re: LR backup software
« Reply #1 on: November 19, 2015, 03:53:23 am »

Carbon Copy Cloner
https://bombich.com
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graeme

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Re: LR backup software
« Reply #2 on: November 19, 2015, 04:19:19 am »

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BobShaw

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Re: LR backup software
« Reply #3 on: November 19, 2015, 06:22:42 am »

I am assuming you are on a Mac so TimeMachine is all you need.
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ButchM

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Re: LR backup software
« Reply #4 on: November 19, 2015, 07:23:33 am »

I am assuming you are on a Mac so TimeMachine is all you need.

Yes, and no. Certainly Time Machine can back up your images, but it is in a compressed format that in the event of a problem you need to reconstruct the files and folders from the TM archive.

Conversely, if you use Carbon Copy Cloner, Super Duper or other such offerings that create a cloned copy of the original drive ... In the event of a drive failure, you can simply point Lr to the cloned drive and continue working without breaking stride. Lr can't directly read or access a TM backup, so you would be down, until you reconstruct the desired file/folder structure. Which is no big deal for a small library, but if your assets number in the tens of thousands, that can be a lot of valuable time expended.

I even keep a CCC clone of my startup drive, as well as a TM backup for extra protection, but for my 12TB image/video archives, I only use CCC.
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digitaldog

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Re: LR backup software
« Reply #5 on: November 19, 2015, 10:37:51 am »

+1 to what ButchM wrote. TM is great and has saved my butt but it's not something you want to use alone. Like him, I do not include the dedicated drive I keep all LR data on for any Time Machine backups. Time Machine isn't all you need. CCC, SuperDuper or ChronoSync are all better for cloning all that data (including presets stored with the catalog) to another dedicated drive.
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CatOne

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Re: LR backup software
« Reply #6 on: November 19, 2015, 10:41:00 am »

Yes, and no. Certainly Time Machine can back up your images, but it is in a compressed format that in the event of a problem you need to reconstruct the files and folders from the TM archive.

I'm not clear what you mean by this. Time Machine backups are not "compressed." They're just the files. However, there are some UNIX "tricks" used (specifically, hard links), to keep files from being stored every single time they're backed up, if they don't change. But this doesn't involve compression.

The easiest way to restore from Time Machine is just to use the menu icon and restore to a specific point in time. If for some reason you don't want to do this, you can navigate to the backup location and go to the folder called "latest" which will point you to the directory that looks exactly like the last backup you made. You could copy that directory to the restore location and you're good to go.

Carbon Copy Cloner (or its nearly identical analogue, SuperDuper!) are conceptually simpler in that they're just a straight "clone" of your drive. The big downside are that they're mainly manual processes, and so it's highly likely people using them may have to revert to a backup that's days or weeks old. "Do it every night" is a lot of extra work over Time Machine, for no true benefit other than simplicity if you don't want to learn.

I'd also recommend an offsite backup. On OS X, I've found BackBlaze to be quite good.
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digitaldog

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Re: LR backup software
« Reply #7 on: November 19, 2015, 10:52:32 am »

I'm not clear what you mean by this. Time Machine backups are not "compressed." They're just the files. However, there are some UNIX "tricks" used (specifically, hard links), to keep files from being stored every single time they're backed up, if they don't change. But this doesn't involve compression.
It's kind of a PITA to find data to recover from TM depending on how far back it goes. That's also the beauty unlike a clone, you can go back multiple 'backup's' and get data that would be over written using a product like SuperDuper. So that begs the question. If you have one image you've edited 20 times in the last 2 weeks, do you want or need each iteration? If so, TM is useful but of course will take a lot more HD space for all of this. On the other hand, you have all your LR data on a dedicated drive that you clone after you work on important files or like me, automatically every night, is that sufficient (answer, yes). I can clone that drive to as many others as I wish, rotate them in differing locations etc. TM isn't the same process. So when folks say 'just use TM' it appears they don't understand the significant differences between and ramifications of it's backup schema versus a clone. You can have both. You can have one. But consider the differences, they are extreme.
« Last Edit: November 19, 2015, 10:55:50 am by digitaldog »
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Manoli

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Re: LR backup software
« Reply #8 on: November 19, 2015, 11:38:17 am »

The big downside are that they're mainly manual processes, and so it's highly likely people using them may have to revert to a backup that's days or weeks old. "Do it every night" is a lot of extra work over Time Machine, for no true benefit other than simplicity if you don't want to learn.

