How to keep a copy of a Folder in a separate location as a back-up?

[Jose Villadangos]

Hi,

I am going to travel with my cameras and laptop, and I have LRC installed in the laptop. I will periodically upload photos from my camera SD cards to the laptop using LRC. I would like to re-format the SD cards after every upload. What is the best way of keeping a backup in an external HD? I wonder if I should:

1.- Use Finder (I use a Mac) to copy the folder created in LRC, with the RAW files in it, from the laptop to the HD.

2.- After uploading the content of the SD cards to LRC, use the finder to copy the files from the SD cards to the HD.

3.- Another way? I have not found an option to tell LRC to copy the files of one folder into a new location without altering the catalog and library.

Hope this makes sense. Thank you.

Jose

[JP Hess]

There is an option in the import dialog of LrC that enables you to make a backup copy of the images as you import them. You can specify where that backup will be stored. The file structure will NOT be the same file structure as the files you will be working on in Lightroom, but at least you will have a backup of the images. The key file to be backed up is the catalog because that is the file that will contain all the work, all the adjustments and changes they make to those images. Lightroom will not apply any of those changes to the images themselves. So if you have backups of your catalog and separate backups of your images, all on a separate hard drive, That is what I would recommend.

[gary_sc]

An alternate approach to what Jim said is to make a new catalog on you laptop just for this trip. After you import the images and maybe work on them a bit, when you call it a night close LRC down and save a backup. Then back up the contents of the images, the catalogue, everything on an external HD. When you get home you just import this catalog into your main catalog. 

enjoy your travels!

[gary_sc]

Oh, forgot to add that after backing up each night, once the backup is done, than you can reformat the cards. 

[Conrad C]

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@Jose Villadangos wrote:

3.- Another way? I have not found an option to tell LRC to copy the files of one folder into a new location without altering the catalog and library.

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I have traveled many times with Lightroom Classic, and I use your method #3, Another Way, using backup software (I use Chronosync, but there are many others). All you have to do is set up the backup application so that the backup Source is the folder on your Mac that contains the photos you are taking on the trip, and the backup Destination is a folder on external storage.

A backup application is much better than the Finder. Good backup software can track which files have changed since the previous backup, and back up only those new or changed files, which saves time. Also, if you have created a backup job or preset, you can run it in one click.

At the end of a travel day, I import cards into Lightroom Classic, connect the backup storage to my MacBook Pro, start the backup sofware, and run the backup job. A couple of minutes later, it’s copied all of the new photos to the backup folder on the external storage. It replicates the folder organization on the Mac, so if something bad happens I can simply copy the backup folders to the same place on the Mac, and Lightroom Classic will pick them up correctly.

The other reason I use backup software is that the photos are not the only thing I want to back up. My laptop also contains other important documents I must not lose during the trip, especially if it’s a working trip (like attending meetings or giving a presentation). I want my external storage to contain a complete and current backup of all of the data on my laptop, in case my laptop is damaged or stolen on the road. The backup software ensures that the backup storage is an up-to-date mirror of the data on the Mac, ready to transfer to a different Mac if necessary.

In fact, I usually don’t have a separate backup job for my photos. At the end of the day I typically run a job that updates the backup of all data on my laptop, and of course the photos and the Lightroom Classic catalog are included in that. If you want to guard against the loss of not only your photos but other valuable data on your laptop during your trip, you should be backing up the entire laptop during the trip, not just the photos.

[TheDigitalDog]

+1 for "Method 3" using something like Chronosync or if you want to spend a bit less, something a bit brain dead for on location, SuperDuper. Just clone catalog to catalog, as many as you desire for a full backup schema.