Luminous Landscape Forum

Raw & Post Processing, Printing => Adobe Lightroom Q&A => Topic started by: SDH1972 on March 06, 2015, 11:57:15 pm

Title: Lightroom backup
Post by: SDH1972 on March 06, 2015, 11:57:15 pm

If I store everything, the Picture Folder structure along with the Catalog files and whatever else Lightroom creates, on the same external drive then clone that drive to another external drive – would that second drive work if the first fails ?

Thanks

Title: Re: Lightroom backup
Post by: Tony Jay on March 07, 2015, 12:24:51 am

Yes!
If are running a Windows system just make sure that the drive letter is the same.

Tony Jay

Title: Re: Lightroom backup
Post by: SDH1972 on March 07, 2015, 12:53:06 am

I am using a Mac. Does the second drive name need to be something special ?

Thanks

Title: Re: Lightroom backup
Post by: crabby on March 07, 2015, 04:42:14 am

You don't have to name the cloned drive the same name as the original, you just need to point Lightroom to where the catalog is on the new drive. File/Open Catalog-->cloned copy of lightroom catalog on new drive.

Title: Re: Lightroom backup
Post by: eliedinur on March 07, 2015, 06:29:05 am

And then, once you have opened the catalog you will have to revise it with the new path to the highest parent folder in the hierarchy, but this is easily done using "Find missing folder".

Title: Re: Lightroom backup
Post by: SDH1972 on March 07, 2015, 10:54:39 am

Great

This seams like it would be easier / simpler than dealing with a bunch of Catalog File Backups.

thanks very much

Title: Re: Lightroom backup
Post by: fdisilvestro on March 07, 2015, 08:16:21 pm

Quote from: SDH1972 on March 07, 2015, 10:54:39 am

Great

This seams like it would be easier / simpler than dealing with a bunch of Catalog File Backups.

thanks very much

Different approaches for different purposes. The catalog is updated every time you use LR, your images not. Cloning a disk will take longer than backing up a catalog.

About your proposed approach: My recommendation is that you test the copy as if you lost access to the original disk. Having a different name/letter for the disk will not impede you to recover, but it could be time consuming to remap the folders depending how your directories are set up.