No extra work whatsoever. CCC can (and does) run as a background process, schedule anything from monthly to hourly intervals absolutely NO manual intervention required -  set it and forget it - together with 'safety net' incremental file retrieval (if you need it).

If the OP is serious about Lr backup, then I suggest also looking at TPG Lr Backup.

http://www.photographers-toolbox.com/products/mdawson/tpglrbackup/
http://thephotogeek.com/quick-easy-lightroom-backup/
« Last Edit: November 20, 2015, 02:35:42 am by Manoli »
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HSakols

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Re: LR backup software
« Reply #9 on: November 19, 2015, 12:17:08 pm »

Is Carbon Copy Cloner better to use than Super Duper? If so why.  At the moment I manually backup using SuperDuper.
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Manoli

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Re: LR backup software
« Reply #10 on: November 19, 2015, 12:26:57 pm »

Is Carbon Copy Cloner better to use than Super Duper? If so why.  At the moment I manually backup using SuperDuper.

I can't comment on Super Duper, I've never used it. But I can attest to CCC, both the program and the support you'll get from Mike Bombich which is nothing short of stellar. In it's most simple format just point to two disks, one source, one backup and forget about it.

If you're manually backing up - then yes, it is definitely better.
There's a free 30-day trial, and frankly, it's worth checking out.

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digitaldog

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Re: LR backup software
« Reply #11 on: November 19, 2015, 12:31:49 pm »

I can't comment on Super Duper, I've never used it.
And I can't fully comment on CCC because it's been years since I used it. Free in the old days. It did the job as does SuperDuper. I like SuperDuper because it's so damn simple, and inexpensive. But I switched for my daily backups to ChronoSync because it has more options including data verification. It's a lot more 'difficult' (involved) to setup than SuperDuper because it offers more options that may or may not be important to you. In the end, any of these products will get the job done pretty well. I still use SuperDuper for quick and simply disk cloning but ChronoSync for daily unattended backup's with verification. I have no reason to suggest you move away from SuperDuper unless you require more options.
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Manoli

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Re: LR backup software
« Reply #12 on: November 19, 2015, 12:58:43 pm »

...  but ChronoSync for daily unattended backup's with verification.

... with CCC verification option enabled, " CCC will calculate an MD5 checksum of every file on the source and every corresponding file on the destination, then uses these MD5 checksums to determine if a file should be copied and verifies the integrity of the files on your destination volume before files are copied "

https://bombich.com/kb/ccc3/advanced-settings

Looks as though these two are very similar.

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ButchM

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Re: LR backup software
« Reply #13 on: November 19, 2015, 02:20:34 pm »

I'm not clear what you mean by this. Time Machine backups are not "compressed." They're just the files. However, there are some UNIX "tricks" used (specifically, hard links), to keep files from being stored every single time they're backed up, if they don't change. But this doesn't involve compression.

Maybe not 'compression' in the truest sense ... but how do you explain that a TM backup can contain more data than the actual volume of the drive it is saved to?

Quote
The big downside are that they're mainly manual processes, and so it's highly likely people using them may have to revert to a backup that's days or weeks old. "Do it every night" is a lot of extra work over Time Machine, for no true benefit other than simplicity if you don't want to learn.

It's no 'extra work' at all. Although all my CC backups are capable of being invoked manually, all of my CCC backups are scheduled and performed automatically at the time and days I specify. Nothing could be simpler ... the setup for scheduling is quite easy.

