Lightroom 9.0 is out

[JRSmit]

One  advantage to the Lightroom Backup on exit is that it runs an integrity check on your LR catalog and files and repairs files that have been corrupted.  It is possible to have corruption so that backing up outside LR simply maintains corrupt data.

Well if your lr is corrupt at that point and you do not do the lr backup, then what?
Have you experienced a corrupt lr?

[digitaldog]

and why 'd one use a backup solution that does not support an unlimited versioning for example ?

Or a data integrity check. Or just multiple backups. Yeah, the backup LR does checks just the catalog. There's a whole lot of other data that needs to be checked prior and after said backup (like your images).
Whatever the opposite of a belt and suspenders approach to back up is, that's the LR backup schema. It's better than no back up of course, but it's not a serious and robust backup schema either.

[bassman51]

As a former database administrator, I’d say it’s likely that the LR Catalog cannot be guaranteed to be internally consistent while LR is running.  Even though you might not be actively doing anything, LR does all kinds of housekeeping while it is running. 

[Jeremy Roussak]

As a former database administrator, I’d say it’s likely that the LR Catalog cannot be guaranteed to be internally consistent while LR is running.  Even though you might not be actively doing anything, LR does all kinds of housekeeping while it is running.

Do you know that to be true, or are you extrapolating from your experience with other databases and assuming it to be so?

Jeremy

[ButchM]

Do you know that to be true, or are you extrapolating from your experience with other databases and assuming it to be so?

Jeremy

I'm certainly no expert on the matter, though, I do recall reading comments discussing just those points many years ago in the early days of Lightroom on both the public beta forum at Adobe Labs and on the Adobe U2U forum about background tasks of the internal database while the app is open. I think such traits are inherit of SQL based variants.

In fact, when Adobe first offered a backup function for the Lightroom library file, the task had to be accomplished on startup to assure all background functions had yet to be invoked at startup ... it wasn't until later, after much more effort, that the backups could be performed upon quitting the app.

[bassman51]

I haven’t examined the LR code, no.  However, I’ve observed enough industrial-class databases to know that there’s no such thing as guaranteed consistency when an unexpected failure occurs during updates.  Pretty much every update requires many individual records to to be written, which “two phase commits” protect against. Yet sometimes they don’t, and the recovery is painful.

[Jonathan Cross]

Hi,

I am finding some of the terms used beyond my technical vocabulary.  I use the Lightroom backup on exit to deal with the catalogue.  I also have LR set to put the xmp files alongside my images on my internal hard drive.  That hard drive is backed up on to 2 external hard drives so I am backing up the images, xmps and catalogue.   

Should I being doing anything else?

Best wishes,

Jonathan

[digitaldog]

Should I being doing anything else?

It sounds like you're now doing this; cloning the entire drives and all their contents but otherwise, you should be backing up all and any data you can't afford to lose, ideally to multiple devices, at least one off site. So that means all your images, your presets, templates, your camera profiles, etc. On top of all the other non LR specific data you never wish to lose.
One could argue you don't need to backup the image previews; you can always regenerate them and they take up a lot of space. But that takes a lot of time so it's a judgement call (again, can you afford to lose the previews? Maybe).

[Jonathan Cross]

Thanks Andrew.  I am happy as all my images are backed up on more than one external HD, together with the xmps.  My catalogue is backed up on more than one HD as well.  I only have a few print presets. so not worried about them.  The paper profiles are backed up.

I will probably upgrade LR classic to 9 in the new year.

Best wishes,

Jonathan

 

[digitaldog]

The paper profiles are backed up.

FWIW, I was referring to any custom camera profiles you may use.

[Jonathan Cross]

Andrew, I shoot with Fuji and Canon cameras and lenses and have no custom camera profiles.  Thanks for your advice.

Best wishes,
Jonathan