How to safely store a copy of all of my photos, not just the catalog

[MKAP10]

Hi folks,

I've seen several posts that touch on this but I want to focus on one particular thing: I understand the difference between the catalog and the actual photos, and how backing up the catalog in no way means backing up the photos.  I have all of my photos on an external SSD.  How can I maintain regular backups of just this drive, which I use for nothing else? (Running LR Classic, Mac OS system 12.4 on an MBP 16".)

Some people have suggested Time Machine.  But this backs up the entire computer.  I want to back up my photo library separate from that, and I don't like the "opacity" of time machine: I want a backup copy that is an actual copy, not a promise that a copy is stored, somewhere, supposedly safe in somebody's proprietary architecture that they might stop supporting some day (e.g. APERTURE!!!%$%^($*!!!).

Some people have suggested CarbonCopy.  This looks like it might do the trick, but it's pretty expensive for such a simple thing.  Before I buy it, I want to make sure that there isn't a cheaper or better way to do it.  Thanks!

[MKAP10]

Related sub-question: can I just back up the whole photo folder (again, not the catalog) onto cloud storage somewhere?  That would be a simple solution!  But I thought I saw somewhere that cloud storage is verboten for LR classic.  True?  

[dj_paige]

Related sub-question: can I just back up the whole photo folder (again, not the catalog) onto cloud storage somewhere?  That would be a simple solution!  But I thought I saw somewhere that cloud storage is verboten for LR classic.  True?  

By @MKAP10

You now conflate storage of backups with primary storage. These are not the same. Primary storage of photos in the cloud does not work well with Lightroom Classic. Backups in the cloud are not a problem at all, except it seems to contradict your earlier comment about "I want a backup copy that is an actual copy, not a promise that a copy is stored, somewhere, supposedly safe in somebody's proprietary architecture that they might stop supporting some day".

[MKAP10]

I'm not conflating anything, I'm just asking.  But I like the content of your answer - that's what I'll do, maintain my primary copy on the SSD and keep a backup on the cloud.  As for the opacity, I think the cloud storage I have access to is one that I can trust, more than I personally trust Apple's time machine at this point.  Thanks!

[dj_paige]

You can make backups with many different third party backup software. You can set most backup software to back up one drive, or the whole computer, or any combination thereof.

[Ralf F]

You could work with macOS terminal and use "rsync".

This can create a 100% copy of you external drive.

But you have to be very careful and be specific on what you want!!

TimeMachine will create a copy of your external drive with all changes, over time.

Example: This week you add a new photo and next week you delete this photo again.

In TimeMachin you have this photo in this weeks backup and could restore it, even it is not included in next weeks backup.

If you create every week a 100% copy of your main disk it will also be deleted from your 100% copy / backup disk. Or you would have to tell rsync that it will not remove deleted files from the backup disk.

I use a 1GB SSD for photos and the catalog is on the internal SSD. TimeMachine will backup internal and external SSDs in one run, I do this evewry week.

Ralf

I use Lightroom Classic (LrC 11.4) / Photoshop (Ps 23.4.1) / Lightroom (Lr 5.4) with Creative Cloud on a MacBook Pro (15-inch, 2017, Intel Core i7 / 16GB / 500GB SSD) with macOS Monterey Version 12.4

[MKAP10 · Accepted solution]

Thanks for the suggestions, all.  I considered rsync, but I'm not good enough with terminal to be confident about it.

In the end I decided to get a copy of Carbon Copy Cloner, which is working out fine.  The price came down a bit from the last time I checked.  My libraries from iPhoto, Aperture and Photos are now all combined in LR Classic, and backed up in two places with CC Cloner.  Now I can relax.