I also like the feature that when I do my periodic backup to my drives that are stored off site ... CCC recognizes the drive is online and automatically performs the update/backup when the drive is inserted into the dock.

Nothing could be simpler.
« Last Edit: November 19, 2015, 02:47:37 pm by ButchM »
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ButchM

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Re: LR backup software
« Reply #14 on: November 19, 2015, 02:26:08 pm »

Is Carbon Copy Cloner better to use than Super Duper? If so why.  At the moment I manually backup using SuperDuper.

I can't comment on Super Duper either. Haven't looked at it in recent years. I only mentioned it as I had looked at it previously and it was the only otters option I was aware of to consider for the chore.

I, like many others, have been using CCC for a very long time because it was a complete and full-featured options that was also free. It worked so well and Mike's customer service is second to none that when he started charging, it was a no-brainer to send some currency his way. No regrets.
« Last Edit: November 19, 2015, 02:48:36 pm by ButchM »
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AlterEgo

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Re: LR backup software
« Reply #15 on: November 19, 2015, 02:43:54 pm »

New to LR after Aperture.
I am dedicating a large drive to LR, I will be adding identical drives for backup. Which software for backing up the drives are preferred? I was using the Aperture vaults, very simple so not easy to get it wrong.
I'm hoping there is something easy and simple. Suggestions please, thanks.
crashplan from code42 (can do local backup too - free, not only to cloud)
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BobShaw

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Re: LR backup software
« Reply #16 on: November 19, 2015, 02:55:34 pm »

Yes, and no. Certainly Time Machine can back up your images, but it is in a compressed format that in the event of a problem you need to reconstruct the files and folders from the TM archive.
Not correct at all. For individual files or folders it is drag and drop from the "latest" or however far back you need to go. Also not only does it back up images, it can back up documents, settings, users, OS, etc and restore onto a different hardware machine.
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ButchM

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Re: LR backup software
« Reply #17 on: November 19, 2015, 03:13:38 pm »

Not correct at all. For individual files or folders it is drag and drop from the "latest" or however far back you need to go. Also not only does it back up images, it can back up documents, settings, users, OS, etc and restore onto a different hardware machine.

It comes down to scale and the time it can take to restore from a backup.

Sure ... when restoring or reverting to a single previous iteration of an image, TM can be handy. But what do you do in the event of a catastrophic failure where you lose everything on the drive in question due to hardware failure?

CCC backs up all files on the drive as well ... it doesn't care what type individual files are ... CCC, Super Duper creates complete exact duplicates of a drive ... even a bootable startup drive ... can you boot from your TM backup drive? Nope. That's why I use both options for my startup drives. TM for recovering inadvertently deleted or corrupted files ... and a CCC clone, so I can continue working without any delay.

What if you need to 'drag-n-drop' 3TB of images from your TM backup because the working drive failed? How long does it take to restore that much data? With a clone, you simply mount the drive, point Lr to the backup drive drive and you are instantly up and running and can rebuild the failed drive at your convenience.

With TM, that recovery period is much longer until filled folder structure is restored.
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MarkH2

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Re: LR backup software
« Reply #18 on: November 20, 2015, 01:33:21 am »

Another reason to have at least one backup that is not physically connected to your system: ransomware that encrypts files on attached drives.  See Brian Krebs, “Ransomware Now Gunning for Your Web Sites” http://krebsonsecurity.com/2015/11/ransomware-now-gunning-for-your-web-sites/#more-32761 
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Jeremy Roussak

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Re: LR backup software
« Reply #19 on: November 20, 2015, 04:16:21 am »

Maybe not 'compression' in the truest sense ...

Time machine doesn't use "compression" in any sense.

but how do you explain that a TM backup can contain more data than the actual volume of the drive it is saved to?

It can't. If you think it can, you don't understand the concept of a Unix hard link.

Jeremy
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