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Luz_Sandeman
Participant
October 25, 2019
Answered

Change of external HDD for LR referenced files ?

  • October 25, 2019
  • 2 replies
  • 377 views

Here's the deal - my old off-site backup HDD of just 1 TB have run out of space, will use this for something unrelated.

I have my Lightroom files referenced to another HDD of 3 TB next to my computer. Here's my plan - I will buy an identical HDD of 3 TB, same brand, western digital, to use as either the new offsite backup OR,
this is my question-would it be possible to do this? :

To instead use my CURRENT 3 TB HDD as the new offsite backup and just replace its function at home with the new identical 3 TB HDD from the same brand? How do I get lightroom to understand that it should look for the files on this new HDD? will it be automatic? do I need to do some heavy work for this? HOW do I do this in the best way? (If it's even a good idea...) i won't do it if there's some high risk involved...

Here's WHY I want to do this "castling" - to exchange places of backup and main HDD:

because I've had my current external HDD for 3-4 years now. I guess everything wears out and the warranty has expired. So it's better to use the fresh new HDD as the main place for my images and to have the older "worn out" HDD tucked away in a bank safe in another place only to be used a few times every year for backup in case of fire? am i thinking correct?

 

I use an iMac with os mojave, with adobe lightroom 6.
What do you think is the best way to go about this guys? Thanks in beforehand for your help! 🙂

This topic has been closed for replies.
Correct answer JohanElzenga

Yes, you can do this and it's easy. If you give the new drive the same name as the old drive had, then Lightroom will simply start looking for the images on the new drive. So here's what you should do:

1: Quit Lightroom

2: Connect the new drive to your Mac

3: Rename the old drive to someyhing like 'Drivename-old'

4: Rename the new drive to the original name of the old drive

5: Copy all the images from the old drive to the new drive, keeping the folder hierarchy intact

6: Start Lightroom and you're done.

2 replies

ManiacJoe
ManiacJoe
Inspiring
October 26, 2019

Johan has you pointed in the right direction.

 

If you don't want to do the renaming of the drives, after you copy the files to the new drive, in the Lightroom Folder panel just use the "find missing folder" command on the top-most missing folder "?" and point LR to the same folder on the new drive. (Repeat as needed for the other top-most folders.)

 

JohanElzenga
Community Expert
JohanElzengaCommunity ExpertCorrect answer
Community Expert
October 25, 2019

Yes, you can do this and it's easy. If you give the new drive the same name as the old drive had, then Lightroom will simply start looking for the images on the new drive. So here's what you should do:

1: Quit Lightroom

2: Connect the new drive to your Mac

3: Rename the old drive to someyhing like 'Drivename-old'

4: Rename the new drive to the original name of the old drive

5: Copy all the images from the old drive to the new drive, keeping the folder hierarchy intact

6: Start Lightroom and you're done.

-- Johan W. Elzenga
    L
    Luz_SandemanAuthor
    Participant
    October 28, 2019

    thanks much for a very thourough answer! with step-by-step and everything! 🙂 Will do it after I get a new hard drive in a few weeks or so.

     

    It all sounds so logical and easy, so do you know - will lightroom even mention that something has happened? or as long as the hard drive, folders and everything have the same names and everything is identical, it will just think that nothing happened?

     

    so there's no risks?  - just curious, im thinking of getting the exact same model of hard drive just in case, but just theoretical, would it work with another make of hard drive? in case i find out this one is not made anymore? (it is though)

     

    sorry late answer btw, saw it but had the flu so wasnt really ready to reply 😉

    JohanElzenga
    Community Expert
    JohanElzengaCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    October 28, 2019

    No, Lightroom will never even know that you changed the drives if you use the same disk name. And you don't have to worry about the drive itself either. You can use any brand and any capacity. The reason is that Lightroom references the images with a so-called 'path', so an image is referenced in the catalog like this:

     

    Disk Name/Folder Name/Subfolder Name/ImageName.

     

    Because the only reference to the disk is the name of that disk, nothing else matters.

    -- Johan W. Elzenga
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